Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago) Forum

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doyleoil

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by doyleoil » Mon Dec 13, 2010 8:57 pm

(As you noticed), the thing to point out about that thread is there were a lot of ostensibly smart people drawing a lot of incredibly stupid conclusions from 2009 OCI and summer placement data that were all over the place and couldn't be compared.

I can't help but notice that here you have a bunch of ostensibly "smart" people drawing even stupider conclusions from even less reliable "data" (I hesitate to even call it that).

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by Unemployed » Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:20 pm

Perhaps this is the beginning of my transformation into the elusive "practicing lawyer who doesn't care about rankings," but I really don't care to get into pissing matches like this. Or maybe I don't feel the need to justify CLS (with all of its faults) vis-a-vis our happier, cooler, less awkward, and public-minded "rivals" at NYU :lol:

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by Renzo » Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:22 pm

Unemployed wrote:Perhaps this is the beginning of my transformation into the elusive "practicing lawyer who doesn't care about rankings," but I really don't care to get into pissing matches like this. Or maybe I don't feel the need to justify CLS (with all of its faults) vis-a-vis those non-Ivy league downtown art students at NYU :lol:
Fixed :wink:

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by chris0805 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:00 pm

I know very little about chicago, but nyu and cls are ridiculously similar. I've heard facts/propaganda that cls is slightly better and I'm sure nyu kids have similar facts/propaganda. Fact is, I loved both schools, but cls was a cheaper coa for me, it was closer to more/bigger parks, and I liked the ten random people at cls that I got to know at asw than the ten at nyu. That's it, pretty much.

Now, I work at a PI organization where five of the last 6 hires included 3 nyuers and 2 clsers. I'm pretty sure they don't really prefer one over the other.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by TaipeiMort » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:15 pm

irishman86 wrote:For NYC biglaw, Columbia/NYU > Chicago. I'm not convinced Chicago is better for NYC than some of the lower ranked schools.
This is simply not true. I would go as far as to say that because of Chicago's small class size, that kids at the median who really want NYC get it at a higher rate

The problem with Chicago's NYC biglaw numbers is that many aspie kids self-select into the school (no chance at NYC biglaw), and a higher of students percentage skew towards academia and clerkships than Columbia or NYU. They also have a good number of grads who aim west coast and a ton who aim midwest. Therefore, the NYC big-law seeking (and eligible) crop is pretty small.

The feedback that I go from 2 and 3Ls is that anyone normal who really wanted NYC biglaw got it. In fact, because DC and Chicago were so hard hit in the recession, many applicants applied to lower NYC vault firms as safetys.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by IAFG » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:23 pm

Chicago kids, IME and with few lovable exceptions, are fucking awkward. Insanely geeky. Even I thought so and I am a huge geek.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by birdlaw117 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:25 pm

IAFG wrote:Chicago kids, IME and with few lovable exceptions, are fucking awkward. Insanely geeky. Even I thought so and I am a huge geek.
Says the person rejected from Chicago and attending another school in Chicago. Now that's a reliable source! Not to mention anecdotal evidence is always solid.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by IAFG » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:26 pm

birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote:Chicago kids, IME and with few lovable exceptions, are fucking awkward. Insanely geeky. Even I thought so and I am a huge geek.
Says the person rejected from Chicago and attending another school in Chicago. Now that's a reliable source! Not to mention anecdotal evidence is always solid.
well, let's see. i have a point of comparison (students at another T14) and close proximity (live in Chicago). not only am i reliable source, i am probably the best source.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by Stanford4Me » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:28 pm

IAFG wrote:
birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote:Chicago kids, IME and with few lovable exceptions, are fucking awkward. Insanely geeky. Even I thought so and I am a huge geek.
Says the person rejected from Chicago and attending another school in Chicago. Now that's a reliable source! Not to mention anecdotal evidence is always solid.
well, let's see. i have a point of comparison (students at another T14) and close proximity (live in Chicago). not only am i reliable source, i am probably the best source.
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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by birdlaw117 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:44 pm

