Columbia (MSRP) vs. Michigan ($$) Forum

[Ti Malice]

On the west coast, Columbia commands mad respect. It's definitely Harvard-level.

Really? I never got that impression from my Cali friends. They make it sound like Berkeley trails only S (in front), H, and Y in the popular imagination out there. For law schools, that is. Throw in Princeton for undergrad, and Cal Tech for those who remember that it exists. Then everyone else is a ways back and kind of meh. At least that's how they've described it.

Anyway, something to keep in mind if you start having completely irrational thoughts again: if you somehow managed to stay on a 10-year repayment plan for CLS, you would ultimately pay ~$315K more with interest included than you would for Michigan. (Remember that most of your CLS debt will grow at 7.9% annually versus 6.8% for most of your Michigan debt.) Michigan comes to a little over $950 per month for 10 years. Very manageable. CLS, on the other hand, would require monthly payments of a little under $3,600 per month on a 10-year repayment plan.

[bizzybone1313]

On the west coast, Columbia commands mad respect. It's definitely Harvard-level.

Really? I never got that impression from my Cali friends. They make it sound like Berkeley trails only S (in front), H, and Y in the popular imagination out there. For law schools, that is. Throw in Princeton for undergrad, and Cal Tech for those who remember that it exists. Then everyone else is a ways back and kind of meh. At least that's how they've described it.

Anyway, something to keep in mind if you start having completely irrational thoughts again: if you somehow managed to stay on a 10-year repayment plan for CLS, you would ultimately pay ~$315K more with interest included than you would for Michigan. (Remember that most of your CLS debt will grow at 7.9% annually versus 6.8% for most of your Michigan debt.) Michigan comes to a little over $950 per month for 10 years. Very manageable. CLS, on the other hand, would require monthly payments of a little under $3,600 per month on a 10-year repayment plan.

That's very interesting. Why would the interest rates be different for Michigan vs Columbia? 6.8% vs 7.9%? I have never heard that before. Why would they be different depending on the school?

[Lavitz]

That's very interesting. Why would the interest rates be different for Michigan vs Columbia? 6.8% vs 7.9%? I have never heard that before. Why would they be different depending on the school?

Because you can only take out up to $20,500 per year in the Stafford loans, which have the 6.8% rate. The remainder would be in Grad Plus loans, which carries a 7.9% rate. At Michigan, most of the loans would consist of the former. At Columbia, OP would be taking more in Grad Plus than Stafford.

[born4law]

Why would the interest rates be different for Michigan vs Columbia? 6.8% vs 7.9%? I have never heard that before. Why would they be different depending on the school?

Because there's two tranches of loans.

Tranche 1: Federal Direct Stafford Loans (these carry the 6.8% interest rate but max out at $20,500 per year)

To finance the rest of law school and associated cost of living expenses, you'll need to open a second tranche...

Tranche 2: Federal Direct Graduate PLUS Loan ("GradPLUS" for short, these carry a 7.9% interest rate and have a much higher borrowing cap)

So if you need more than about $60k to finance law school, you need to take out GradPLUS loans.

[laotze]

Just curious to see what the TLS community has to say about these options:

Michigan with a CoA of $83,000

~vs~

Columbia with a CoA of $300,000


CoA details:

• Accounts for all 3 years of law school
• These are all debt-financed figures
• Includes 10-year accumulated interest

Other details:

• These are the only two options (consider all other schools withdrawn/rejected/didn't apply to).
• I've maxed LSAT attempts and will be attending law school this fall (not re-applying).
• I'm not interested in BigLaw.
• I have one narrow passion for a very specific public interest field that both schools have a strong program in.
• I like both Ann Arbor and New York City.
• I want to return to my homestate of California (doing whatever after, just not a stressful job).
• I don't like a cut-throat atmosphere.
• Seriously drunk off the Ivy prestige factor. A true, unabashed sucker for the "I went to Columbia" line.

Our first instinct would be to ask, "Is there a significant difference between the #4-ranked school and the #9?"

Then we would respond, "That's too close to use rankings. Let's be smarter and compare employment outcomes instead."

But then we'd look at our parameters and realize, "Well we don't care about BigLaw so what exactly can we use to compare these two options?"

And that's why I'm asking TLS!

