Columbia students taking questions Forum

[BrainsyK]

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[dabigchina]

Hi everyone,

Recently admitted 0L here with a question about institutional Fin Aid. I know the threshold to not get any financial aid is pretty low when it comes to institutional funds. Is it even worth applying for if my parents have high savings (450k) but low income (40k) and own property but owe on the mortgage on it (350k)? Has anyone had any experience or anecdotes about where the threshold might be?

because CLS technically doesn't have purely merit aid outside of the named scholarships, you need to apply for fin aid if you want any sort of money. It's always worth it to apply for aid.

[White Dwarf]

It's worth applying. My parents have little-to-no savings, medium income ($60-65K) and a $100K mortgage. I got $90K in non-named financial aid and I would imagine most of it was need-based.

[stoopkid13]

Is it normal to receive a letter grade for a seminar, but still be waiting on a CR/F grade for the minor writing credit?

[derekne]

Hi Everyone,

I was just admitted with a Butler and I just had a question about secondary market employment. I plan to practice in Texas and was just wondering how well represented TX biglaw is at EIP and assuming decent ties,(I'm not from there but I have a lot of family in Dallas and Houston and my parents are moving down there in the next couple of years so I want to be close to them for sure), how difficult are they to get?

[derekne]

Hi Everyone,

I was just admitted with a Butler and I had a question about secondary market employment. I plan to practice in Texas and was just wondering how well represented TX biglaw is at EIP and assuming decent ties,(I'm not from there but I have a lot of family in Dallas and Houston and my parents are moving down there in the next couple of years so I want to be close to them for sure), how difficult are they to get?

[GreenEggs]

I filled out the 2017-2018 FAFSA early and just imported my tax information from the IRS. Got an email Friday evening that there's a discrepancy between my 2016-2017 FAFSA and the 2017-2018, since both use the same tax year. I won't get my refund until it gets addressed and need to fax my tax return in.

Did this happen to anyone else?

[derekne]

Comment Removed

[GreenEggs]

Hi Everyone,

I was just admitted with a Butler and I had a question about secondary market employment. I plan to practice in Texas and was just wondering how well represented TX biglaw is at EIP and assuming decent ties,(I'm not from there but I have a lot of family in Dallas and Houston and my parents are moving down there in the next couple of years so I want to be close to them for sure), how difficult are they to get?

Hopefully someone who bid TX at EIP can give more details, but anecdotally I knew a few 1Ls who got SAs in Texas, and there were definitely 2Ls without any real ties who got TX big law.

[airwrecka]

Hi everyone,

Recently admitted 0L here with a question about institutional Fin Aid. I know the threshold to not get any financial aid is pretty low when it comes to institutional funds. Is it even worth applying for if my parents have high savings (450k) but low income (40k) and own property but owe on the mortgage on it (350k)? Has anyone had any experience or anecdotes about where the threshold might be?

because CLS technically doesn't have purely merit aid outside of the named scholarships, you need to apply for fin aid if you want any sort of money. It's always worth it to apply for aid.

Would you say that it's always worth it even if your parents are extremely wealthy? My parents have both very high income and assets, and they're really resisting giving me any financial info. But if I can convince them it's my only shot at aid at all (and it's not 100% a lost cause), they'll probably cave.

[dabigchina]

Hi everyone,

Recently admitted 0L here with a question about institutional Fin Aid. I know the threshold to not get any financial aid is pretty low when it comes to institutional funds. Is it even worth applying for if my parents have high savings (450k) but low income (40k) and own property but owe on the mortgage on it (350k)? Has anyone had any experience or anecdotes about where the threshold might be?

because CLS technically doesn't have purely merit aid outside of the named scholarships, you need to apply for fin aid if you want any sort of money. It's always worth it to apply for aid.

Would you say that it's always worth it even if your parents are extremely wealthy? My parents have both very high income and assets, and they're really resisting giving me any financial info. But if I can convince them it's my only shot at aid at all (and it's not 100% a lost cause), they'll probably cave.

yes. All the non-named merit scholarships require you to submit fin aid forms.

[Nebby]

Hi Everyone,

I was just admitted with a Butler and I had a question about secondary market employment. I plan to practice in Texas and was just wondering how well represented TX biglaw is at EIP and assuming decent ties,(I'm not from there but I have a lot of family in Dallas and Houston and my parents are moving down there in the next couple of years so I want to be close to them for sure), how difficult are they to get?

Hopefully someone who bid TX at EIP can give more details, but anecdotally I knew a few 1Ls who got SAs in Texas, and there were definitely 2Ls without any real ties who got TX big law.

I know a few people that went to Texas. Why they want to, who knows, but Texas is easily obtainable.

