Take the money and Run; YS - CCNH? Forum

[exitoptions]

we want to hear about why you would choose a specific school for reasons other than money/employment prospects not about why people do PI

At the time I thought the school had better connections with the Government than the other higher-ranked schools I could have chosen for roughly the same price. That's probably true, but didn't end up mattering much. My original comment was generally in agreement with the spirit of this thread. I would advise keeping debt below $150k at any cost. And I wouldn't advise someone go to a school outside of the top 20 schools or so for any price (even for Gov't / PI work) unless one was guaranteed solid employment afterward.

Edit: To explain, I think the school I went to places prosecutors and honors program ppl exceptionally well. I chose to try for a USAO, which generally requires clerkship and some biglaw, so the early gov't placement mattered less than biglaw + fed clerk placement. The plus side of going to that school is that I have a ton of friends/connections in law enforcement and other government positions, so that should help.

[Kimikho]

Since when is Northwestern an "average" T14?

Not dissing against its rank, more that a lot of people go in already having jobs/have a lot more experience than other schools.

[84651846190]

3.5k/month = 42k a year

minimum wage = ~16k/year

So, after taxes, 80k a year is roughly minimum wage while paying off sticker debt.

This needs to be frame and stickied in the banner of this website.

[tho]

OP is wrong, as usual.

Why would you take the money and run? Are you suggesting it makes more sense to go to DePaul on a full scholarship than Northwestern. That's a pretty dumb decision if you have any interest in actually working as a lawyer.

Just stick to the conventional TLS wisdom: Either Yale on a half scholarship or don't go.

GOOD GOD

[lecsa]

3.5k/month = 42k a year

minimum wage = ~16k/year

So, after taxes, 80k a year is roughly minimum wage while paying off sticker debt.

This needs to be frame and stickied in the banner of this website.

But you're forgetting about that "prestige"

[iliketurtles123]

3.5k/month = 42k a year

minimum wage = ~16k/year

So, after taxes, 80k a year is roughly minimum wage while paying off sticker debt.

Law students in NYC spend about 30k a year on living. That's 72k a year like living as a student IN PRE TAX living. 160k at biglaw is only 96K take home. You basically get an extra 14k over law students. lololoololol

It requires about 118k dollars a year salary. That's what you need to LIVE LIKE A LAW STUDENT.

1. First of all, if 30k is for 9 months, then it costs 40k for 12 months. If you're taking the same ratio (96k/160k = 0.6), then you're getting 67k PRE TAX. Even though ratio isn't the best way, the result is closer to 67k than it is to 72k.

2. You're comparing 72k PRETAX with 96K POST TAX. That's not logical at all. You're supposed to compare 40k a year to 96k a year (actually a 56k difference)..... or 72k a year to 160k (88k difference).
Also, since it's closer to 67k than 72k, it's actually a 60k difference.

3. COL for a lawstudent is not 30k. It's more like 25k living in the most expensive city + 5k bullshit administration fees.

[09042014]

3.5k/month = 42k a year

minimum wage = ~16k/year

So, after taxes, 80k a year is roughly minimum wage while paying off sticker debt.

Law students in NYC spend about 30k a year on living. That's 72k a year like living as a student IN PRE TAX living. 160k at biglaw is only 96K take home. You basically get an extra 14k over law students. lololoololol

It requires about 118k dollars a year salary. That's what you need to LIVE LIKE A LAW STUDENT.

1. First of all, if 30k is for 9 months, then it costs 40k for 12 months. If you're taking the same ratio (96k/160k = 0.6), then you're getting 67k PRE TAX. Even though ratio isn't the best way, the result is closer to 67k than it is to 72k.

2. You're comparing 72k PRETAX with 96K POST TAX. That's not logical at all. You're supposed to compare 40k a year to 96k a year (actually a 56k difference)..... or 72k a year to 160k (88k difference).
Also, since it's closer to 67k than 72k, it's actually a 60k difference.

3. COL for a lawstudent is not 30k. It's more like 25k living in the most expensive city + 5k bullshit administration fees.

