What's the deal with Harvard students? Forum

[rpupkin]

What's the deal with airplane food?

You're an idiot if you pay sticker for first class.

[MistakenGenius]

You're turning this from advocating a particular position to becoming defensive about your own, intentionally or unintentionally. I don't think anyone's saying - and I'm certainly not - that you made a mistake taking on some added debt many years ago to go to a higher ranked school.

Actually, I think you are saying that. You're suggesting that abl made a mistake but got lucky.

Exactly, you can't judge this with a hindsight bias. Even if ABL is clerking for Ginsberg right now, something I concede HLS at 180K+ more debt would be a good trade off, it's still like 1/100 shot that just happened to pay off.

I could take 40k to the casino and let it roll on black 4 times in a row. That 6% of the time I walk away with my loans paid off and enough money to buy a BMW outright, doesn't make it a good choice.

God, just shut the hell up DF. We get it, you hate your job.

This thread has gone on for about 9 pages too long. If you think someone is making an objectively bad decision going to HYS, you're an idiot. I agree for Biglaw the Hamilton is the objectively BETTER decision, but HYS is still an outcome many would kill for, even for sticker. And you seem to keep forgetting that not everyone wants the shitty biglaw life. If they want academia, then I would say the Hamilton is the objectively worse decision, since you're not getting academia from Columbia.

LSATneurotic, I thought you were banned?

[zombie mcavoy]

anyone want to give a tldr on the last seven pages?

[Fawkes]

It's not "Crushing" to pay it off in 10 years, but you won't get 10 years in biglaw. I tried a 5 year payoff plan and it was too hard. And most don't even make it 5 years. If you go inhouse making 140k a year, yea, that's still okay. But you still are paying a lot of your income for 10 years.

Yeah, if I go the HYS route, I fully expect for the debt repayment to take about 10 years. It is good to consider the debt implications strongly, so I'm glad you're pointing them out. Even my friend who got quite a decent amount of grants from HYS and is about 5 years out is still paying off her debt, so I never thought of HYS debt as something negligible. Granted, she went the PI route instead of BigLaw, so her situation will not apply to a lot of people.

Jumping in front of a bus is a person decision, but it is still stupid. I've never heard one even halfway reasonable situation where HLS is worth 180k in debt more than CLS.

This analogy is misguided. Attending HYS is hardly equivalent to jumping in front of a bus. The choice here depends on your utility function. It may be difficult to understand someone else's utility function, but in the end, it is more rational to maximize your utility rather than your life earnings. I'm not pushing for one choice over the other, which would be silly as I have yet to make my own final decision. I'm just trying to point out that different things matter more to different people. Example: why some people choose high-salary jobs like BigLaw while others choose PI

Financially, choosing the scholarship makes sense in pretty much all cases. However, just as an example, if you know you're going to be miserable choosing Columbia (extreme scenario, I know), then perhaps forking out that giant pile of money is worth it to you.

[Tiago Splitter]

abl's silence makes me think it might actually be blowjob inspector

[rpupkin]

You're turning this from advocating a particular position to becoming defensive about your own, intentionally or unintentionally. I don't think anyone's saying - and I'm certainly not - that you made a mistake taking on some added debt many years ago to go to a higher ranked school.

Actually, I think you are saying that. You're suggesting that abl made a mistake but got lucky.

Exactly, you can't judge this with a hindsight bias. Even if ABL is clerking for Ginsberg right now, something I concede HLS at 180K+ more debt would be a good trade off, it's still like 1/100 shot that just happened to pay off.

I could take 40k to the casino and let it roll on black 4 times in a row. That 6% of the time I walk away with my loans paid off and enough money to buy a BMW outright, doesn't make it a good choice.

God, just shut the hell up DF. We get it, you hate your job.

This thread has gone on for about 9 pages too long. If you think someone is making an objectively bad decision going to HYS, you're an idiot. I agree for Biglaw the Hamilton is the objectively BETTER decision, but HYS is still an outcome many would kill for, even for sticker. And you seem to keep forgetting that not everyone wants the shitty biglaw life. If they want academia, then I would say the Hamilton is the objectively worse decision, since you're not getting academia from Columbia.

