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This is a bit premature because I haven't been awarded the scholarship yet, but I want to start thinking about it because of the quick turn-around required by NYU. I'm in at Harvard and am a finalist for the IILJ program at NYU--(usually) full tuition + funded LL.M. year + internships/mentoring, etc.

If NYU offers the full scholarship, I would be looking at ~45k debt from NYU (maybe more if I did the LL.M.?) and ~185k from Harvard.

As you might guess, I want to research and write about int'l law. I'm interested in clerking, academia, int'l public interest work, and government. I'm not very interested in working for a big firm (I go back and forth about whether I could do it for a couple of years to pay debt). Both schools have cultures I find appealing and I like both cities. I'm not in this for the money, but it is important to me that I be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living, so the debt is a bit intimidating. On the other hand, I'm concerned that turning down Harvard may be a mistake for someone with my interests.

I don't think there is one correct answer here (hence the lack of a poll), but I'm interested in getting some outside thoughts. What would you do, why, what sort of person is best off doing what?

P.S. I recognize how lucky I am to (possibly) have this decision and hope this post didn't come off as arrogant/entitled. Thanks!

What you publish is more important that whether you go to H over NYU. At NYU you won't have the debt hanging over you, which I think will give you a psychological advantage as you look for topics and write publishable articles. You will be able to consider an academic career more seriously this way.

I'm a similar position -- Stanford vs. NYU IILJ (if I get it. Not to sound smarmy, but why pay money to fly out finalists if you weren't at least seriously interested in them?).

Here's the thing -- I want to think a lot about what life would be like at these law schools because my happiness will probably determine how well I'll do in law school. So I'm trying to not really consider this whole debate until I attend the ASWs. I'm also concerned about NYUs size and the significant drop in name recognition/job opportunities from Stanford (though I'm not sure if this is all in my / TLS's head). Also, I'm unclear on how useful NYU's LRAP actually is -- is a 200k debt load from Stanford with the LRAP significantly worse in terms of monthly payments than a 60k debt load from NYU? I'm not sure -- I also really need to ask these questions at the ASW.

I'm giving this thread a bump because the IILJ introduction is tomorrow and Thursday and I'm curious about what other IILJ hopefuls have to say.