IAFG wrote:
birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote:Chicago kids, IME and with few lovable exceptions, are fucking awkward. Insanely geeky. Even I thought so and I am a huge geek.
Says the person rejected from Chicago and attending another school in Chicago. Now that's a reliable source! Not to mention anecdotal evidence is always solid.
well, let's see. i have a point of comparison (students at another T14) and close proximity (live in Chicago). not only am i reliable source, i am probably the best source.
Yes, because a comparison to Northwestern is very relevant when trying to compare to NYU and Columbia. Not to mention Northwestern is an outlier of student body population to compare to. Yep, great source.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by IAFG » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:49 pm

birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote:
birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote:Chicago kids, IME and with few lovable exceptions, are fucking awkward. Insanely geeky. Even I thought so and I am a huge geek.
Says the person rejected from Chicago and attending another school in Chicago. Now that's a reliable source! Not to mention anecdotal evidence is always solid.
well, let's see. i have a point of comparison (students at another T14) and close proximity (live in Chicago). not only am i reliable source, i am probably the best source.
Yes, because a comparison to Northwestern is very relevant when trying to compare to NYU and Columbia. Not to mention Northwestern is an outlier of student body population to compare to. Yep, great source.
at our joint bar review, they were playing spoons at the bar. like, the card game. they turned Chicago's sluttiest, seediest bar into my middle school library.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by rayiner » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:53 pm

I can't say my opinion isn't colored by going to NU, but I will say that Chicago people a pejorative sense, but rather there are more people at Chicago that care about the law and learning while at places like NU and UVA (and probably NYU) there are more people who just want to put in their time and graduate with a job.

At the CCN level, any of the three are going to give you great employment prospects and look great on your resume. You should pick the one that fits your vibe instead of worrying about whether one or the other has 5% better or worse placement. Those factors are so tenuous and prone to fluctuation (eg. AFAIKT the Chicago market is in recovery) that they're just not worth splitting hairs over.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by birdlaw117 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:01 pm

IAFG wrote: at our joint bar review, they were playing spoons at the bar. like, the card game. they turned Chicago's sluttiest, seediest bar into my middle school library.
If the whole, or even a significant amount of the student body was doing this, that would be one fucking big game of spoons. I just think that this type of small anecdotal BS should be taken with a grain of salt. In a group of 200 (or whatever the size of student body at the law school one ends up attending) I'm sure there will always be a group of people one will enjoy being around and become friends with.

This is coming from a 0L looking at CCN and Chicago is significantly below Columbia and NYU for me. Plus, I'm from the midwest. I'm just saying your arguments, while perhaps well intentioned, probably aren't terribly relevant to most 0Ls trying to make a decision.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by IAFG » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:07 pm

birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote: at our joint bar review, they were playing spoons at the bar. like, the card game. they turned Chicago's sluttiest, seediest bar into my middle school library.
If the whole, or even a significant amount of the student body was doing this, that would be one fucking big game of spoons. I just think that this type of small anecdotal BS should be taken with a grain of salt. In a group of 200 (or whatever the size of student body at the law school one ends up attending) I'm sure there will always be a group of people one will enjoy being around and become friends with.

This is coming from a 0L looking at CCN and Chicago is significantly below Columbia and NYU for me. Plus, I'm from the midwest. I'm just saying your arguments, while perhaps well intentioned, probably aren't terribly relevant to most 0Ls trying to make a decision.
why? because the one example i posted only implicated 10% of the UChi class? (yes, it was a big game of spoons) because i got rejected? because you're looking for RIGOR?

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by CG614 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:13 pm

Stanford4Me wrote:1L @ NYU.

Love it here. Students are social, and happy, and more athletic - flag football Fridays are amazing, we've dominated CLS in the Deans Cup Basketball Tournament 3 years in a row. The hipster population in LS is pretty much 0, the only hipsters are in UG and you only see them on your walk to Vanderbilt. Students here don't get mugged while walking home at night to their apartments like they do at Columbia (I kid, I kid). We had a mixer with CLS earlier in the month and basically none of their students showed up (granted it was raining), and the ones who did were really . . . boring. It pretty much comes down to what you want to do in your career and your personality type. NYU is strong in public interest, and still places well in the private sector and its students are known for being laid back but still extremely intelligent. CLS focuses primarily on private sector, which gives it an edge in placement (though I think this is due partly to self-selection @ NYU). When I chose between NYU and CLS I chose based on where I thought I'd enjoy studying, and I think my decision has been the right one. Obviously I'm biased.
Not to mention the mixer was downtown and we got an email saying it was cancelled due to lack of interest. Ha... So...

