Columbia $? v NYU $$$ v Penn $$ v UT $$, etc. for PI Forum

[choosing a ls]

I am interviewing for the Root Tilden Kern scholarship later this week at NYU. If I'm lucky enough to be selected, I will have to make a decision next week. The Root scholarship provides full tuition for all three years. I'm not a big NYC fan...Austin, for instance, is much more appealing...but I think it'd probably be foolish to turn down Root if selected.

I am committed to career in PI, though if I had a lot of debt coming out of school I guess I'd have to think about taking a firm job (PI firm?) for a few years to help pay it down. I'm a couple years out of school, if that matters.

Here's the full list of schools and their offers:
Columbia - no offer as of yet
NYU - assume full tuition, i.e. Root, for purpose of responding to my post
Penn - Toll interview early next month - if selected, $$
UT - $$ substantial scholarship
Georgetown - $
Duke - $
U of M - $
USC - $$ substantial scholarship

Haven't heard back from...
Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Chicago

I have posted a handful of times under another name before but thought I'd start fresh with this question. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Puffy]

I would certainly go with NYU$$$ if I had those options.

[AngryAvocado]

Seriously? This shouldn't even be a question unless you get into Harvard or Stanford. Even then, NYU on a full ride might be TCR.

[los blancos]

Seriously? This shouldn't even be a question unless you get into Harvard or Stanford. Even then, NYU on a full ride might be TCR.

/thread. the only caveat i would throw in is if you visit NYU and hate it, or you absolutely fall in love with Penn or Columbia for some reason.

[ravens20]

Since you are interested in public interest, NYU is at least worth looking at without any money. They have a dedicated public interest office, host the public interest job fair that all New York schools go to (which forces employers to give interviews to NYU students), give you money for public interest work in both your 1L and 2L summers, and have a great LRAP (which could still be helpful in paying off money you have to borrow for cost of living).

Throw in the full scholarship, and it should be a no-brainer.

[los blancos]

Now that I think about it, the fact that OP doesn't like NYC might throw a rut into this (just because NYU's placement is so heavily NYC). That said, I still think NYU is TCR if you he/she gets the Root. Good luck, I'm pulling for ya!

[Puffy]

OP might not like NYC but who would go to UT instead of CLS, NYU or maybe even Penn, unless there is some extremely compelling reason for Texas?

Plus NYC might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's still hell of a lot better than Philadelphia if you value your life.

[TaiRuiJin]

Three years is a good chunk of your life, and during that time you will be defining your self and a lot of your views about the world (and the law, of course). If you're in a place that you aren't comfortable or don't enjoy, it may affect your outlook on a life and career in the law. The $$$ from NYU seems like a great option, but if you get similar money from another great school and you think you'd like it better there, don't let the apparent logic of NYU boss you around.

[choosing a ls]

This is all very helpful. And I don't mean to cut it off, just to say thanks for weighing in. I haven't really had anyone to bounce this question off of, let alone others who face/have faced a similar decision.

I think I'd learn to like NYC. I think being tuition-debt free is big (assuming Root, which I know is a big assumption). I think NYU will lead to PI jobs more readily than UT. All these lead me to NYU. Without the Root or Toll scholarship, it's more wide open and I probably lean UT, and would look again at the others.

I'm assuming if I haven't heard from Harvard at this point I'm probably out, and I was never very into Stanford or Chicago, so those don't weigh much in this decision.

[Alexandria]

3L at Mich here. (6 weeks until graduation!)

I'd say NYU with a full ride for sure. Give yourself the breathing room to make your career choices without worrying about money or about the particular details of your school's LRAP. And it's a great school, and I doubt you'll be trapped in NYC, even if their pull is the strongest there. Outside of NYC, it seems like NYU is more of a UVA/Boalt/Penn/Michigan, so you will still have plenty of opportunities.

I wouldn't go to UT thinking you're going to get a job in Austin. I agree that it's an amazing city. But so do tons and tons of UT grads, which is what makes job placement there hard. If you are committed to working in Texas, regardless of which city, UT is a great option, even over T14 schools. If you prefer to keep your options more open, Columbia/NYU/Penn/Mich and probably Duke are better choices.

Again with USC... I wouldn't pick it unless you want to work in California. Then, if it's a lot of $$, it's worth serious consideration.

If you don't get the full ride from NYU, and NYC isn't your cup of tea, I don't know. I honestly don't think that outside of NYC, it has any added value over UVA/Boalt/Penn/Mich, as I said above. Columbia is a great school, and it probably does have some added value, but you have to decide if it's worth it to you and if you think you would thrive in that environment. Like I was always more interested in UVA/Mich/Duke than anything but HYS, because I just thought escaping the hassles of big city life for 3 years (since I knew I'd be going right back to a big city afterward) sounded really nice, plus the reputations of the atmospheres of those schools and their student bodies were much more appealing to me. If you pick a higher ranked school but don't thrive there bc it's not a place you'd be happy, you're worse off than going to a slightly lower ranked school and doing well (not that this is very predictable, just something to think about).

[Lawlcat]

A full ride strikes me as a trump card unless you get in at Yale or something. In that case, I guess it'd come down to whether you wanted to do NY biglaw or academics/a ping-pong ball in the ruling the world lottery.

If the full scholarship does not come through, I wouldn't really consider myself able to answer without knowing more about what you want to do and where you want to do it. (If you're more academically-inclined: what you want to study.)

The only other note I would add would be that, given that law is something of a prestige-whore profession, there might be reason to be skeptical of USC or UT. I've heard them spoken of very highly, but outside of their regional markets it's possible that they wouldn't give you the same name-boost that the others would.

[EDIT: Actually, I was thinking of UCLA ... I admit I cannot recall hearing USC discussed, either positively or negatively.]