Obviously Michigan. You'd have to be offered a lot more from Columbia to make this even a remotely difficult decision.

[jbagelboy]

On the west coast, Columbia commands mad respect. It's definitely Harvard-level.

Really? I never got that impression from my Cali friends. They make it sound like Berkeley trails only S (in front), H, and Y in the popular imagination out there. For law schools, that is. Throw in Princeton for undergrad, and Cal Tech for those who remember that it exists. Then everyone else is a ways back and kind of meh. At least that's how they've described it.

Anyway, something to keep in mind if you start having completely irrational thoughts again: if you somehow managed to stay on a 10-year repayment plan for CLS, you would ultimately pay ~$315K more with interest included than you would for Michigan. (Remember that most of your CLS debt will grow at 7.9% annually versus 6.8% for most of your Michigan debt.) Michigan comes to a little over $950 per month for 10 years. Very manageable. CLS, on the other hand, would require monthly payments of a little under $3,600 per month on a 10-year repayment plan.

Come on dude. Usually I agree with everything you say, but no cali-bro thinks berkeley undergrad is rly more prestigious than columbia. I knew lots of kids who took Cal over Cornell, WashU, even Penn, but everyone that gets into Columbia goes over Cal. For UG, Columbia is even generally better regarded (and higher ranked) than Stanford. Only HYP can truly claim a lay prestige advantage over Columbia. Sure, the "equal to Harvard" was a stretch, but you are taking the hate too far here. And your depiction of elite UGs is misleading. Ive lived in CA most of my life and no one outside of engineering puts more stock in pasadena than mornigside heights

[jbagelboy]

That being said, Michigan is the obvious choice here. No idea who those votes for CLS are

[Ti Malice]

Come on dude. Usually I agree with everything you say, but no cali-bro thinks berkeley undergrad is rly more prestigious than columbia. I knew lots of kids who took Cal over Cornell, WashU, even Penn, but everyone that gets into Columbia goes over Cal. For UG, Columbia is even generally better regarded (and higher ranked) than Stanford. Only HYP can truly claim a lay prestige advantage over Columbia. Sure, the "equal to Harvard" was a stretch, but you are taking the hate too far here. And your depiction of elite UGs is misleading. Ive lived in CA most of my life and no one outside of engineering puts more stock in pasadena than mornigside heights

Hey man, no hate for Columbia here. I'm not saying that those are my thoughts. I was just relaying impressions from what some Cali friends of mine have said. Sounds like maybe they're exaggerating the homerish tendencies they've encountered among some West Coast folks. (And I should have left Berkeley off for undergrad. It's really Boalt that they've said is held in exaggerated esteem -- as in just a half-step behind Y and H at worst. The Cal Tech comment also came from some who went to grad school at Cal Tech, so no surprises there, apparently.)

[jbagelboy]

Come on dude. Usually I agree with everything you say, but no cali-bro thinks berkeley undergrad is rly more prestigious than columbia. I knew lots of kids who took Cal over Cornell, WashU, even Penn, but everyone that gets into Columbia goes over Cal. For UG, Columbia is even generally better regarded (and higher ranked) than Stanford. Only HYP can truly claim a lay prestige advantage over Columbia. Sure, the "equal to Harvard" was a stretch, but you are taking the hate too far here. And your depiction of elite UGs is misleading. Ive lived in CA most of my life and no one outside of engineering puts more stock in pasadena than mornigside heights

Hey man, no hate for Columbia here. I'm not saying that those are my thoughts. I was just relaying impressions from what some Cali friends of mine have said. Sounds like maybe they're exaggerating the homerish tendencies they've encountered among some West Coast folks. (And I should have left Berkeley off for undergrad. It's really Boalt that they've said is held in exaggerated esteem -- as in just a half-step behind Y and H at worst. The Cal Tech comment also came from some who went to grad school at Cal Tech, so no surprises there, apparently.)

Fair. You're right about boalt. They place themselves in extremely high esteem.. as do CA locals. At ASW they made many comparisons to Harvard.

[kaiser]

This is borderline nonsensical. Of course Michigan.

[LSATSCORES2012]

From your post history, it looks like you're a Michigan summer starter, so you're already about a month in to your first quarter of law school. If this weren't the case, I'd still say that Michigan is definitely the right choice. But if this is the case, then I think you'd be pretty crazy to leave a month into the quarter to pay an extra $220,000 for lay prestige.

