NYU Vanderbilt scholarship v. Yale sticker Forum

[Tiago Splitter]

Yale by a wide margin. If you go to NYU it will always be assumed it was the best school you got in. You can carry around your Yale acceptance and your scholly but it will not make a difference. Your peer group will be NYU. I had similar choices and picked Harvard over the full rides and Y S. I wasn't interested in teaching and believe that the depth and breadth of H is unmatched (happy as a clam). Also a joint MBA left Y out of the mix. Grading at CCN is a crap shoot with absolutely no way to predict how you will do. A named scholly and heaven forbid median grades, which you must assume, is a distant second to Yale. Over a life expectancy of 60 more years the cost difference is meaningless. Hell in NYC lots of parents pay Yale prices to send their kids to 1st and 2nd grade and swear its a good investment.

Bolded isn't true. I feel like this conventional wisdom gets passed on year after year by the TLS masses, most of whom are at/around median and who shout down those who aren't. There are some people who can probably predict that they'll do reasonably ok in law school. People who've had perfect grades since kindergarten and through challenging college classes with written exams (latter bit is rather important) and who actually work hard rather than just rely on talent usually don't flame out once law school starts. Idk if OP is one of these people, but my two cents anyway.

Tell us more about law school grading 0L.

Being able to predict that you will do "reasonably ok" means being able to predict you'll finish around median.

[Pulsar]

Yeah I'm a 2L but enjoy yourself

[Tiago Splitter]

lol. I'm still curious as to what you meant by being able to predict you'll do reasonably ok. BTW nice ninja edit cuz you were way off.

OP I voted NYU.

[timbs4339]

What kind of need based aid are you looking at from Yale?

It doesn't seem like you're committed to PI, but what about a clerkship? Yale's placement into those is extraordinary- a full third and that probably is much lower than the effective percentage who could clerk.

[jumpin munkey]

I think we need a bit more specificity from OP about his goals and about the actual net cost difference after accounting for NYC COL. Maybe some info about the ease with which you can get a non-diversity 1L SA from YLS (assuming OP is not diverse) would help, as that would lop some more money off the difference if you can waltz into those from Yale (but I have no idea if you can).

What's the worst case scenario here if OP goes to Yale? He ends up at Cleary and is paying off $150k that he wouldn't have to when he could've just gone to NYU and ended up at a Ropes and Gray? That's certainly not ideal. Granted, that has to be offset by the small but nonzero chance he strikes out at OCI at NYU, and the chance he would've gone into PI from either school and the cost difference turns out to be very minimal. Plus there is something to be said for paying a "Yale premium" to make 1L less stressful. No grades for one semester and fairy pony grades for the other isn't worth $150k, but I personally would have no problem shelling out several grand for that luxury.

But while these factors might make it a more interesting decision, I still think that you should choose NYU if you just want a firm. There's a difference between the schools there but it's pretty doubtful it's a $150k difference.

[Pulsar]

Yale's providing OP with a better shot at a 1L SA shouldn't be a factor. Yale's best strength among many is probably prestigious PI/niche things, and if OP wants to do those things with all their heart then maybe going for Yale makes sense. But in that case they should probably be doing PI things their 1L summer, not an SA. Getting on the biglaw train during 1L summer of Yale when they could have done so during 2L summer at NYU for $200k less would be a waste.