Page 40 of 48
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 10:07 pm
by bgc
I'm heading to New Haven tomorrow to find housing. PM me if anyone is still looking for a place. I'm thinking of a studio but wouldn't mind a share.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 11:21 pm
by Hoopster
I found a good post by kalessebo in another thread that I think is worth bringing over here. It nicely outlines the advantages of YLS's COAP over HLS's Thanks kalessebo!
kalessebo wrote:Mike le magne wrote:Can those of you who've said that YLS's loan forgiveness is > HLS's specify why you think this is so? I know HLS has this 3L tuition forgiveness, which seems pretty generous. Then again, YLS lets you work in any area whatsoever. I know YLS pays full if you make less than 65k- what is it for HLS? Thanks!
Yale's cutoff below which you make no payments is 60k. Harvard's is 42k. After 60k, Yale makes you pay a quarter of your extra income. After 42k, Harvard asks you for some percentage that I can't remember, but it amounts to paying $500/month if you make 60k. That's not insignificant. If you make, say, 90k, your payments at Yale are $7500/year. At Harvard, assuming you have this much debt, it would be around $18,000/year. Look at it this way: Yale makes you pay 25% on income over 60k. So if you have $1,500/month in payments (not unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination), you could be making up to $132,000/year and Yale would still be helping you out a little. Harvard's help would phase out at 90k.
Second, on the third year free tuition, this doesn't really affect how much you have to pay per month unless you leave a qualifying job (make more than about 90k, depending on your loan burden, or leave public service) after year 5 but before year 10. If you leave before year 5 you have to give back the free tuition, and if you leave after year 10, HLS is paying most of your loans anyway, and whether you got free tuition the third year or not is not going to affect your monthly payments. If the free 45k amounts to about $500/month in loans, all the free tuition means is that you could make about $1250 more per month and still have LIPP cover some of your payments. That was convoluted, and I could be entirely wrong about the whole thing, but I think the free tuition thing comes down, as Dean Koh said last year, to an ad hoc gimmick.
Finally, as you mentioned, Yale's system is income based. You can do ANY job, if I read the thing correctly. This includes academic fellowships that tend to pay around 60k/year. Private sector, business, whatever. Don't underestimate that freedom.
One mark against Yale is that the program treats you as though you are on a 15-year repayment plan for the first five years of participation in the COAP (LRAP), so they're backloading it. (Which of course means the numbers are slightly off, now that I think about it - they'll still pay off some of your loans at the same ridiculously high income, but if you leave the program at year 5, you'd still have 2/3 of your loans left.)
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 1:08 am
by SparkyLives
anybody know when our loans are disbursed? 8/1 or 9/1?
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 1:30 am
by rabbit9198
SparkyLives wrote:anybody know when our loans are disbursed? 8/1 or 9/1?
Approximately the first day of classes (9/1). But it takes a couple days to process/direct deposit your loan refund for living expenses, if applicable...so if you're going to use loan money for rent, you might want to make special arrangements with your landlord to pay late (by 9/5 would probably be reasonable), or use your own savings for September's rent.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 1:52 am
by HAZMAT
[
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 11:24 am
by bgc
I'm finishing up two days of apartment hunting. I've found some great places (including one with a fireman's pole) but will only be taking one. If anyone is still looking for 1-2 bedrooms, PM me for suggestions. I have looked primarily with smaller management companies in the Howe street area.
Stay away from Elm Campus. They only have a couple of spots left downtown and they are dogs.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 11:30 am
by franfair
.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 11:49 am
by heyguys
Kind of a random question, but I remember at the ASW the registrar spoke of emailing her if we wanted to request that we not be in a roommate's small group. Is this something that we should feel free to do, or is this something that we should only do in certain circumstances? I like my roommate a lot, but I figure that if I'm definitely not in the same small group as my roommate it would help me to branch out.
Edit: it's worth adding that I recognize that the chances of any two people being in the same small group is not very large anyway; that said, it might still be something worth doing.....thoughts?
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 3:11 pm
by randomapplicant
Has anyone used Discover as their federal lender? They have no Stafford origination fee and the GradPLUS interest rate is 8.25 instead of the standard 8.5. Does anyone know of a reason not to use them?
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 3:57 pm
by franfair
.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 4:10 pm
by randomapplicant
franfair, I read above that you used Discover for private loans...I am wondering specifically about the federal loans (Stafford and GradPLUS). Discover seems to offer slightly better rates than the rest of the federal lenders, and might save me a couple thousand bucks in the long run. Is there a catch anyone knows about, e.g. terrible customer service, or hidden fees, or something?
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 5:03 pm
by franfair
.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 10:43 am
by shuchong
randomapplicant wrote:Has anyone used Discover as their federal lender? They have no Stafford origination fee and the GradPLUS interest rate is 8.25 instead of the standard 8.5. Does anyone know of a reason not to use them?