This post needed more caps lock and more uses of the adverb "objectively." Those quibbles aside, the substance was objectively dead-on ACCURATE.

[rpupkin]

abl's silence makes me think it might actually be blowjob inspector

Bill Clinton graduated from YLS and basically got such a position. Would his outcome had been the same out of CLS? Doubtful.

[seizmaar]

would you rather clerk for a scotus judge, or appoint one?

[LSATneurotic]

abl's silence makes me think it might actually be blowjob inspector

Bill Clinton graduated from YLS and basically got such a position. Would his outcome had been the same out of CLS? Doubtful.

GO TO LAW SCHOOL BECAUSE CLINTON !! DID! !

[rpupkin]

would you rather clerk for a scotus judge, or appoint one?

False dichotomy. In fact, you can be a scotus judge and also appoint one, though not necessarily in that order. Look at Howard Taft. And did he settle for CLS? No. He went to...er...Cincinnati Law School.

In conclusion, for unicorn jobs it's Cincinnati > Harvard > Columbia. Follow your dreams.

[abl]

You're turning this from advocating a particular position to becoming defensive about your own, intentionally or unintentionally. I don't think anyone's saying - and I'm certainly not - that you made a mistake taking on some added debt many years ago to go to a higher ranked school.

Actually, I think you are saying that. You're suggesting that abl made a mistake but got lucky.

Exactly, you can't judge this with a hindsight bias. Even if ABL is clerking for Ginsberg right now, something I concede HLS at 180K+ more debt would be a good trade off, it's still like 1/100 shot that just happened to pay off.

I could take 40k to the casino and let it roll on black 4 times in a row. That 6% of the time I walk away with my loans paid off and enough money to buy a BMW outright, doesn't make it a good choice.

Sorry if this sounds defensive. For what it's worth, I think y'all the crazy ones -- I'm genuinely amazed that I'm even having to argue this point.

Incidentally, if you think my post justifies my choice because I got lucky, you didn't read it carefully enough. The math in my post justifies the choice regardless of the outcome.

Let me put things another way. The more math-y version of my calculation is as follows*:

[x] = take home salary needed to service [y] debt
[a] = amount of utility [x] salary gives you
= amount of utility gained from working at unicorn job instead of biglaw
[z] = % increase in likelihood of landing unicorn job from attending Harvard instead of Columbia

if [a] < [z] then you should choose Harvard over Columbia.

I assumed [x] = $15,000, the out-of-pocket yearly equivalent of the cost of ([y]=$225,000) in debt.

Further, I assumed [z] = 10%.

Finally, I concluded that the utility gained from working at a unicorn job instead of biglaw was more than 10x the utility [a] gained from earning [x] $15,000 in added disposable income. Therefore, [a] < [z].

I only used myself as an example to add a personal dimension to this and to try to test desert fox's statement that no reasonable person would make this choice. In fact, I believe that most reasonable people who'd prefer not to do biglaw who sat down to apply this calculus in good faith would find that [a] < [z] for debt level [y] between about $100,000 and $300,000--e.g., the choice that many actually have between Harvard and Columbia.

*This is obviously overly simplified. For example, the loss of liquidity that comes with debt has associated negative utility. Similarly, though, the benefits of attending Harvard over Columbia exceed simply the increased probability of landing a unicorn job. My view is that the equation is simplified in such a way to be strongly biased towards choosing Columbia (because I don't think the increased probability of unicorn jobs constitutes even most of the value added by Harvard, whereas the increased disposable income is the primary advantage to choosing Columbia). Also, note, that this assumes that the disposable income benefits of Columbia last exactly as long as the job utility benefits of Harvard--which is almost certainly not true.

[UnicornHunter]

It's not "Crushing" to pay it off in 10 years, but you won't get 10 years in biglaw. I tried a 5 year payoff plan and it was too hard. And most don't even make it 5 years. If you go inhouse making 140k a year, yea, that's still okay. But you still are paying a lot of your income for 10 years.

Yeah, if I go the HYS route, I fully expect for the debt repayment to take about 10 years. It is good to consider the debt implications strongly, so I'm glad you're pointing them out. Even my friend who got quite a decent amount of grants from HYS and is about 5 years out is still paying off her debt, so I never thought of HYS debt as something negligible. Granted, she went the PI route instead of BigLaw, so her situation will not apply to a lot of people.