1) I took NYU's Room and Board and extended it for the summer to get 30k. Seeing as rent is like 2k a month, I think that's pretty damn low. I dunno how the hell NYU people do it.

2) 72k is the 30k living and 42k loans. Both are already post tax numbers, not pre. 72k to 96k is apples to apples.

3) For a year it is.

[Cicero76]

here we go again

[MikeJD]

Rubenstein at Chicago>>>> Yale at sticker.

[09042014]

Rubenstein at Chicago>>>> Yale at sticker.

No question

[iliketurtles123]

3.5k/month = 42k a year

minimum wage = ~16k/year

So, after taxes, 80k a year is roughly minimum wage while paying off sticker debt.

Law students in NYC spend about 30k a year on living. That's 72k a year like living as a student IN PRE TAX living. 160k at biglaw is only 96K take home. You basically get an extra 14k over law students. lololoololol

It requires about 118k dollars a year salary. That's what you need to LIVE LIKE A LAW STUDENT.

1. First of all, if 30k is for 9 months, then it costs 40k for 12 months. If you're taking the same ratio (96k/160k = 0.6), then you're getting 67k PRE TAX. Even though ratio isn't the best way, the result is closer to 67k than it is to 72k.

2. You're comparing 72k PRETAX with 96K POST TAX. That's not logical at all. You're supposed to compare 40k a year to 96k a year (actually a 56k difference)..... or 72k a year to 160k (88k difference).
Also, since it's closer to 67k than 72k, it's actually a 60k difference.

3. COL for a lawstudent is not 30k. It's more like 25k living in the most expensive city + 5k bullshit administration fees.

1) I took NYU's Room and Board and extended it for the summer to get 30k. Seeing as rent is like 2k a month, I think that's pretty damn low. I dunno how the hell NYU people do it.

2) 72k is the 30k living and 42k loans. Both are already post tax numbers, not pre. 72k to 96k is apples to apples.

3) For a year it is.

I see what you're saying for #2 (got confused with your wording).

If anyone is having trouble understanding: for me, it's easier to compare post tax v. post tax... 96k - 42k (loan payment) = 54k after tax and loan payment
So you make 24k more than a law student post tax (same result as DF's calculation).

...
...for a second I thought about why the hell I'm in law school in the first place
Then I realized I was making 17k post tax last year (not in NYC, but still)

[quijotesca1011]

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[lecsa]

Bad Outcomes -
1.7% full time school jerbs
4.2% - Unemployed
1.4% grad degree
3.5% short term or part time

Quick question completely out of ignorance -- what exactly is included under 'full time school jobs'? Is that school-funded fellowships? And why are those seen as such a 'bad outcome' on TLS? Are they bad even for PI/academia people?

Not this again.

School funded fellowships are bs and aren't real, full time jobs (although USNews for some reason counts it as so and I think LST does as well with an asterisk) since they last at most a year and pay poorly. Most of them are taken by those who didn't get biglaw. If you're going into academia, you don't get a school funded fellowship. As for PI, hiring does take place after graduation but a lot of these school-funded fellowships don't offer anything beyond the ability to volunteer for free at an institution which you could do on your own anyway. It's mainly just a way for schools (like UVA in particular, which boasts something like almost 20% in school funded fellowships) to boost their rankings while offering peanuts to their grads for at most a year.

[quijotesca1011]

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[quijotesca1011]

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[Cicero76]

But if you read PI threads on here, one of the main reasons people support going to Yale for PI is because of their school-funded fellowships. Are those fellowships unique because it's Yale? For me looking at post-grad fellowships was a major thing that made certain schools (in my case YH/NYU) appealing.

I thought the thing with PI was that since so many places aren't hiring, fellowships give you the opportunity to gain professional experience and get a foot in the door (i.e., you can't just do it on your own in the sense that most people can't volunteer for free out of school, but a fellowship enables them to work at an organization that couldn't afford to hire them?)

I could see as a big law backup it's kind of gaming the rankings, but for PI it seems like a good alternative when hiring is practically frozen.

