mwels7070 wrote:
Do you want to work in NY? If you do, then Fordham is probably the better choice, but you would need to distinguish yourself at Fordham.
The reason I picked BC over a few other schools is because of how well they place in Big Law in Boston. I know a few recent graduates and they said that networking and landing interviews has been relatively painless for them.
Nationwide, I am not positive, but in my own opinion, I feel BC is a stronger national name. I wouldnt factor in the scholly at all because in the grand scheme of things, what is 5K when you are about to go in 150K of debt regardless?
Hope this helps
As an alum that went through both OCI (for Boston firms) and the NYC Off-Campus Interview Program jointly held with BU (for NYC firms), I can say that I pretty much disagree entirely with the conventional wisdom that Fordham is better than BC for NYC biglaw. The reason is that at Fordham there is a straight pecking order, i.e., almost the entire student body likely wants to stay in NYC and therefore, GPA and Class Rank are gold. For BC, a distinct subset of the student body doesn't even opt into the NYC job fair. My 2L year (admittedly during the boom) lots of Law Review and top 25% didn't even attend the NYC job fair because they either didn't want NYC or thought that they would be fine with OCI. It was actually easier to get NYC than Boston.
Students may be casting a wider net in the current economy, but the NYC job fair is set up to allow many more students to get some interviews with large firms than through OCI simply because there is cap on the number of interviews that you can attend in one day. For example, a top student attending the NYC job fair can still only interview with a maximum of I believe 8 interviews in one day. There are dozens and dozens of law firms that attend the job fair and they have lots of slots to fill. Whereas for OCI that same student would very likely be able to get an interview with practically every employer coming to campus (where it is a mix of firm pre-selected slots and lottery slots). Simply put, the NYC job fair allows lower "caliber" students to get their foot in the door with NYC firms.
Plus, firms like diversity in their summer classes.