Jumping in front of a bus is a person decision, but it is still stupid. I've never heard one even halfway reasonable situation where HLS is worth 180k in debt more than CLS.

This analogy is misguided. Attending HYS is hardly equivalent to jumping in front of a bus. The choice here depends on your utility function. It may be difficult to understand someone else's utility function, but in the end, it is more rational to maximize your utility rather than your life earnings. I'm not pushing for one choice over the other, which would be silly as I have yet to make my own final decision. I'm just trying to point out that different things matter more to different people. Example: why some people choose high-salary jobs like BigLaw while others choose PI

Financially, choosing the scholarship makes sense in pretty much all cases. However, just as an example, if you know you're going to be miserable choosing Columbia (extreme scenario, I know), then perhaps forking out that giant pile of money is worth it to you.

How would you know that? I think the general point is that as a 0L you don't have enough information to know how to value the difference in utility between H and C. Given the significant uncertainty involved it makes a lot of sense to hedge your bets by taking the free option.

Imagine 2 wheel of fortune style wheels. They have the same prizes, except that one has one extra panel with a great reward (this is a duplicate of a panel on both wheels, essentially doubling the chances of the great outcome.) you can spin the first wheel for free or pay 150,000k to spin the second wheel. Youd have to be crazy to pay to spin the second wheel.

[seizmaar]

could you appoint yourself to scotus and resign, or is that like autofellatio: seems like a good idea at the time type-of-thing?

[rpupkin]

Let me put things another way. The more math-y version of my calculation is as follows*:

[x] = take home salary needed to service [y] debt
[a] = amount of utility [x] salary gives you
= amount of utility gained from working at unicorn job instead of biglaw
[z] = % increase in likelihood of landing unicorn job from attending Harvard instead of Columbia

if [a] < [z] then you should choose Harvard over Columbia.

I assumed [x] = $15,000, the out-of-pocket yearly equivalent of the cost of ([y]=$225,000) in debt.

Further, I assumed [z] = 10%.

Finally, I concluded that the utility gained from working at a unicorn job instead of biglaw was more than 10x the utility [a] gained from earning [x] $15,000 in added disposable income. Therefore, [a] < [z].

This is amazing.

[seizmaar]

can we all just agree that you're not in a position to weigh your options until you're like 10 years out of law school, and that by that point your ability to judge objectively is completely washed out by what you, behind the shivering veil of ignorance, happened to choose?

[UnicornHunter]

Abl, bullshit that you wouldn't quit whatever job you have for 2 million a year at a big law firm. Or if you wouldn't, you're a huge outlier.

[LSATneurotic]

can we all just agree that you're not in a position to weigh your options until you're like 10 years out of law school, and that by that point your ability to judge objectively is completely washed out by what you, behind the shivering veil of ignorance, happened to choose?

NO. Clinton went to Yale. That means Yale is objectively the best choicr for POTUs, per capita

[seizmaar]

but 50% of clintons who went to YLS utterly failed/will fail to achieve that milestone!

[abl]

I understand if you don't want to say what you do, but unless it's blowjob inspector, I really doubt it's objectively worth 2mil over biglaw. I also doubt HLS makes a unicorn job 10% more likely compared to CLS since it wouldn't unicorn even if the difference was 10% HLS vs 0% CLS.

I just plugged myself into a lifetime earnings calculator. Over my lifetime, I should earn around $16 million. If you're asking me if I think the difference between my current career and the career I would have had is worth making $16 million instead of $18 million, that's an easy "yes" for me. It's worth a hell of a lot more than that over my lifetime. ($25 million? $30 million? It's hard to say -- I make enough money to be able to largely support my desired lifestyle, so there's serious diminishing value to the added earnings.)

And there's no way to objectively value this, because it's entirely based on my relative subjective enjoyment of these two careers. But once again, I don't think I'm particularly out of the ordinary in how much subjective value I place on things like getting to do substantive cutting edge legal work that makes the world a better place instead of doing doc review for an oil company that will largely get re-done by someone else.

