minkbrigade wrote:Leliana wrote:Interesting to hear everyone's thoughts! I think it really goes to show how much of the decision comes down to your own personal impression. I personally had an amazing experience (I'm PI-focused fwiw) and I think it's going to be tough for any other schools to measure up... I was already leaning towards CLS as my first choice and after going to ASP I am also totally sold

I'm also PI-focused, but won't be able to make it to an ASD. Would you be up for elaborating more? I'm leaning towards Columbia because of the LRAP, but am definitely nervous about its reputation of having a corporate culture.
Yeah, totally! I was similarly wondering about the corporate culture reputation and I have to say was very pleasantly surprised. Like others have said in this thread, I think they were clearly trying to push PI during ASP because of that reputation. However, it did seem to me like there is a genuine focus of developing CLS's public interest sphere under the new dean.
My main takeaways from speaking with current students: generally, the PI community is smaller than at NYU. However, despite this, I got the impression that it is very strong. The students/graduates on the ASP panels as well as the student ambassadors all had impressive jobs and experience. A lot of them told me directly that the smaller community means there is less competition for clinics, externships, volunteer programs, and even jobs. One girl told me she was easily able to just sign up for a third-party pro bono project whereas her friend at NYU had to put together a whole application because the program only had a certain amount of spots for each school and NYU had a ton of students that wanted to do it. They also said it meant they were able to work more closely with some of the amazing PI-oriented professors and serve as research assistants or teaching assistants, get letters of rec and so on. Everyone had really great things to say about SJI and the career counseling in their office. They very much stressed that CLS has connections everywhere and that SJI staff would make personal calls to employers they knew in the field, basically be in constant contact with applicants and hold their hands throughout the process. It just seemed like they really go above and beyond. I happened to sit at breakfast with the dean of SJI and a con law professor and they were really warm and easy to talk to.
I got the impression that there is still an aspect of pressure to do OCI, BUT I also think that exists at every school and friends at HLS/other T14 have told me as much. Students that I talked to said it was a conscious choice they had to make for themselves to focus on their PI work but also that they didn't feel judged or left out for doing so.
And like you said, the LRAP is also a major factor. At the moment I am very nervous about going to a school that does not have a government-independent LRAP.
Disclaimer: this is just my personal experience and others may have felt differently. In addition to all the PI-specific stuff, a lot of what made my experience positive was just a sort of general vibe and culture/community feeling that felt similar to my undergrad which I really loved, and made me feel like I would be a good fit at CLS. I also personally prefer Morningside Heights and the more campus feel of Columbia (not to mention cheaper and better housing options) over NYU. And again, those are all things that really depend on the individual.