vanderbilt versus columbia/nyu Forum

[somewhatwayward]

i am in at vanderbilt with 81K and columbia and nyu. i was really blown away by vanderbilt's ASW, and i have strong personal reasons for wanting to spend some time in nashville (although not to live there for the rest of my life). how portable is a vanderbilt degree, though? the career services person assured me it was very portable, but i know it is not on the level of columbia. would a firm throw out an app from VLS without even looking at it (i've heard some firms won't hire any non-t-14 grads?)

the money is tempting, but i won't be taking loans for LS anyway, so it's not a major consideration.

i am interested in doing a clerkship, and i know CLS is better for that. is that partially bc CLS students are more interested in doing them?

would it matter to either firms or judges hiring clerks that i was PBK at HYP (would that mitigate the fact that VLS is not T-14)?

[thickfreakness]

If you're not paying I think it'd be really tough to turn down Columbia here. Vandy is a great place, no doubt, but it's tough to choose over CLS, especially with your career goals.

[Borachio05]

i am in at vanderbilt with 81K and columbia and nyu. i was really blown away by vanderbilt's ASW, and i have strong personal reasons for wanting to spend some time in nashville (although not to live there for the rest of my life). how portable is a vanderbilt degree, though? the career services person assured me it was very portable, but i know it is not on the level of columbia. would a firm throw out an app from VLS without even looking at it (i've heard some firms won't hire any non-t-14 grads?)

the money is tempting, but i won't be taking loans for LS anyway, so it's not a major consideration.

i am interested in doing a clerkship, and i know CLS is better for that. is that partially bc CLS students are more interested in doing them?

would it matter to either firms or judges hiring clerks that i was PBK at HYP (would that mitigate the fact that VLS is not T-14)?

Wow. If money is really no obstacle for you then, yes, you should definitely take Columbia up on their offer. In my opinion, you'd have to be a little crazy not to.

However, you should still know that Vanderbilt has excellent lay prestige and great national reach. If you work hard there's no reason why a Vandy degree couldn't land you a job in New York, California, or Texas. You mention that you have strong personal reasons for possibly wanting to stay in Tennessee, so I suppose it's up to you to determine how much something like that means to you.

[kittenmittons]

CLS.

PBK from HYP will not overcome the discrepancy between CLS and VULS.

[Borachio05]

PBK from HYP will not overcome the discrepancy between CLS and VULS.

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "PBK" and "HYP"?

[Z3RO]

Actually, I thought that Columbia sort of underachieved on clerkships compared to Chicago/NYU recently, precisely because students self-select into biglaw.

I wouldn't pass up Columbia, but I'm sort of smitten, and I'm no southern boy.

[Tofu]

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "PBK" and "HYP"?

phi beta kappa

harvard yale princeton ug

[somewhatwayward]

it is not that money dosn't matter at all, but it is being lent to me by a family member rather than a bank. i will have to pay it back but not on as strict of a schedule.

thanks for the input, guys. i guess the concensus is definitely CLS over VLS? i saw a guy who turned HLS down for a full ride at VLS.

PBK = phi beta kappa, HYP = harvard, yale, or princeton

[kittenmittons]

it is not that money dosn't matter at all, but it is being lent to me by a family member rather than a bank. i will have to pay it back but not on as strict of a schedule.

thanks for the input, guys. i guess the concensus is definitely CLS over VLS? i saw a guy who turned HLS down for a full ride at VLS.

PBK = phi beta kappa, HYP = harvard, yale, or princeton

A full-ride + stipend is totally different

[Borachio05]

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "PBK" and "HYP"?

phi beta kappa

harvard yale princeton ug

Thanks! You TLS people have so many damn acronyms

While we're at it, what's "TITCR" mean? "This Is The Correst Response"?

[djgoldbe]

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "PBK" and "HYP"?

phi beta kappa

harvard yale princeton ug

Thanks! You TLS people have so many damn acronyms

While we're at it, what's "TITCR" mean? "This Is The Correct Response"?

Credited Response technically. More or less the same as correct.

