Hi there!

Right now I have three weeks left to my final examina in Germany so I'm thinking about what to do after that. Actually I've already decided to do an LL.M. in the US ;-)

Here's my question:
At my university there's the possibility to apply for an program that offers an LL.M. exchange with Duke, Golden Gate and Tulane (at least those were the law schools last year). Of those, only Duke has a higher ranking. But since you won't have to pay tuition when you get accepted, there is some competition.

So would you suggest to apply to better law schools independently and look for other financial aid or are those law schools "good enough"?

There is a chance that I will get the decision of my uni before the general admission deadlines end but that's close (I can apply for that in october).

I think it depends on why you want to do an LL.M. in the first place. If you just want to learn some English and get some background on American law (perfectly valid reasons, in my view) before returning back to Germany, Golden Gate would be fine. If you want to break into American law market, however, a more prestigious school would definitely be better (I think Duke is good enough for both). But I see no reason why you shouldn't apply indepently to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Clolumbia, or NYU (depending on what you want to study). At the same time, you can apply for financial aid. If you don't make it, then attend the exchange program. That's what I would do if I were you.

Well, to learn English is not my reason. But I don't think I want to break into the American law market, either;-) My reasons are that from what I heard, the American way of teaching law suits me very well, better than what we have over here. Additionally I'm interested in the American common law system as it is both very different and on some occasions similar to our system. So this is a more academic reason.

So I guess the best thing to do is apply whereever I'd like to go to and then decide when I know who wants me.