I was accepted to g-town in December. As for NYU, they also asked to see my Fall transcripts. My school has just mailed them in.

Congras. My status went "under review" today, kinda nervous. do you know how long it take for them to release the decision?

weatherlol -

When was your "Application Complete" at GULC? That would indicate whether you were Early Action.

Are you domestic or foreign-trained?

I was accepted to g-town in December. As for NYU, they also asked to see my Fall transcripts. My school has just mailed them in.

TaxLaw123--is NYU your first choice?

Thx

I was accepted to g-town in December. As for NYU, they also asked to see my Fall transcripts. My school has just mailed them in.

TaxLaw123--is NYU your first choice?

Thx

I'm not sure yet. I'm a FL resident, so UF's price is very tempting.

Sorry this is a repost from another thread.

What do you think of my chances? I haven't applied yet, so will obviously be very late in the application cycle....

JD from T20 law school (class of 2008, top 1/3 of class)
3.5 years of T&E experience at a large firm
1 year in planned giving (development) at university

Strong letters of recommendation from professor and partner at old firm. Took fed income tax (B+), corporate/partnership tax (A) and estate planning (B-) in law school. [Yes, I got a terrible grade in estate planning and ended up as an estate planning attorney.]

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I was admitted to Georgetown Tax LLM. Here's my profile:

Domestic Student
Applied to Tax LLM plus Estate Planning Certificate (part time)
Graduated from Tier 2 school (rank is in the 60's) 19 years ago
GPA - 3.31
Class rank - Top 40%
Studied & practiced Intellectual Property Law
Career switch to Estate Planning 3 years ago

I think career experience and current estate planning practice area made up for low class rank.

Application Submitted: Jan 4 2013
Application Completed: Jan 8 2013
Under Review: Feb 20 2013
Acceptance Email: Feb 21 2013
Status Changed Back to Application Completed: Feb 21 2013

What's the take on University of Miami Tax LLM for someone who will live and practice in the Southeast?

What's the take on University of Miami Tax LLM for someone who will live and practice in the Southeast?

CSJ, I appreciate the response. I hope that you are right! I am mainly looking to work in either Alabama or Georgia, so hopefully UM holds weight with some of the big4 (Ernst & Young, PwC, etc.) in those areas

What's the take on University of Miami Tax LLM for someone who will live and practice in the Southeast?

Hi tburtn88 - I don't have any personal experience with the reputation of UM Tax LLM but the latest US News & World Report rankings are out for Tax LLM programs. UM is 6th - slipped from 5th place last year :(

I don't know why it slipped but it's been in the top 10 for a while and still is.

This is great news. Thank you, CSJ! This is also great for you - Georgetown moving up to #2. Woohoo!

Yeah, tburtn88, USNews must have found out that we are enrolling at the two schools to move them both up in rankings! :)

At the risk that this place is as useless as TopLawSchool when it comes to asking for help, what are my odds at NYU, Georgetown, NW, BU, or UVa.
I'm graduating on 2014 and will prob take a year of to see if I actually wanna do a Tax LLM but the reason I'm thinking about it is because with my humanities background and my awful GPA my resume is not getting picked up when applying to Tax or accounting firms.
2nd Tier School, bottom 50% of the class. Wrote into a journal (sadly not law review) and have taken 2 tax classes so far and plan on taking all of them. On basic income tax I got a C+ (I talked to the prof after and said that I actually knew the material but it was obvious that I ran out of time), but got a B on Partnership Tax. My hopes are not too high but I haven't been able to find any kind of criteria that schools use

Gin, accordingly to your facts, it is more realistic to apply some regional tax llm and consider where your law school locates, where you want to practice, etc. Big 3 ( NYU, Gtown, and UF) is becoming more and more competitive. with Tier 2 JD, you probably need at least top 15%, and many good tax courses grades to get a reasonable chance of any Big 3.
here is something you can do: 1) research the local tax llms, especially the market you want to practice; 2) work on your GPA, ( I think Upward trend does help) 3) at last, just making sure you really want to do tax. ( we are talking about 1 more year, and tuition) GL with the decision.