Enjoy Hogwarts.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I'm in a foreign country right now, and I've been very much enjoying being able to tell people I'm going to Columbia when they ask. Much more fun than telling people I'm going to UVA (which no one has ever heard of here). That said, if you have no game, like me, then the practical value of the name-dropping is about $5.99 plus tax.

[BigZuck]

On the west coast, Columbia commands mad respect. It's definitely Harvard-level.

Really? I never got that impression from my Cali friends. They make it sound like Berkeley trails only S (in front), H, and Y in the popular imagination out there. For law schools, that is. Throw in Princeton for undergrad, and Cal Tech for those who remember that it exists. Then everyone else is a ways back and kind of meh. At least that's how they've described it.

Anyway, something to keep in mind if you start having completely irrational thoughts again: if you somehow managed to stay on a 10-year repayment plan for CLS, you would ultimately pay ~$315K more with interest included than you would for Michigan. (Remember that most of your CLS debt will grow at 7.9% annually versus 6.8% for most of your Michigan debt.) Michigan comes to a little over $950 per month for 10 years. Very manageable. CLS, on the other hand, would require monthly payments of a little under $3,600 per month on a 10-year repayment plan.

Come on dude. Usually I agree with everything you say, but no cali-bro thinks berkeley undergrad is rly more prestigious than columbia. I knew lots of kids who took Cal over Cornell, WashU, even Penn, but everyone that gets into Columbia goes over Cal. For UG, Columbia is even generally better regarded (and higher ranked) than Stanford. Only HYP can truly claim a lay prestige advantage over Columbia. Sure, the "equal to Harvard" was a stretch, but you are taking the hate too far here. And your depiction of elite UGs is misleading. Ive lived in CA most of my life and no one outside of engineering puts more stock in pasadena than mornigside heights

*AHEM*

Also not that it means a whole hell of a lot but I would say that after HYPS and maybe Columbia there isn't much more prestigious than Cal to a Californian. Maaaaaybe Cal Tech and MIT but that's about it.

OP, Michigan.

[Big Dog]

Also not that it means a whole hell of a lot but I would say that after HYPS and maybe Columbia there isn't much more prestigious than Cal to a Californian.

Only for those with family who grew up in the northeast. Duke, for example, is much more well known to California high schoolers. A third generation Californian would have barely heard of Columbia College. Indeed, there are plenty of (perhaps ignorant) Californians who consider Cal as a peer to Stanford, just as they consider UCLA and 'SC relative peers; the only difference is that one is private and the other public. The private and Ivy cachet is much, much stronger in the NE due to the low quality of its publics, so folks naturally look to the private colleges, including LACs.

Moreover, as far as law schools go, not everyone dreams/drools over the opportunity to live in NYC -- something some/most TLS'ers have trouble comprehending.

[RodneyRuxin]

From your post history, it looks like you're a Michigan summer starter, so you're already about a month in to your first quarter of law school.

So.... OP made the post to have people reassure him he made the right decision?

In that case... Columbia because of the west coast reach that M doesn't have

[born4law]

From your post history, it looks like you're a Michigan summer starter, so you're already about a month in to your first quarter of law school. If this weren't the case, I'd still say that Michigan is definitely the right choice. But if this is the case, then I think you'd be pretty crazy to leave a month into the quarter to pay an extra $220,000 for lay prestige.

Enjoy Hogwarts.

As I said, when you have a chance to contemplate an offer from a school like Columbia, you stop and contemplate for a moment (even for just a second). Good stalking.

I'm in a foreign country right now, and I've been very much enjoying being able to tell people I'm going to Columbia when they ask. Much more fun than telling people I'm going to UVA (which no one has ever heard of here). That said, if you have no game, like me, then the practical value of the name-dropping is about $5.99 plus tax.

You're getting to the heart of the matter. You understand the name-brand factor, but you also admit it's not worth much in the end.

So.... OP made the post to have people reassure him he made the right decision?

No. This wasn't about reassurance. This was a legitimate inquiry (even if the answer may seem obvious). Sometimes asking questions that on their face look obvious leads to deep insight.

[Nelson]

A "name brand" law school isn't worth anything. Nobody cares.