NYU (presumably sticker) vs Duke (1/3 scholarship) Forum

[mr.hands]

Lol no. Don't lump PI, biglaw, and fed clerkships togeter. Thats misleading and not nearly as inormative as looking at each separately. Duke sends more to biglaw and federal clerkships than NYU. NYU sends a lot more into PI (and has a better LRAP)

Plus duke is 30k+ cheaper at sticker.

[JamMasterJ]

Lol no. Don't lump PI, biglaw, and fed clerkships togeter. Thats misleading and not nearly as inormative as looking at each separately. Duke sends more to biglaw and federal clerkships than NYU. NYU sends a lot more into PI (and has a better LRAP)

Plus duke is 30k+ cheaper at sticker.

In a risk analysis, it makes sense to consider all of those sources of jobs generally equal. PI and Gov are basically guaranteed LRAP at NYU, Fed Clerks are prety much a lock for biglaw if they want it, and then biglaw is high paying enough to pay off the debt. We may be arguing different things, but my sense of the conversation was "which situation gives you the best chance at not being fucked?"

[smaug_]

Although I agree with some of what you're saying JMJ, I think you're double counting the school funded category. (I would guess that some of the PI stuff is school funded.) If you look at rayiner's un/underemployment charts, it looks like Duke and NYU were pretty close. I think it might be interesting to see how those schools performed for c/o 2012, but I also think that we're talking about a serious amount of money here.

I'm not sure what I'd do if I were OP. I'd probably go with Duke, but I'm not PI or bust. If OP has the resume to be competitive for PI, NYU might be the best option. If it is "any job that'll allow OP to pay back the debt" I think I'd go with Duke.

[JamMasterJ]

Although I agree with some of what you're saying JMJ, I think you're double counting the school funded category. (I would guess that some of the PI stuff is school funded.) If you look at rayiner's un/underemployment charts, it looks like Duke and NYU were pretty close. I think it might be interesting to see how those schools performed for c/o 2012, but I also think that we're talking about a serious amount of money here.

I'm not sure what I'd do if I were OP. I'd probably go with Duke, but I'm not PI or bust. If OP has the resume to be competitive for PI, NYU might be the best option. If it is "any job that'll allow OP to pay back the debt" I think I'd go with Duke.

I think I didn't explain myself correctly. I was saying that there's about a 14% point difference in "desirable" jobs between the schools. NYU is about 7% more school funded than Duke. If all the school funded jobs are actually being counted in the "desirable" category (an assumption that I'm not 100% sure we can make), then there's still about a 7% difference in "desirable" jobs. I'm not double counting there, I'm subtracting the difference (at least if my shitty math skills are correct here).

[smaug_]

Although I agree with some of what you're saying JMJ, I think you're double counting the school funded category. (I would guess that some of the PI stuff is school funded.) If you look at rayiner's un/underemployment charts, it looks like Duke and NYU were pretty close. I think it might be interesting to see how those schools performed for c/o 2012, but I also think that we're talking about a serious amount of money here.

I'm not sure what I'd do if I were OP. I'd probably go with Duke, but I'm not PI or bust. If OP has the resume to be competitive for PI, NYU might be the best option. If it is "any job that'll allow OP to pay back the debt" I think I'd go with Duke.

I think I didn't explain myself correctly. I was saying that there's about a 14% point difference in "desirable" jobs between the schools. NYU is about 7% more school funded than Duke. If all the school funded jobs are actually being counted in the "desirable" category (an assumption that I'm not 100% sure we can make), then there's still about a 7% difference in "desirable" jobs. I'm not double counting there, I'm subtracting the difference (at least if my shitty math skills are correct here).

Oh sorry, yeah I'd agree. I misread you there for a bit. Still, you think 7% is worth that much? I mean, that's what we're ultimately talking about here. (That and probably better PI/better firms for the top end.)

[JamMasterJ]

Although I agree with some of what you're saying JMJ, I think you're double counting the school funded category. (I would guess that some of the PI stuff is school funded.) If you look at rayiner's un/underemployment charts, it looks like Duke and NYU were pretty close. I think it might be interesting to see how those schools performed for c/o 2012, but I also think that we're talking about a serious amount of money here.

I'm not sure what I'd do if I were OP. I'd probably go with Duke, but I'm not PI or bust. If OP has the resume to be competitive for PI, NYU might be the best option. If it is "any job that'll allow OP to pay back the debt" I think I'd go with Duke.

I think I didn't explain myself correctly. I was saying that there's about a 14% point difference in "desirable" jobs between the schools. NYU is about 7% more school funded than Duke. If all the school funded jobs are actually being counted in the "desirable" category (an assumption that I'm not 100% sure we can make), then there's still about a 7% difference in "desirable" jobs. I'm not double counting there, I'm subtracting the difference (at least if my shitty math skills are correct here).

Oh sorry, yeah I'd agree. I misread you there for a bit. Still, you think 7% is worth that much? I mean, that's what we're ultimately talking about here. (That and probably better PI/better firms for the top end.)

