Top Law Schools

So, I'm torn. Did undergrad in music at NYU, then spent the next three years in India and South America working with NGOs and doing freelance multimedia production for big name publications like NYT and HuffPo.

Now I want to go to law school and would love to be back in NYC or at least the NE (most of my friends/connections are still there), and after a few years a top biglaw firm in NYC I see myself eventually moving into intl. PI/NGO work, or potentially lateraling back to my home state of Texas.

I get the impression I'm likely out at H, at the margins at Columbia and probably in with $ at NYU. I'm tempted to ED to Columbia, as C's biglaw/clerkship opportunities seem better.

Should I ED (and forfeit cash) to guarantee a spot at Columbia? Or, given my softs and the nature of this cycle, should I hold out/risk it and RD for H w/ no cash or C w/ a little cash?

I wouldn't ED.. that 175 is pretty spectacular - especially this cycle.

There isn't really much evidence that an ED to Columbia has any effect in your GPA range (same ballpark as mine, for the record). If the school is really struggling to keep their GPA median up this cycle, maybe the ED would hold more weight, but nobody really knows--it's all going to be speculation. My advice would be not to ED. You're probably in decent shape for Columbia RD.

Regarding Harvard, I would apply, but then do your best to completely forget about the app, because your chances are marginal at best.

Question for you though, OP--where are you seeing that Columbia's clerkship numbers look better than NYU? All the numbers I've ever seen indicate that NYU has a slight edge, if any.

^Pretty much what he said. Columbia doesn't seem to give as much boost as other schools do to ED.

And to above poster I think he may be talking about placement in general with those two combined. Columbia = 69% BigLaw(61%) + clerkship(8%) and NYU = 54% BigLaw(53%) + Clerkship(11%). Dont think that OP is saying that Columbia places better than NYU in clerkships just that all around it's better.

OP, you should RD to both.
There's possibly a tiny overall advantage to going to CLS, but not enough to be worth giving up the freedom to choose. I got 60K at NYU with basically the same numbers. I didn't get into CLS (reserved 3 times), but most of the people in my position got in I think.

Either way, there's no way CLS at sticker is better than NYU at 30-60K discount.

By the way, you actually might have a shot at the AnnBryce or RTK scholarships with your NGO work. The gpa is a little low, but it seems that you have a shot, based on people who were competitive for them this year.

JamMasterJ wrote:By the way, you actually might have a shot at the AnnBryce or RTK scholarships with your NGO work. The gpa is a little low, but it seems that you have a shot, based on people who were competitive for them this year.

Thought you had to do PI if you want RTK and OP seems to want to do BigLaw for a few years. For AnnBryce OP would also have to be first in family to go to grad school right?

Take a look at my cycle... http://lawschoolnumbers.com/roserdozer

Your LSAT is above median (whereas I was at median) which gives you a better chance than I had. Just keep in mind that, generally speaking, way over median isn't necessarily much better than barely over median.

I was ED at Columbia, deferred to regular admissions cycle (which UNBINDs you), and then reserved several times before being admitted in late July. I personally feel that having originally EDd (and applied very early) ultimately signalled that I would matriculate if they took me late in the cycle. As other posters have noted, it probably doesn't make too much a difference... except maybe in this reserve situation. If you feel you do have a good shot at those scholarships at NYU, then ED is probably the wrong decision. If you don't think you do, and sticker doesn't make you queasy, I would ED to Columbia.

Finally, don't write H (or S) off. Sure, I barely got into Columbia. But I got in. The only school that didn't ultimately accept me was UVA (who apparently saw right through my little "Why UVA" essay). I wish that I had received at least one flat out rejection... That way I would feel like I maximized my cycle. Would I have been rejected from Harvard? Almost certainly. But at least I would know for sure.

lilhugsy24 wrote:

JamMasterJ wrote:By the way, you actually might have a shot at the AnnBryce or RTK scholarships with your NGO work. The gpa is a little low, but it seems that you have a shot, based on people who were competitive for them this year.

Thought you had to do PI if you want RTK and OP seems to want to do BigLaw for a few years. For AnnBryce OP would also have to be first in family to go to grad school right?

Good point. I think you're right at least about RTK. However, the original point about OP likely getting more money at NYU is credited.

I would RD to CCN and negotiate scholarships. More than likely you option will be Columbia at sticker and NYU with $60-70k scholarship.

That's a tough call.

Edit- Wrong word.

Doorkeeper wrote:I would RD to CCN and negotiate scholarships. More than likely you option will be Columbia at a full ride and NYU with $60-70k scholarship.

That's a tough call.

I think you mean Columbia at sticker

Yeah, I'm actually pretty tempted to give RTK a look. If you look at the alumni profiles, many of them spent some time at biglaw before returning to PI work.

JMJ, how do you feel about your experience at NYU so far? You think a 50k+ discount at NYU beats C?

Roser, I think your story alone convinces me to take the RD route.

Also, regarding Columbia's clerkship placement vs. NYU, the #'s are quality-independent right? NYU could be placing a ton of state/local clerks. Is there any data on these placements?

Finally, any consensus on the top schools deciding to cut class size or cut numbers? Looks like NYU and Columbia were pretty steady this year in terms of class size.

