I was one of the group that got the Cardozo full-ride offer today. Either way, COL is covered. Worth re-thinking 'dozo with the full ride?

Fordham is objectively a better school, but it's not worth $150k more than Dozo

Yupp, this is my thought as well.....

+1

Sticker at Fordham is crushing. Just kill it at Dozo

Thanks for the responses. Never thought TLS would be advising me to choose a t2 over a t1!

One more question - if Fordham ponied up a little merit aid, how much would you think necessary to make it worth the extra debt? 15k/yr?

At least 15. Probably closer to 20 or 25.

What are the stipulations on the Cardozo scholly?

No way to leverage with Fordham? If not, might as well take the full-ride. I mean both are NYC regional schools at the end of the day.

I don't think this is such an easy call. I took 10k at Fordham over the no stip Dozo ride and have not looked back. It depends on what you want to do, if you want PI, then go with Dozo all the way. If you literally want to do anything else, you are seriously shortchanging yourself by forgoing the much stronger school. The money is huge, but not having to scrounge/hustle/beg for three years to find any legal job, that's worth a lot too. Over the course of your career, the money may not be a huge factor if you have early jobs that put you on a good track. Either way, great options to have, congrats!

What do you want to do?

Only you can decide. I'd say $15k is probably a fair point, $10k if you're gunning for midlaw

Yupp, really a personal choice. For me, I will not go to a school that my GI Bill will not cover 100% That means I would choose Fordham over NYU or CLS if I had those three options. It also means I would choose St Johns over Brooklyn etc etc.....

BUT, I am old and don't have 40 years to pay off any debt that I incur going to LS. Both Cardozo and Fordham have generous programs for vets so my choice between those two would be clear, but in my situation I will only go with the equivalent of a full ride....

YMMV of course.....

This is Cardozo easy. No, it isn't a great school, but Fordham is not worth that kind of dough when you can get a free law degree from Cardozo. It's not like we're talking Columbia v. Dozo or something.

Is he going to shortchanging himself by not going in 220k+ worth of nondischarable, 6.8/8.5 non-sub student loans?

Yes. Fordham hired 15% of its class in 2010 into short-term "fellowships." That's not a whole lot lower than the percentage of the class that got big law. That's a horrible way to gamble 150K when you have the option of getting into the game for "free" (three years of opportunity cost).

I'm not saying it's a simple choice, but running away from debt just to run away from debt doesn't make sense either. If the schools were even comparable in the NYC market, then it would be very hard to turn down the money, I was just balancing the very pro Dozo appeals earlier.

Also, to the above poster, the game analogy fails. Dozo and Fordham students are not playing the same game and they certainly have vastly different rules if you want to have a much broader definition of game than your analogy implies.

I'm sure people have mentioned this to you already but-- 173/3.2 should give you much better options, unless you're absolutely intent on staying in NY.

This is starting to sound vaguely Wittgensteininan...

Yeah, still hoping for better, riding a billion waitlists. At this point, I have to figure out my best worst-case scenario, ya know?

Think of it this way -- no guarantees but with a 173 you'll probably have the highest LSAT in your whole year. That should give you a far better than random chance of getting top 10% and top 10% will get you a big firm job (Probably. I'm also ignoring your undergrad GPA). Lots of ifs in there but Fordham is a classic trap school right now.

I think you need to research this but I'm not sure ITE that Cardozo gives a realistic chance at Biglaw (as in, you probably need to be in top 10% to even be competitive). This is based completely on anonymous information posted on employment threads, so it's something you need to look into for yourself. I would vote for Cardozo if Biglaw is not your goal.

I would think good use of ED would get you into a much stronger school, if you were willing to wait a cycle (although with the way this cycle is playing out, you may very well get off some wait lists). If I didn't get off a wait list that's what I would do.

Professor Campos, I respect your opinion a lot, and I'm in a similar situation as this poster. I'm weighing GW (with presumably no money) vs Cardozo with $30,000 a year. Would you say GW is also a trap school, and that I should go to Cardozo instead?

Has Cardozo posted its tuition/fees for next year? They were $48.3K this past year so a 30K scholarship is probably going to leave you at least $60K down in terms of tuition alone, plus of course the COL in NYC beyond that is estimated by the school as $25K (which is conservative) so you're up to $135K, as opposed to a full ride where you would be looking at $75K. As for GW it's COA right now is $225K and something like 82 people out of 500 got big law in the class of 2011. Personally I don't think either of these are good choices right now at these prices.