Yale's PI fellowships pay between $40-60k, have full benefits, and generally result in a full time job at the place you get them within one year. They also are available only to "prestigious" employers that Yale deems acceptable, like the State Department, NGOs, etc. So yes, they are more desirable than making $15 per hour shelving files in the admissions office at GW. They also come with full COAP coverage, meaning that during the fellowship your loan payments are being made for you (to the extent that COAP covers them, idk the exact cutoff tiers).

[quijotesca1011]

...

[worldtraveler]

Also I have a hard time believing you can swing a PI fellowship at a top school after gunning for big law and failing, they seem like they'd be pretty competitive?

Depends on the school and the fellowship.

[jbagelboy]

Also I have a hard time believing you can swing a PI fellowship at a top school after gunning for big law and failing, they seem like they'd be pretty competitive?

Depends on the school and the fellowship.

Exactly. For example, CLS has some very competitive post-grad PI fellowships that require good grades (better than to get a random market paying firm), recs and PI credentials... a few others are just the base $25,000/year gigs for people who didn't do OCI and gunned hard for gov to no avail or couldn't get anything together by 3L. So it's tough to parse through the data and see what's a good outcome or not at top schools.

I'd say generally, the lower the school funded rate the better - unless it implies a correspondingly higher underemployed rate. It's technically true that you should take the school offering fellowships as a good sign since it's a strong alternative to unemployment, you just don't want to see too many people having to take them.

[iliketurtles123]

Also I have a hard time believing you can swing a PI fellowship at a top school after gunning for big law and failing, they seem like they'd be pretty competitive?

Depends on the school and the fellowship.

Exactly. For example, CLS has some very competitive post-grad PI fellowships that require good grades (better than to get a random market paying firm), recs and PI credentials... a few others are just the base $25,000/year gigs for people who didn't do OCI and gunned hard for gov to no avail or couldn't get anything together by 3L. So it's tough to parse through the data and see what's a good outcome or not at top schools.

I'd say generally, the lower the school funded rate the better - unless it implies a correspondingly higher underemployed rate. It's technically true that you should take the school offering fellowships as a good sign since it's a strong alternative to unemployment, you just don't want to see too many people having to take them.

Also, it's somewhat informative if you look on LSN or a school's page and see that they had very little school funded positions before the recession, but now have doubled or tripled the rate.

I think all law schools have increased school funded positions but you can tell which ones have had the biggest increase. Also, if a school is not known for PI, it's more likely the position is less than legit.

Well, that's what I'm getting at.

[cotiger]

This digression about school-funded jobs changes absolutely nothing. Sticker is still stupid.

[Pulsar]

I would be mortified to end up $300k in debt and working a glorified school-run internship someplace at $40k/year. (Inb4 LIPP solves all the problems).

Also lol @ this "You'll only end up $150k in debt unless your parents are rich" idea. Lots of families are comparatively well off to the point where they will get zero aid from HYS and yet they still won't be able to contribute much to law school. Alternatively, they might just have the completely rational view that maybe they should stop supporting their adult children before they are near thirty. Aid will soften the blow for a lot of people, but not nearly everyone.

[phillywc]

This is true for most people. I don't know if its true for splitters, who can maybe land some decent t14s but not get huge money anywhere. Sticker at CCN is a better option than 40-50k at Vandy or something.

[twenty 8]

Not a shocker, there are a lot of grads at tier-2 schools being hired at good firms making six-figures. The trick is to be accepted at a tier-2 on a full ride (or close to it). To do that one must leverage her or his stats and walk from the T-14 sticker (or a minimal scholly).

If a JD COA costs you more than 25K, you are doing it all wrong. Imagine on payday that you get to keep all of your paycheck.... that thought needs to supplant everything else.

[phillywc]

Not a shocker, there are a lot of grads at tier-2 schools being hired at good firms making six-figures. The trick is to be accepted at a tier-2 on a full ride (or close to it). To do that one must leverage her or his stats and walk from the T-14 sticker (or a minimal scholly).

If a JD COA costs you more than 25K, you are doing it all wrong. Imagine on payday that you get to keep all of your paycheck.... that thought needs to supplant everything else.

That's really not true. How many T2s have more than 10% landing big law? Those just aren't good odds, even with a full scholly.