Columbia's c/o 2011 had 8.1% in federal and 1.3% in state/local clerkships.

NYU's c/o 2011 had 10.9% in federal and 2.6% in state/local clerkships.

Lawschooltransparency.com has all of this info to compare.

Thanks for the #s, 02889.

ksd2138 wrote:Yeah, I'm actually pretty tempted to give RTK a look. If you look at the alumni profiles, many of them spent some time at biglaw before returning to PI work.

JMJ, how do you feel about your experience at NYU so far? You think a 50k+ discount at NYU beats C?

Roser, I think your story alone convinces me to take the RD route.

Also, regarding Columbia's clerkship placement vs. NYU, the #'s are quality-independent right? NYU could be placing a ton of state/local clerks. Is there any data on these placements?

Finally, any consensus on the top schools deciding to cut class size or cut numbers? Looks like NYU and Columbia were pretty steady this year in terms of class size.

NYU is awesome so far. The people, as you will hear time and again, are great. I am married, so I'm not as involved with my classmates as most people, and I feel like there is so much going on socially, extracurricularly, etc. that I'm not capitalizing on.

As far as NYU with 50K (hypothetically) vs. CLS at sticker, I would say NYU definitely. Everything I've heard points to a minimal (if existent) difference between the two schools with regard to placement.

The notion that placement between NYU and CLS is trivial is total BS. For the Class of 2011, there was a 10% gap between CLS and NYU for NLJ250 (~51% vs. ~40%).

Given that the legal market isn't going back to the boom times ever again, I'd say CLS over NYU is a no brainer, unless you were sticker at CLS and got some money at NYU, at least 40k+

dissonance1848 wrote:The notion that placement between NYU and CLS is trivial is total BS. For the Class of 2011, there was a 10% gap between CLS and NYU for NLJ250 (~51% vs. ~40%).

Given that the legal market isn't going back to the boom times ever again, I'd say CLS over NYU is a no brainer, unless you were sticker at CLS and got some money at NYU, at least 40k+

How much of that can be explained by self selection

ChampagnePapi wrote:

dissonance1848 wrote:The notion that placement between NYU and CLS is trivial is total BS. For the Class of 2011, there was a 10% gap between CLS and NYU for NLJ250 (~51% vs. ~40%).

Given that the legal market isn't going back to the boom times ever again, I'd say CLS over NYU is a no brainer, unless you were sticker at CLS and got some money at NYU, at least 40k+

How much of that can be explained by self selection

It's impossible to really say, but the PI gap (24.9% NYU vs. 14.3% CLS) and slight clerkship gap (10.9% vs. 8.1%) can help to explain some of the big firm gap (41.7% vs. 58.6%). You're left with a 3.5% difference to explain. Perhaps that can be fairly attributed to CLS having slightly better placement.

Jam's statement that the difference is minor seems to be true, based on the c/o 2011 numbers.

Clerkship difference here is fungible; really depends on students, at either school.

As for the 10% gap in PI, the key here is that back in the boom times, the PI gap was far smaller; NYU and CLS placed the same into biglaw, and both sent few people into PI.

Granted, NYU placed more people into PI than CLS, but not 10% more (closer to 5%).

Clearly people at NYU are doing PI more because they cannot get biglaw, otherwise why were they placing into biglaw like CLS during the boom?

Or perhaps NYU tried to up its intl. law cred just as intl. law was becoming in vogue for 0Ls by cultivating a more PI-oriented culture?

Where's this "boom vs. post-boom" data coming from, dissonance?

dissonance1848 wrote: As for the 10% gap in PI, the key here is that back in the boom times, the PI gap was far smaller; NYU and CLS placed the same into biglaw, and both sent few people into PI.

Granted, NYU placed more people into PI than CLS, but not 10% more (closer to 5%).

Do you have a link to any of this data? Not doubting you, I'd just like to parse it myself.

http://www.law.columbia.edu/careers/emp ... statistics

http://www.law.nyu.edu/careerservices/e ... /index.htm

Oh wow... this shift from Biglaw to PI has happened in the last FOUR YEARS! Unreal.

Tiago Splitter wrote:http://www.law.columbia.edu/careers/emp ... statistics

http://www.law.nyu.edu/careerservices/e ... /index.htm

Oh wow. Didn't realize it would be that stark. Pretty amazing that a school that is seen as PI focussed puts one in 10 of its students into PI during boom times.

That said, the drop from 84% law firms to 69% for CLS is roughly mirrored by the 72% to 54% for NYU.

Sorry if I'm hijacking this, but anyone have thoughts on the effect Columbia's class size reduction will have on the job prospects for the new 1Ls vis-a-vis those at NYU?

TheColonel wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:http://www.law.columbia.edu/careers/emp ... statistics

http://www.law.nyu.edu/careerservices/e ... /index.htm

Oh wow. Didn't realize it would be that stark. Pretty amazing that a school that is seen as PI focussed puts one in 10 of its students into PI during boom times.

That said, the drop from 84% law firms to 69% for CLS is roughly mirrored by the 72% to 54% for NYU.

Sorry if I'm hijacking this, but anyone have thoughts on the effect Columbia's class size reduction will have on the job prospects for the new 1Ls vis-a-vis those at NYU?

not a ton. It probably very very slightly helps all of us