I was born and raised in NYC and don't really want to leave even it means me still being in the state (Ithaca is 5-hours away from the city )

BTW: I eventually want to work in NYC, but I want to stay relatively close to my family. However, from what I hear even if I were to stay in the city I wouldn't be seeing much of my family due to crazy study habits. Am I crazy for thinking about turning down Cornell for Fordham?

FYI: Fordham didn't give me a dime in merit aid!

Feedback much appreciated!

ITE, you are not crazy. BigLaw hiring is massively down at Cornell--I am top 3rd and didn't get so much as a callbacks from OCI, and the one callback I got through independent outreach did not result in an offer; the #2 guy in the class (LR, moot court winner) didn't get any offers. If you love the city, stay in the city.

Without a dime of merit aid, I would say no. I would at least try to negotiate.

Wow, that is insane, but it had to have been an anomaly. I haven't heard horror stories like that; the people I know on Law Review are fine, though I know we're no longer placing top third as we used to.

OP: I'm not going to badmouth Cornell. It's a beautiful campus, and it happens to be my grandmother's UG alma mater. That said, there are indeed people in Fordham '12 who turned down Cornell and UCLA for Fordham. We even found someone who turned down NYU at sticker for $20k/year here. She must not have been a TLSer, as people here would have given her no end of grief for doing that.

I'm a PT student, and I love it here. If you want biglaw, traditionally you would have had better odds at Cornell. That's still probably the case (or I would have assumed so), but now I want to see both sets of numbers before claiming anything. The Cornell student above surprised me.

ITE, what's even the difference?

Perhaps you should take a full ride to Cardozo? Never mind, they section stack.

Go where you would be happiest.

If you want to work in NYC and money is the same (tuition + COL difference between the two is negligible), go for Cornell. In 2008, Cornell had a 62% biglaw placement rate (7th overall) and Fordham had a 43.7% rate (17th overall). Additionally, in the worst case scenario, if practically all the job prospects in NYC are out of reach, a Cornell degree travels a lot better nationally.

Deceiving. Class of 2008 means boom hiring year OCI. Now I bet it's more like Top 10-15% for both schools.

In contrast to the national placement (indeed, a NYer wouldn't have any interest in leaving), I would point to the fact that in NYC you have 3 years to network the shit out of a medium or small firm. In Ithaca, you are at the mercy of the deteriorated OCI program.

Heh. It's funny. A year ago I remember a thread like this being laughed off the board.

where can I find these biglaw placement rates?

They are so obsolete it isn't even funny.

This thread is retarded.

I'll wait till the numbers come out, but Cornell placing only 10-15% in NLJ250 seems preposterous.

Do you not realize how bad things are?

Do/did you go to Cornell? C/O 2009?

I am one of the biggest pessimists on this board, and I have a hard time believing Cornell can't place more than 10 percent of the class ITE.

I can't see anyone who enjoys New York life finding anything good about living in Ithaca... I lived there in middle school and was miserable. Can't imagine it being any good for someone who actually has a life outside of their house/school.

Just to chip in here, I also go to Cornell. My view is that ITE, I'd never take a chance on Fordham over Cornell.

What fsohn said is true, but particularly with respect to the LR folks, the one situation he refers to is indeed an anomaly and one based on interviewing mistakes.

Just to give some context. I'm not top third but somewhere between the top 50% and 30%, non-URM, and on a secondary journal, and I got four call backs and two offers, from firms falling between V100 and V20. Everyone I know on LR (with the exception of the one person that fsohn mentioned) did fine, and most did very well. For instance, two of my buddies are headed to Davis Polk, one's headed to S&C, another to Clifford Chance, and so on.

From what I've gathered, somewhere around 40% of our class came away with firm offers. (Those numbers are an estimate that I've compiled from talking to Career Services and all the people I know, which is a sizable sample of our relatively small class.) But in the interest of full disclosure, some of my friends think my estimate's about 5-10% too high.

I can't say with any certainty that Fordham's 2010 class didn't match those numbers, but from reading boards and meeting others during call backs, my sense is that Fordham was hit harder.

Also, keep in mind that the economy could be in a totally different place in two years. The T14 has been the T14 for a long time. When the market does rebound fully, the T14 will be the first group of schools to see a corresponding surge in recruitment.

+1, Dresden, but it's all speculation at this point. Chopped in half is believable, but chopped down to 1/6 ? I don't even know that things are that bad here, but then I don't know a representative sample of 2Ls. Nearly everyone I know made Law Review, and many of them were PI kids from the beginning, which makes it difficult to conclude anything about how 2011 did. I mean I can guess, but my guess isn't going to better than yours, or very illuminating to OP.

Cornell does have better national reach for biglaw, but I've discovered that my degree will travel surprisingly well for public interest work. I honestly recommend visiting, if you can. There is nothing wrong with going where you believe you will be happiest. If you get into Cornell, ask Fordham for money. They should be giving something to people with Cornell numbers, though probably not a ton.

This is indeed convincing. Ok, OP, go to Cornell.

Which school do you like more? If you study at Cornell, you will later be able to get a job in NYC. If your goal is to stay close to your family now, you may be holding yourself back.

I say this only because I know a girl who just graduated from Fordham Law last Spring. She was also born and raised in NYC and was accepted to Cornell, but she chose Fordham so that she could stay close to her family and her boyfriend. When it came time to find a job, she said that she really regretted that she chose Fordham over Cornell. I'm not familiar with job prospects right now or how they differ between Cornell and Fordham grads, but this is just the story she told me.

Eh. I've been going to school as an undergraduate in Manhattan. This is my fourth year. The weekends are great but with so much going on, NYC is a distraction. Plus, it's very expensive. With an undergraduate course load, being in New York is great. But for law school... I'd like to be in a quiet environment so that I could just buckle down for 3 years and immerse myself in my studies. To each her own, though.

normalien is correct in what he says about interviewing mistakes, and I've also hear roughly the same percentage (~40%) of people who have law firm offers. That said, I'm not optimistic about it getting better any time soon. If you are thinking of coming straight out of UG (which I did), I would strongly advise you to go get some work under your belt first.

While we are on the topic, some of Cornell's career services office has been exceptional in helping people readjust their immediate career prospects--that is, helping them find non-biglaw avenues to explore. That said, other elements of the career services office have acted like ostriches with their heads in the sand, and have basically ignored the class of 2011. Their job suddenly got difficult, and they aren't adjusting well, or really at all.

None of this is to say Cornell isn't a fine place to come to law school. Just be wary that if the money is the same, we don't close the doors and start teaching you some sort of secret law stuff that you wouldn't learn at Fordham, and be very, very, aware that the Big Law gravy train, which is one of the few things that makes the debt load even mildly palatable, is barely inching along.

This is a great time to re-evaluate why you are deciding to go to law school--simply put, if you are going to law school as "liberal arts finishing school" I would warn you away from it. If you are coming for better reasons, now is a great time to stop ignoring the money.

This is off topic, but do you know how IP people did at Cornell?

Hate to sound the pessimist's alarm here (and to double post), but it simply is not a guarantee that you will get a job in NYC that makes law school worth it simply by studying hard and making good grades at Cornell; at least, it doesn't look like it is any more. Knowing people at Cornell who strongly regret coming here over Fordham (albeit with money) and would not have come to Cornell had they known what this economy would be like, it is no longer even close to absurd to consider Fordham over Cornell. The Big Law number is largely up, and that should strongly figure into your considerations in choosing a law school.

The question here is Cornell or Fordham. With no money at either, it's a no brainer. We're talking 40% chance of bigaw at Cornell versus 10-15% at Fordham.