[mmestik]

Recently admitted 0L here; I'm wondering if there any groups/ Facebook pages where people can connect to play tennis. And for those who do play, how easy is it to find courts to hit on? And how accessible are the indoor courts during winter months? Thank you!

[Nebby]

Recently admitted 0L here; I'm wondering if there any groups/ Facebook pages where people can connect to play tennis. And for those who do play, how easy is it to find courts to hit on? And how accessible are the indoor courts during winter months? Thank you!

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tennis/Welcome.html

[mmestik]

Recently admitted 0L here; I'm wondering if there any groups/ Facebook pages where people can connect to play tennis. And for those who do play, how easy is it to find courts to hit on? And how accessible are the indoor courts during winter months? Thank you!

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tennis/Welcome.html

Woops, completely missed this; thanks!

[Nebby]

Recently admitted 0L here; I'm wondering if there any groups/ Facebook pages where people can connect to play tennis. And for those who do play, how easy is it to find courts to hit on? And how accessible are the indoor courts during winter months? Thank you!

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tennis/Welcome.html

Woops, completely missed this; thanks!

Yep. There isn't really anything at the law school for tennis so you'll likely have to look outside of the LS for anyone to play with. In my time at CLS, I never recall ever hearing of anyone playing tennis (if they did any physical exercise at all)

[20171lhopeful]

0L here--was invited to interview for the Richard Paul Richman Fellowship but there's very little information on CLS website about it. Is it Columbia's version of RTK?

[carlos_danger]

Looking for advice on financial aid here. I was admitted to HLS in their first round of admissions decisions this year, so I thought I had a pretty strong app, but then didn't get either of the named aid packages when admitted to Columbia.

Is this common/what should I do?

[FastRun]

Looking for advice on financial aid here. I was admitted to HLS in their first round of admissions decisions this year, so I thought I had a pretty strong app, but then didn't get either of the named aid packages when admitted to Columbia.

Is this common/what should I do?

Harvard enrolls about 550 new law students each year and has a yield of about 60%, meaning they admit just over 900. Columbia enrolls about 400 and has a yield of about 30-35%, meaning they admit roughly 1200. Even if we presume that Columbia offers named scholarships to some really high number of their admits, say 10%, and we presume that all of those offers are made to people who were also admitted to Harvard, that's still only 120 named scholarship offers distributed among 900 Harvard admits. So even in this absurdly constrained hypothetical, it's more likely that you'll be admitted to Harvard Law than it is that you'll be offered a named scholarship from Columbia Law even given that you were admitted to Harvard Law. ~18% admission to Harvard Law, and (120/900=)13% offers of named scholarship to Columbia for Harvard Law admits. Obviously this doesn't account for the fact that there are two more law schools ranked above Columbia, their applicant pools don't overlap exactly, we don't know how many scholarships Columbia actually offers, Columbia can't exactly predict who HYS will admit etc. It's probably much lower than 13% in the real world. You could aggregate MyLSN data if you care to try to figure out the real stats, though there are problems with that methodology too.

So to answer your first question, your situation is common. It is almost certainly easier to get into Harvard than it is to get a named scholarship at Columbia.

What should you do? I think your instincts are correct that Columbia's named generic merit scholarships are "don't go to HYS" money (in reality, perhaps more "don't go to Yale" money). So, if you would choose Columbia with significant aid over Harvard with no aid, bring your H admission to Columbia's attention and negotiate from there. Look through the forums to find stories of successes and failures with that strategy.

If it comes down to a choice of paying full tuition at Harvard or Columbia, I think it goes without saying that you should choose Harvard absent some compelling personal circumstance or goal that favors Columbia.

Finally, admission to H may be a better predictor of significant merit scholarships at the 7-14 schools of the T14. Presuming you blanketed the T14, I see no reason why you shouldn't have a good shot at significant merit aid at those schools. If you do get an offer like that, consider your personal goals and preferences and weigh carefully whether that H on your degree is worth a quarter mill.

[jbagelboy]

Looking for advice on financial aid here. I was admitted to HLS in their first round of admissions decisions this year, so I thought I had a pretty strong app, but then didn't get either of the named aid packages when admitted to Columbia.

Is this common/what should I do?

Harvard enrolls about 550 new law students each year and has a yield of about 60%, meaning they admit just over 900. Columbia enrolls about 400 and has a yield of about 30-35%, meaning they admit roughly 1200. Even if we presume that Columbia offers named scholarships to some really high number of their admits, say 10%, and we presume that all of those offers are made to people who were also admitted to Harvard, that's still only 120 named scholarship offers distributed among 900 Harvard admits. So even in this absurdly constrained hypothetical, it's more likely that you'll be admitted to Harvard Law than it is that you'll be offered a named scholarship from Columbia Law even given that you were admitted to Harvard Law. ~18% admission to Harvard Law, and (120/900=)13% offers of named scholarship to Columbia for Harvard Law admits. Obviously this doesn't account for the fact that there are two more law schools ranked above Columbia, their applicant pools don't overlap exactly, we don't know how many scholarships Columbia actually offers, Columbia can't exactly predict who HYS will admit etc. It's probably much lower than 13% in the real world. You could aggregate MyLSN data if you care to try to figure out the real stats, though there are problems with that methodology too.