[Cogburn87]

Let me put things another way. The more math-y version of my calculation is as follows*:

[x] = take home salary needed to service [y] debt
[a] = amount of utility [x] salary gives you
= amount of utility gained from working at unicorn job instead of biglaw
[z] = % increase in likelihood of landing unicorn job from attending Harvard instead of Columbia

if [a] < [z] then you should choose Harvard over Columbia.

I assumed [x] = $15,000, the out-of-pocket yearly equivalent of the cost of ([y]=$225,000) in debt.

Further, I assumed [z] = 10%.

Finally, I concluded that the utility gained from working at a unicorn job instead of biglaw was more than 10x the utility [a] gained from earning [x] $15,000 in added disposable income. Therefore, [a] < [z].

This is amazing.

It's certainly some pretty damning evidence against economics as a science, at least

[abl]

Abl, bullshit that you wouldn't quit whatever job you have for 2 million a year at a big law firm. Or if you wouldn't, you're a huge outlier.

No I wouldn't. You also have the math wrong. That would be the "break even" point for around $2.25 million in debt, not $225,000 in debt. I agree that probably nobody should go $2.25 million more in debt to attend Harvard than Columbia.

[Desert Fox]

You're turning this from advocating a particular position to becoming defensive about your own, intentionally or unintentionally. I don't think anyone's saying - and I'm certainly not - that you made a mistake taking on some added debt many years ago to go to a higher ranked school.

Actually, I think you are saying that. You're suggesting that abl made a mistake but got lucky.

Exactly, you can't judge this with a hindsight bias. Even if ABL is clerking for Ginsberg right now, something I concede HLS at 180K+ more debt would be a good trade off, it's still like 1/100 shot that just happened to pay off.

I could take 40k to the casino and let it roll on black 4 times in a row. That 6% of the time I walk away with my loans paid off and enough money to buy a BMW outright, doesn't make it a good choice.

God, just shut the hell up DF. We get it, you hate your job.

This thread has gone on for about 9 pages too long. If you think someone is making an objectively bad decision going to HYS, you're an idiot. I agree for Biglaw the Hamilton is the objectively BETTER decision, but HYS is still an outcome many would kill for, even for sticker. And you seem to keep forgetting that not everyone wants the shitty biglaw life. If they want academia, then I would say the Hamilton is the objectively worse decision, since you're not getting academia from Columbia.

LSATneurotic, I thought you were banned?

1) lol 1Ls

2) Legal academia is a stupid reason to pay 180k more for HLS. You are mortgaging your future of a longshot chance at academia before you spend 1 minute in legal academia.

3) Legal academia hiring is dead for a long time. Hiring fell off a cliff now that demand for law school screeched to a hault. HLS only placed 60% as many into academia in 13 than 09. It'll be even less going forward.

4) historically HLS only seems about 2-3 times better at placing academics. But that 2-3 times more people into academia is like 2% of the class population. It's like how second hand smoke doubles your chance of lung cancer, but not to many people are dropping dead from it. Doubling a small number is still small.

[seizmaar]

if your job was that fulfilling you wouldn't be in this damned purgatory with us, bro.

[Tiago Splitter]

I just plugged myself into a lifetime earnings calculator. Over my lifetime, I should earn around $16 million. If you're asking me if I think the difference between my current career and the career I would have had is worth making $16 million instead of $18 million, that's an easy "yes" for me. It's worth a hell of a lot more than that over my lifetime. ($25 million? $30 million? It's hard to say -- I make enough money to be able to largely support my desired lifestyle, so there's serious diminishing value to the added earnings.)

I mean Jesus Christ dude just shut it down. All of your posts involving numbers ITT have been a total disaster.

[abl]

I just plugged myself into a lifetime earnings calculator. Over my lifetime, I should earn around $16 million. If you're asking me if I think the difference between my current career and the career I would have had is worth making $16 million instead of $18 million, that's an easy "yes" for me. It's worth a hell of a lot more than that over my lifetime. ($25 million? $30 million? It's hard to say -- I make enough money to be able to largely support my desired lifestyle, so there's serious diminishing value to the added earnings.)

I mean Jesus Christ dude just shut it down. All of your posts involving numbers ITT have been a total disaster.

Instead of insulting me, why don't you tell me what I got wrong.