Edit: Guess I'll chime in to the OP's concern. I think it also matters what your career ambitions are. Since you are still going to be paying (albeit to a family member rather than a bank) you are still going to have a decent amount of pressure to go for a private firm job rather than Gov't / PI (and most clerkships for that matter) in order to pay back your debt. I guess that depends on your personal family situation - but I know that I would still feel pressured if I had loans from a family member.

[somewhatwayward]

it is not that money dosn't matter at all, but it is being lent to me by a family member rather than a bank. i will have to pay it back but not on as strict of a schedule.

thanks for the input, guys. i guess the concensus is definitely CLS over VLS? i saw a guy who turned HLS down for a full ride at VLS.

PBK = phi beta kappa, HYP = harvard, yale, or princeton

A full-ride + stipend is totally different

the person will still have to overcome having VLS on their resume rather than HLS...do you think that makes less than $150,000 difference over the entire career?

[kittenmittons]

it is not that money dosn't matter at all, but it is being lent to me by a family member rather than a bank. i will have to pay it back but not on as strict of a schedule.

thanks for the input, guys. i guess the concensus is definitely CLS over VLS? i saw a guy who turned HLS down for a full ride at VLS.

PBK = phi beta kappa, HYP = harvard, yale, or princeton

A full-ride + stipend is totally different

the person will still have to overcome having VLS on their resume rather than HLS...do you think that makes less than $150,000 difference over the entire career?

Depends career on the goals and risk tolerance of the individual

[sam.emton]

For the record, several people at Vanderbilt turn down Harvard every year to go to Vandy with a scholarship. Most of them are doing quite well (firm jobs lined up in DC, NYC, or whereever they want).

Vanderbilt has 41 clerks this year....our of a class of 195 or so, that's a pretty good ratio. Most of them are federal but some state supreme courts.

Finally, the way I see it, coming from a school that doesn't send the majority of its students to NYC every year can be an advantage. If you have 350 Columbia kids trying to get jobs in NYC, whereas 35 Vanderbilt kids (because so many people at Vanderbilt want to stay in the southeast or return to their home markets in St. Louis, Texas, Atlanta, etc.) want to get a job in NYC. It's a lot less competition with your peers for the same job openings.

Vanderbilt had 2 S&C offers this past year, so elite firms definitely aren't closed to Vanderbilt students, but you'd have to do quite well there.

[observationalist]

For the record, several people at Vanderbilt turn down Harvard every year to go to Vandy with a scholarship. Most of them are doing quite well (firm jobs lined up in DC, NYC, or whereever they want).

Vanderbilt has 41 clerks this year....our of a class of 195 or so, that's a pretty good ratio. Most of them are federal but some state supreme courts.

Finally, the way I see it, coming from a school that doesn't send the majority of its students to NYC every year can be an advantage. If you have 350 Columbia kids trying to get jobs in NYC, whereas 35 Vanderbilt kids (because so many people at Vanderbilt want to stay in the southeast or return to their home markets in St. Louis, Texas, Atlanta, etc.) want to get a job in NYC. It's a lot less competition with your peers for the same job openings.

Vanderbilt had 2 S&C offers this past year, so elite firms definitely aren't closed to Vanderbilt students, but you'd have to do quite well there.

My friends who have turned down HLS to come here have also done very well for themselves. Having a HYP UG and Vandy as your law school is usually enough to impress employers, particularly those at the very top of the pecking order.

I will say the HYP kids who come here are the most fun HYP people I've met. Some of the self-selection is probably wanting to enjoy a fun city with a lot of cheap, excellent music and good weather for three years. That said, both Columbia and NYU will offer national placement opportunities for a larger percentage of their class than Vanderbilt's. Right now somewhat more than half of the NYU 2Ls have market-paying firm jobs for the summer, and that number is probably 40% at best for Vandy. NYU also gets you into more prestigious NY firms with a lower class-rank than what you'd need from Vandy, so if you wanted NY for biglaw I would say head there unless your personal reasons are strong enough to keep you in Nashville.

Our clerkship placement, however, is at an all-time high for us. Vanderbilt has a lot of well-established relationships with federal judges in the 4th-7th circuits who prefer to hire Vanderbilt grads. We also nabbed our first Chief Justice SCOTUS clerk this year with Roberts picking up an '05 grad. It will be interesting to see how other schools have fared, and whether more Columbia/NYU students are pursuing clerkships as well.