So to answer your first question, your situation is common. It is almost certainly easier to get into Harvard than it is to get a named scholarship at Columbia.

What should you do? I think your instincts are correct that Columbia's named generic merit scholarships are "don't go to HYS" money (in reality, perhaps more "don't go to Yale" money). So, if you would choose Columbia with significant aid over Harvard with no aid, bring your H admission to Columbia's attention and negotiate from there. Look through the forums to find stories of successes and failures with that strategy.

If it comes down to a choice of paying full tuition at Harvard or Columbia, I think it goes without saying that you should choose Harvard absent some compelling personal circumstance or goal that favors Columbia.

Finally, admission to H may be a better predictor of significant merit scholarships at the 7-14 schools of the T14. Presuming you blanketed the T14, I see no reason why you shouldn't have a good shot at significant merit aid at those schools. If you do get an offer like that, consider your personal goals and preferences and weigh carefully whether that H on your degree is worth a quarter mill.

This is meticulous and accurate. I second. It's definitely much more difficult to obtain a Columbia named scholarship (or a Rubenstein or Root Tilden Kern) than it is to get into H. It's a little more comparable to getting into Yale (but still numerically more difficult to get the named scholarships). A Harvard acceptance won't get you a Butler, but it might help get you an equivalent amount of money in scholarship aid.

[carlos_danger]

Looking for advice on financial aid here. I was admitted to HLS in their first round of admissions decisions this year, so I thought I had a pretty strong app, but then didn't get either of the named aid packages when admitted to Columbia.

Is this common/what should I do?

Harvard enrolls about 550 new law students each year and has a yield of about 60%, meaning they admit just over 900. Columbia enrolls about 400 and has a yield of about 30-35%, meaning they admit roughly 1200. Even if we presume that Columbia offers named scholarships to some really high number of their admits, say 10%, and we presume that all of those offers are made to people who were also admitted to Harvard, that's still only 120 named scholarship offers distributed among 900 Harvard admits. So even in this absurdly constrained hypothetical, it's more likely that you'll be admitted to Harvard Law than it is that you'll be offered a named scholarship from Columbia Law even given that you were admitted to Harvard Law. ~18% admission to Harvard Law, and (120/900=)13% offers of named scholarship to Columbia for Harvard Law admits. Obviously this doesn't account for the fact that there are two more law schools ranked above Columbia, their applicant pools don't overlap exactly, we don't know how many scholarships Columbia actually offers, Columbia can't exactly predict who HYS will admit etc. It's probably much lower than 13% in the real world. You could aggregate MyLSN data if you care to try to figure out the real stats, though there are problems with that methodology too.

So to answer your first question, your situation is common. It is almost certainly easier to get into Harvard than it is to get a named scholarship at Columbia.

What should you do? I think your instincts are correct that Columbia's named generic merit scholarships are "don't go to HYS" money (in reality, perhaps more "don't go to Yale" money). So, if you would choose Columbia with significant aid over Harvard with no aid, bring your H admission to Columbia's attention and negotiate from there. Look through the forums to find stories of successes and failures with that strategy.

If it comes down to a choice of paying full tuition at Harvard or Columbia, I think it goes without saying that you should choose Harvard absent some compelling personal circumstance or goal that favors Columbia.

Finally, admission to H may be a better predictor of significant merit scholarships at the 7-14 schools of the T14. Presuming you blanketed the T14, I see no reason why you shouldn't have a good shot at significant merit aid at those schools. If you do get an offer like that, consider your personal goals and preferences and weigh carefully whether that H on your degree is worth a quarter mill.

This is meticulous and accurate. I second. It's definitely much more difficult to obtain a Columbia named scholarship (or a Rubenstein or Root Tilden Kern) than it is to get into H. It's a little more comparable to getting into Yale (but still numerically more difficult to get the named scholarships). A Harvard acceptance won't get you a Butler, but it might help get you an equivalent amount of money in scholarship aid.

Thanks y'all. I really appreciate it and will weigh my options carefully.

[GoneSouth]

It's February. I'm still missing a seminar grade for a paper turned in in November....

[wheathins]

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[wheathins]

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[freekick]

Would be grateful if someone could shed light on the International Court of Justice clerkship in terms of one's own preparation for it and institutional support at CLS. Thanks a lot.