I used Discover for Stafford loans (same reasons you state above: no origination fee, no guarantor fee). Also, there's no penalty for prepayment. I'm kind of new to the whole loan thing, but I can't think of anything else sneaky that they could do to us to bleed more money out, seeing as how these are fixed-rate federal loans.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 8:21 pm
by alexb240
Just dropping by to plug the Yale Journal of Space and Robot Law, a new and exciting journal that will have many opportunities for 1Ls next year!
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 12:34 pm
by bearyfun
Hey all - I've been traveling and got an extension on picking my lenders so I'm just trying to figure this out now. What other options did people choose and why? Any help, either here or by PM, would be GREATLY appreciated.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 12:48 pm
by heyguys
bearyfun wrote:Hey all - I've been traveling and got an extension on picking my lenders so I'm just trying to figure this out now. What other options did people choose and why? Any help, either here or by PM, would be GREATLY appreciated.
I went with AccessGroup, mostly because it seems to be what the average person goes with, and I'm extremely conservative as far as all this financial aid stuff is concerned. As a neophyte at all of it, I figure I'll leave trying to be savvy alone for the time being.
alexb240 wrote:Just dropping by to plug the Yale Journal of Space and Robot Law, a new and exciting journal that will have many opportunities for 1Ls next year!
My top three at this point were the Yale Journal of Pirate Studies (14th century-present), the Yale Journal of Esoteric Admiralty Law, and one strange one simply entitled 'Convolution and Scientology,' which seems to be concerned with unnecessarily complicated ideas and the advent of Scientology, yet not even in an integrated manner....they're odd bedfellows. That said, with the reemergence of Star Trek into the popular consciousness, I'm sure your journal will be a success, as robot law will surely see a new level of importance in the cultural dialogue. I'll have to think hard on whether it might overtake one of those three as my most heavily considered journal choices. Thanks for the heads up!
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 5:52 pm
by bgc
alexb240 wrote:Just dropping by to plug the Yale Journal of Space and Robot Law, a new and exciting journal that will have many opportunities for 1Ls next year!
I am very much looking forward to this. Application of the Three Laws is far from clear in all cases.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 1:50 pm
by FranFang
Just making sure- Based on the estimates of the financial award letter, can what is determined to be summer earnings and half of personal assets be replaced by a private loan? Would this loan be covered by COAP (I'm under the impression that it isn't but just making sure)? Also, which summer earnings are they referring to??
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 1:54 pm
by heyguys
FranFang wrote:Just making sure- Based on the estimates of the financial award letter, can what is determined to be summer earnings and half of personal assets be replaced by a private loan? Would this loan be covered by COAP (I'm under the impression that it isn't but just making sure)? Also, which summer earnings are they referring to??
It doesn't need to be private--it can be PLUS. I don't think it's covered by COAP though.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 4:22 pm
by SparkyLives
all of your contribution can be covered by loans but are NOT covered by COAP. I got this straight from Pat Barnes at the ASW.
Everybody is expected to contribute a minimum of 2500, whether you actually make that much during the summer or not. (I think this addresses the question, but am not sure...lol)
Quick informal survey: How is everybody as far as housing? I think I'm all set...just wondering how far along everybody else is.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 4:37 pm
by franfair
.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:14 pm
by KP429
SparkyLives wrote:all of your contribution can be covered by loans but are NOT covered by COAP. I got this straight from Pat Barnes at the ASW.
Everybody is expected to contribute a minimum of 2500, whether you actually make that much during the summer or not. (I think this addresses the question, but am not sure...lol)
Quick informal survey: How is everybody as far as housing? I think I'm all set...just wondering how far along everybody else is.
And to add on to this, I think the expected $2500 contribution is only for the first year summer. I think thats what Pat Barnes said to me anyway.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:39 pm
by DontKnowMe
KP429 wrote:SparkyLives wrote:all of your contribution can be covered by loans but are NOT covered by COAP. I got this straight from Pat Barnes at the ASW.
Everybody is expected to contribute a minimum of 2500, whether you actually make that much during the summer or not. (I think this addresses the question, but am not sure...lol)
Quick informal survey: How is everybody as far as housing? I think I'm all set...just wondering how far along everybody else is.
And to add on to this, I think the expected $2500 contribution is only for the first year summer. I think thats what Pat Barnes said to me anyway.
That's right, future summer contributions depend on how much you make in a summer - be ready to pay anything you make over $6000.
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 12:38 am
by arrrrrr!
does anyone know where i can see next year's classes?
Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 12:55 am
by rabbit9198
arrrrrr! wrote:does anyone know where i can see next year's classes?
A pdf file of the tentative course listing for 2009-2010 (but not schedule), which the Registrar constantly updates, was just posted to the school Intranet. I'm not sure if they'll make it available to incoming 1Ls before you get here.
Last year, finding out which professors were teaching which 1L classes was just kind of like a big "reveal"/surprise when everyone filed into the auditorium to get our registration materials & class assignments - then, of course, after three days of "What's your name/where are you from?" questions, the conversation turns to "Whose small group are you in?"