I think at that level of debt from both schools, probably, but there is definitely a case to be made the other way. In OPs case, I think there's more reason to choose NYU, and when you add the fact that Duke doesn't really have a solid primary market and NY is further along in the recovery than other markets, I would say that NYU edges Duke out.

[BruceWayne]

Public interest (excluding DOJ/SEC) is about having a demonstrated interest (through internships, clinics, probono, coursework etc.) and connecting with people in the PI community you are interested in working in. Thus you should look at the physical location of the PI jobs you are interested in working in. If one school allows you to be in the same area as where you want to work then go there (or if one of the schools is particularly strong in the region you want to work i.e Duke if you want to work in the Southeast or I assume NYU if you want to work in say Delaware or Boston). If not then go to Duke.

If you're talking about DOJ etc. they care about grade, grades, and whether you go to HYS. That means go to the cheaper school--Duke.

The last part is not correct. I did SLIP in ATR and the class was quite diverse. There was a duke student, a UVA student, 3 or 4 Michigan students, one from Georgetown, and someone from a lower tier 3. HYS sent one student combined to ATR I believe. Public interest and interest in the subject matter are important.

It is 100 percent correct. You just misunderstood my post. I'm not saying that you have to go to HYS. What I'm saying is that HYS are the only schools where you don't have to be at the very top of the class to get DOJ. They love hiring UVA, Duke, Michigan, GULC and whatever students--as long as those students are in the top 10 percent of their class and on law review.

And anyone thinking there is a significant difference between Duke and NYU for getting a job is spending too much time on here and reading US News. Outside of the big NYC firms there's no difference. For getting a pi job, unless you're talking about one in NYC ( and even that will have more to do with networking opportunities) there is definitely no difference. PI employer don't turn people down for having attended Duke over NYU.

[Yukos]

Public interest (excluding DOJ/SEC) is about having a demonstrated interest (through internships, clinics, probono, coursework etc.) and connecting with people in the PI community you are interested in working in. Thus you should look at the physical location of the PI jobs you are interested in working in. If one school allows you to be in the same area as where you want to work then go there (or if one of the schools is particularly strong in the region you want to work i.e Duke if you want to work in the Southeast or I assume NYU if you want to work in say Delaware or Boston). If not then go to Duke.

If you're talking about DOJ etc. they care about grade, grades, and whether you go to HYS. That means go to the cheaper school--Duke.

The last part is not correct. I did SLIP in ATR and the class was quite diverse. There was a duke student, a UVA student, 3 or 4 Michigan students, one from Georgetown, and someone from a lower tier 3. HYS sent one student combined to ATR I believe. Public interest and interest in the subject matter are important.

It is 100 percent correct. You just misunderstood my post. I'm not saying that you have to go to HYS. What I'm saying is that HYS are the only schools where you don't have to be at the very top of the class to get DOJ. They love hiring UVA, Duke, Michigan, GULC and whatever students--as long as those students are in the top 10 percent of their class and on law review.

And anyone thinking there is a significant difference between Duke and NYU for getting a job is spending too much time on here and reading US News. Outside of the big NYC firms there's no difference. For getting a pi job, unless you're talking about one in NYC ( and even that will have more to do with networking opportunities) there is definitely no difference. PI employer don't turn people down for having attended Duke over NYU.

0L alert, but isn't SLIP hiring completely unrelated to Honors hiring? I thought summer employment in SLIP very rarely translated to post-graduation full-time positions. If that's true, what ATR SLIP's class looked like tells us little about what Honors will hire.

Please correct my ignorant 0L ass.

[bdubs]

0L alert, but isn't SLIP hiring completely unrelated to Honors hiring? I thought summer employment in SLIP very rarely translated to post-graduation full-time positions. If that's true, what ATR SLIP's class looked like tells us little about what Honors will hire.

Please correct my ignorant 0L ass.

There aren't a huge number of datapoints to go off of, but I think you are much more likely to be hired into the honors program if you did SLIP or at least a volunteer internship. I know of several people at DOJ who at least did a split or internship.

I think the information you're going off is that SLIP is generally much larger than the incoming honors class, so it's by no means any sort of guaranteed path to employment.

[Bosque]

thanks for all the responses guys. to get more info out there, duke is offering 54k, and nyu is offering nothing at all. i'll try to negotiate but i dont know how far that would go. i'm absolutely committed to public service, which makes this tough - the scholarship matters, but nyu's resources do too.

what makes this slightly more complicated is that my public service interests revolve more around capitol hill and government. does either school have an advantage when it comes to DC / political jobs? can't quite figure that out.

thanks again for all of your input!!

I don't know if NYU has a similar program, but Duke has the Duke in DC program which is made for people like you. During either 2L or 3L year if you want to the school will help you get an internship in DC and you can work up here for a semester. I don't know that it is a real advantage when it comes to getting a job, but it is certainly good experience. And a good way to demonstrate your seriousness to employers.

If you have not talked to Dean Bart yet, I would before you make a decision. She can tell you a lot about the program, and about the Pro Bono/public interest offerings in general at Duke.

[mr.hands]

What school did you choose?