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by mst » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:15 pm

I got completely different vibes between CLS & NYU. The location & feel of the physical plant is completely different between the schools. From what I got the staff & environment & students are quite different as well. I didn't visit Chicago but from the people I know that go there and & their different academic schedule/grading system, it just didn't play as much of a role for me, especially since I know that area is hurting as far as biglaw goes compared to ny... Honestly, to sum it up: the 5% difference in students who land big law is completely negated by the fact that you will probably perform a lot better in the atmosphere that is best suited towards your personality and style. For example, I walked into the NYU library and knew right away that was a place I could focus & study in. I walked into the CLS and felt like I was surrounded by cheap furniture and terrible decor reminiscent of my cheap undergrad (not to mention the staff was a bunch of complete unhelpful jerks that day). The NYU crowd seemed a little geekier actually, but it came across to me as a more diverse bunch by far.

My point is that every person is going to see this differently. Some might love the hustle and bustle of Washington Square, some might love the perfect lawn of Columbia, some might enjoy the small size of Chi. If it comes down to ranking alone or job %, you're making too fine a distinction IMO and should find the school that you think you can succeed at because that will make a bigger difference in your future employment than arbitrarily choosing the school based on OCI results (because these 3 are pretty similar in that regard).

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by rundoxierun » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:16 pm

IAFG wrote:
birdlaw117 wrote:
IAFG wrote: at our joint bar review, they were playing spoons at the bar. like, the card game. they turned Chicago's sluttiest, seediest bar into my middle school library.
If the whole, or even a significant amount of the student body was doing this, that would be one fucking big game of spoons. I just think that this type of small anecdotal BS should be taken with a grain of salt. In a group of 200 (or whatever the size of student body at the law school one ends up attending) I'm sure there will always be a group of people one will enjoy being around and become friends with.

This is coming from a 0L looking at CCN and Chicago is significantly below Columbia and NYU for me. Plus, I'm from the midwest. I'm just saying your arguments, while perhaps well intentioned, probably aren't terribly relevant to most 0Ls trying to make a decision.
why? because the one example i posted only implicated 10% of the UChi class? (yes, it was a big game of spoons) because i got rejected? because you're looking for RIGOR?
TBF, I visited Columbia and overall their student body was pretty awkward/not super friendly as well. During my visit Chicago def did not seem like the a place with the most personable or friendly students. Both these visits included full campus tours though so my view is shaped by more than just the law school.

Still, its not like it was a big turnoff or anything. I really didnt seriously notice it until I visited Vandy. If you want a social, personable, friendly student body Vandy is def the place to be.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by birdlaw117 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:20 pm

mst wrote: My point is that every person is going to see this differently. Some might love the hustle and bustle of Washington Square, some might love the perfect lawn of Columbia, some might enjoy the small size of Chi. If it comes down to ranking alone or job %, you're making too fine a distinction IMO and should find the school that you think you can succeed at because that will make a bigger difference in your future employment than arbitrarily choosing the school based on OCI results (because these 3 are pretty similar in that regard).
I definitely agree with this.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by irishman86 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:30 pm

TaipeiMort wrote:
irishman86 wrote:For NYC biglaw, Columbia/NYU > Chicago. I'm not convinced Chicago is better for NYC than some of the lower ranked schools.
This is simply not true. I would go as far as to say that because of Chicago's small class size, that kids at the median who really want NYC get it at a higher rate

The problem with Chicago's NYC biglaw numbers is that many aspie kids self-select into the school (no chance at NYC biglaw), and a higher of students percentage skew towards academia and clerkships than Columbia or NYU. They also have a good number of grads who aim west coast and a ton who aim midwest. Therefore, the NYC big-law seeking (and eligible) crop is pretty small.

The feedback that I go from 2 and 3Ls is that anyone normal who really wanted NYC biglaw got it. In fact, because DC and Chicago were so hard hit in the recession, many applicants applied to lower NYC vault firms as safetys.
I'm not sure why everyone thinks Chicago places comparatively more into academia/clerkships. The recent academia/clerkship placement rates suggest otherwise. Certain lower ranked schools like M and V place more into clerkships percentage wise, including COA clerkships.

I'm sure a lot more aim for the Midwest, etc. than at CLS/NYU, but I was arguing that firms have no reason to be biased towards Chicago students because there are not a lot of Chicago partners in NYC, and therefore, there's a lack of "firm ties." And ITE, I think CLS and NYU are majorly owning biglaw placement because of these firm ties. I don't think Chicago students get a notable boost in NYC hiring, unlike CLS/NYU students. Therefore, median at CLS/NYU is more likely to land NYC biglaw than Chicago median.

