UT ($) vs Columbia vs NYU Forum

[TripTrip]

If OP wants PI, then NYU sure. Otherwise I think CLS beats out NYU (even if only by a slight margin) on just about every front. At equal cost, wouldn't you pick CLS?

I didn't.

Well, don't keep your reasons to yourself!

[dixiecupdrinking]

If OP wants PI, then NYU sure. Otherwise I think CLS beats out NYU (even if only by a slight margin) on just about every front. At equal cost, wouldn't you pick CLS?

I didn't.

Well, don't keep your reasons to yourself!

Didn't know what I wanted to do, liked strong PI community at NYU because I didn't want to just "default" into corporate work, didn't think it would be any worse for firm jobs, prefer location, liked the people better. Folks I spoke with seemed more excited about school and their careers, CLS students seemed pretty listless in general about going to law firms, as if they had no other options. Small sample size, of course, but I thought it was at least somewhat telling that those were the people who were presumably high enough on CLS to go chat at the admitted students events. Also the school in general just struck me as resting on its laurels a little bit because it could, while NYU still had a sense of trying to be an impressive place on its own merits, not just because "It's Columbia." Don't really know how much that last part really matters in the day to day as a student but it was impressive as an admit.

[JamMasterJ]

Not to derail the *excellent* clerkship discussion, but who in the world is voting NYU here? This is clearly a UT vs. Columbia debate.

People who want a spot in Columbia's class freed up?

I didn't vote, but the difference is fungible enough to say this isn't "clearly" CLS v. UT

If OP wants PI, then NYU sure. Otherwise I think CLS beats out NYU (even if only by a slight margin) on just about every front. At equal cost, wouldn't you pick CLS?

If you want NYC, there's really not a big difference - at that point, go to where makes you happy

[TripTrip]

If OP wants PI, then NYU sure. Otherwise I think CLS beats out NYU (even if only by a slight margin) on just about every front. At equal cost, wouldn't you pick CLS?

I didn't.

Well, don't keep your reasons to yourself!

Didn't know what I wanted to do, liked strong PI community at NYU because I didn't want to just "default" into corporate work, didn't think it would be any worse for firm jobs, prefer location, liked the people better.

Solid reasons. Thanks for the response.

[Elston Gunn]

While you may disagree about a, "objectively" b is true.

By this logic, UMontana has objectively better small firm placement than Harvard. Or, more obviously, by this logic Penn has objectively better big firm placement than Yale. 3% is absolutely nothing. If your school has a few more wannabe corporate lawyers at the top of the class or a few more people who absolutely won't work outside of a major city (as is almost definitely true at CLS and NYU vs. Duke and UVA) then you get a 3% difference from self selection.

It's possible that regional biases of judges or more interested professors actually do mean UVA and Duke have marginally better placement, but it's such a small difference that you really can't say that they actually place better.

[jbagelboy]

While you may disagree about a, "objectively" b is true.

By this logic, UMontana has objectively better small firm placement than Harvard. Or, more obviously, by this logic Penn has objectively better big firm placement than Yale. 3% is absolutely nothing. If your school has a few more wannabe corporate lawyers at the top of the class or a few more people who absolutely won't work outside of a major city (as is almost definitely true at CLS and NYU vs. Duke and UVA) then you get a 3% difference from self selection.

While I agree with your logic in general, jselson has pointed to a consistent 3% delta over several years, not a single class. chalk it up to school culture or self-selection or whatever, but the data is at least somewhat telling about clerking opportunities; I wouldn't say "go to duke over columbia if you want to clerk", but maybe at least if clerking is your main objective, duke is definitely justifiable relative to cls/nyu.

I'm interested in understanding more nuances about these fed clerkships, but naturally data is scarce; for example, are some clerkships (aside from SCOTUS) more prestigious than others (i.e. lead to better positions after)? pay better? do columbia and nyu have lower clerkship numbers because they have larger class sizes and there's more competition in new york/new england (yale/harvard)? Maybe Duke/UVA percentages are higher due to relative plenitude of openings in that region with fewer peer schools? IDK there are a lot of factors here.

[Elston Gunn]

While you may disagree about a, "objectively" b is true.

By this logic, UMontana has objectively better small firm placement than Harvard. Or, more obviously, by this logic Penn has objectively better big firm placement than Yale. 3% is absolutely nothing. If your school has a few more wannabe corporate lawyers at the top of the class or a few more people who absolutely won't work outside of a major city (as is almost definitely true at CLS and NYU vs. Duke and UVA) then you get a 3% difference from self selection.

While I agree with your logic in general, jselson has pointed to a consistent 3% delta over several years, not a single class. chalk it up to school culture or self-selection or whatever, but the data is at least somewhat telling about clerking opportunities; I wouldn't say "go to duke over columbia if you want to clerk", but maybe at least if clerking is your main objective, duke is definitely justifiable relative to cls/nyu.

I'm interested in understanding more nuances about these fed clerkships, but naturally data is scarce; for example, are some clerkships (aside from SCOTUS) more prestigious than others (i.e. lead to better positions after)? pay better? do columbia and nyu have lower clerkship numbers because they have larger class sizes and there's more competition in new york/new england (yale/harvard)? Maybe Duke/UVA percentages are higher due to relative plenitude of openings in that region with fewer peer schools? IDK there are a lot of factors here.

There's a consistent 20% delta between Penn and Yale in big firm placement too. 3% is literally 10 or so more people clerking. I guarantee Columbia has 10 more people at the top of the class that just want to do V10 M&A (and thus have no reason to clerk) than UVA.

[izy223]

Not to derail the *excellent* clerkship discussion, but who in the world is voting NYU here? This is clearly a UT vs. Columbia debate.

People who want a spot in Columbia's class freed up?

I didn't vote, but the difference is fungible enough to say this isn't "clearly" CLS v. UT

If OP wants PI, then NYU sure. Otherwise I think CLS beats out NYU (even if only by a slight margin) on just about every front. At equal cost, wouldn't you pick CLS?

No you visit both schools and you chose based on which school you like better.