Hi Gin,
When you say Tier 2 JD, do you mean under the old USNews Tiers (where there were 4 tiers so Tier 2 put you in the top 100) or the new USNews Tiers (where there are two tiers so Tier 2 puts you in 100-200+?

Also, where is your JD school located? As weatherlol suggested, regional may be the way to go.

Gin, why would you even want to get an LLM in Tax? There doesn't seem to be much indication that you actually enjoy or desire to practice it.

When I meant 51-100. I seem to do better in writing classes than on classes with finals, so it was my first year that killed me. The reason I'm thinking of doing this is to escape my GPA (which will never be top 30) and make it easy to find a job doing tax (this the only subject I've actually liked in all of law school). I also don't wanna stay where my school is. The only reason I'm considering those 5 schools is because I don't want to throw money away into a program which will not get me a job.
Thanks for the responses by the way. This is still very up in the air and I'm not sure if I wanna do it or not

Do a MS in Tax and do a few undergraduate courses to make yourself eligible to sit for the CPA. You'd definitely be guaranteed a job then. The LLM is not a panacea for your GPA or your school.

Hi Gin,

(at the risk of this place being useful in seeking advice . . . why would you start out your post insulting us? oh well, here goes:)

I got into Georgetown and am starting the Taxation LLM this Fall. I also am doing the Estate Planning Certificate.

My JD was from a top 65 school and my class rank was around top 42%. I graduated 19 years ago, though, and I think my practical experience really helped me get into Georgetown.

My focus in my JD was Intellectual Property law. I did not take a single Tax class in my JD program. If I had, I would not have done well and I think it helped more that I didn't have a tax class at all instead of having a poor grade in a tax class.

Since 2010, I have been practicing Estate Planning. I think this is the second thing that really helped me get into Georgetown. I had a narrow focus on a subject for one of their Certificate programs.

I also had an amazing letter of reference from a JD professor who remembered me well 19 years later.

So I didn't have a stellar JD record, but I had so many other factors that helped me stand out. The Georgetown Tax LLM will improve my JD record, but only because of my experience and current practice area. I don't think I'd spend $100k on a Tax LLM without knowing for certain that it definitely will land me a job with a larger firm in the practice area I absolutely know I want to continue.

BTW, Georgetown was my first and only choice. I live and practice law in Maryland in a suburb of DC. A Georgetown Taxation LLM is very valuable here. If I were in the Northeast instead of mid-Atlantic, I'd probably have to go for NYU to compete.

If you don't want to stay local, where do you want to go? If I didn't get into Georgetown and I wanted a local school, the Univ of Baltimore has a Tax LLM program. That may have gotten me a good job in Baltimore; and it would have been much cheaper!

The advice from atara to get an MS in Tax is worth considering. If you want to work for a consulting firm, a JD plus a CPA is a good combination.

Sorry. Did not mean it as an insult. That place was just pretty useless at giving advice when I was applying for my JD. I figured that this, being the internet, had the potential of being similar. Thanks for all the advice. I will def look into the MS route. I'm looking at either Chicago or Boston. It seems a little difficult to break into those markets coming from a regional school. If the LLM cannot help me get a job that I want I will not do it. This is something that just recently popped into my head as a possible route. Thanks for all the great advice again. It's def giving me things to think about

No insult-I'm glad you're finding us more helpful.

Chicago and Boston give you lots of good choices for really good Tax LLM programs beyond the top five or six.

In Chicago, of course there's Northwestern, But Chicago-Kent is very well regarded regionally. Loyola-Chicago, DePaul, and John Marshall also have Tax LLMs but I don't know how well they're regarded in the Midwest.

In Boston, of course there's Boston University. But don't forget about Boston College--very good law school with Tax LLM concentration. Then there's Western New England School of Law in Springfield, MA. LLMs in Closely-held Business and in Estate Planning. I don't know anything about those programs except that they both are offered as online degrees. Don't know how employers would perceive an online LLM.

Just some additional insight for what it's worth.