As for the awkwardness of Chicago students, supposedly the awkward reputation mainly stems from the undergrad population and the grad students are different. (I really don't get the reputation though, and assume it is exaggerated, as the average Chicago undergrad isn't nerdy/smart enough to be legitimately awkward, like those at MIT or Cal-tech.) I assume that Chicago law students are just as awkward as any other t-14's students.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by rundoxierun » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:39 pm

irishman86 wrote: As for the awkwardness of Chicago students, supposedly the awkward reputation mainly stems from the undergrad population and the grad students are different. (I really don't get the reputation though, and assume it is exaggerated, as the average Chicago undergrad isn't nerdy/smart enough to be legitimately awkward, like those at MIT or Cal-tech.) I assume that Chicago law students are just as awkward as any other t-14's students.
Did that really just happen??

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by irishman86 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:41 pm

tkgrrett wrote:
irishman86 wrote: As for the awkwardness of Chicago students, supposedly the awkward reputation mainly stems from the undergrad population and the grad students are different. (I really don't get the reputation though, and assume it is exaggerated, as the average Chicago undergrad isn't nerdy/smart enough to be legitimately awkward, like those at MIT or Cal-tech.) I assume that Chicago law students are just as awkward as any other t-14's students.
Did that really just happen??
You should visit MIT or Cal-tech, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by rundoxierun » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:48 pm

irishman86 wrote:
tkgrrett wrote:
irishman86 wrote: As for the awkwardness of Chicago students, supposedly the awkward reputation mainly stems from the undergrad population and the grad students are different. (I really don't get the reputation though, and assume it is exaggerated, as the average Chicago undergrad isn't nerdy/smart enough to be legitimately awkward, like those at MIT or Cal-tech.) I assume that Chicago law students are just as awkward as any other t-14's students.
Did that really just happen??
You should visit MIT or Cal-tech, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.
I know what you mean to say but you def shouldnt be including "smart" in there. UChicago undergrads are every bit as smart as MIT/Caltech ones as a whole. UChicago just doesnt give the same type of techy/mathy "nerdy" vibe because there are a lot more undergrads into social sciences there. Trust me though, the nerdiness is still there.. just a different kind.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by irishman86 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 8:51 pm

tkgrrett wrote: I know what you mean to say but you def shouldnt be including "smart" in there. UChicago undergrads are every bit as smart as MIT/Caltech ones as a whole. UChicago just doesnt give the same type of techy/mathy "nerdy" vibe because there are a lot more undergrads into social sciences there. Trust me though, the nerdiness is still there.. just a different kind.
I don't know about that -- For the longest time, Chicago accepted something like 30% of applicants and the SAT scores/GPA, etc. were significantly lower than MIT and Cal-tech scores. In contrast, MIT has had the lowest acceptance rate out of any university, including Harvard, for years. You don't need to be a genius to get into Chicago (hell, I got in), but I think you do need to be somewhat of a genius to get into MIT/Cal-tech. My friend who got admitted to every university, including HYPS got rejected at MIT even though he had a 1600 SAT, triple 800s on the SAT II, and national math awards.

I guess if we redefine nerdiness as geekiness, then perhaps. Maybe Chicago students are similarly geeky.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by JollyGreenGiant » Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:08 pm

I'm sad I missed this game of spoons, but I have no idea how to play. I was probably too busy dancing around like a drunken fool (I happen to love that bar the joint review was at). I've never seen "spoons" being played at any bar review in Chicago, although some of us do still play undergrad games (aka beer pong) in our apartments.

Most of the people who go out to bar reviews and the like are pretty awesome. It's kind of funny to make an overgeneralization based on 10 people playing spoons. And living in Chicago has almost nothing to do with anything. The odds of UofC or Northwestern kids running into each other and knowing they are law students is minimal.

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Re: Columbia vs. NYU (vs. Chicago)

Post by zephyr36 » Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:15 pm

jcunni5 wrote:I hear Chicago's placement is hurting ITE and the consensus is that NYU is happier than Columbia, but personally I'd take Columbia over NYU for the better prospects and smaller hipster population
See, I'd personally take the NYU hipsters over the Columbia Old Money d-bags.

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