Brooklyn vs. CUNY (Full Scholarship) Forum

[polkadotred]

Any advice much appreciated.

Brooklyn is Tier 1. I would have to pay full tuition however.

CUNY is Tier 4 but I have a full scholarship. Going in I would have LSAT and GPA far above the top 75% of the class, presumably meaning I would be at the top of the class without too much effort.

My question--is Brooklyn worth the $46,610 tuition? Would it be better to graduate from Brooklyn middle of the class with debt or CUNY at the very top of the class with no debt? (this is of course a guess)

Graduating I would probably want to work at a firm for two years max. for the resume before moving on to something different. I do not in any way want the NYC work-is-your-life-attached-to-my-BB routine, but I also do not think I will take the Public Interest route.

Thanks in advance.

[Justathought]

Any advice much appreciated.

Brooklyn is Tier 1. I would have to pay full tuition however.

CUNY is Tier 4 but I have a full scholarship. Going in I would have LSAT and GPA far above the top 75% of the class, presumably meaning I would be at the top of the class without too much effort.

My question--is Brooklyn worth the $46,610 tuition? Would it be better to graduate from Brooklyn middle of the class with debt or CUNY at the very top of the class with no debt? (this is of course a guess)

Graduating I would probably want to work at a firm for two years max. for the resume before moving on to something different. I do not in any way want the NYC work-is-your-life-attached-to-my-BB routine, but I also do not think I will take the Public Interest route.

Thanks in advance.

Lot's of poor assumptions in this post. CUNY students will be a driven bunch, I would never take the risk of attending a school just because I thought I could do well there. The predictors of success just aren't accurate enough to rely on.

Also, and this is not a faulty assumption, up until the change in tier structure this year, #67 in the rankings has been classified as a tier 2 school.

Finally, yeah, 46k for Brooklyn is too much. Do you have any other options in between? Unless you want Public Interest exclusively, CUNY is a poor choice.

[mpj_3050]

I'm not even from New York and I know you shouldn't pay full tuition for Brooklyn.

[98234872348]

.

[bk1]

It is foolish to assume that having a much better LSAT/GPA means you can just walk into the top 10%. While the difference at CUNY is drastic enough that you probably will do better, you should still be working your ass off. The fact that BLS is within the top 100 schools is a meaningless distinction and its career prospects do not justify the cost.

What are you doing after those 2 years at a firm? If it isn't working as a lawyer then it seems pretty strange to spend 3 years worth of schooling just to work at a job for 2 years.

I would take CUNY in this situation, assuming you want to work in NYC and assuming the stipulations on your scholarship are either weak or nonexistent.

[Rule11]

Justathought pretty much nailed it.

CUNY is a public interest school. Don't go there if you're not interested in public interest. It is (very) rare to see CUNY grads doing anything other than public interest (sometimes they can get some very good public interest jobs, but the odds suggest that it won't be you, or any other particular person).

On the other hand, Brooklyn is literally a scam at full tuition. Even with no tuition Brooklyn law is a gamble most shouldn't take. At full tuition, you would be better off doing just about anything else.

Sorry, but this law thing probably isn't for you. In a while you'll look back and realize you dodged a major bullet.

[Rule11]

It is foolish to assume that having a much better LSAT/GPA means you can just walk into the top 10%. While the difference at CUNY is drastic enough that you probably will do better, you should still be working your ass off. The fact that BLS is within the top 100 schools is a meaningless distinction and its career prospects do not justify the cost.

What are you doing after those 2 years at a firm? If it isn't working as a lawyer then it seems pretty strange to spend 3 years worth of schooling just to work at a job for 2 years.

I would take CUNY in this situation, assuming you want to work in NYC and assuming the stipulations on your scholarship are either weak or nonexistent.

Solid post, but one has to merely chuckle at the implied idea in the OP that a substantial number of Brooklyn (or CUNY) grads are slaves to their blackberries at a private firm. The number of Brooklyn grads who get jobs at firms that would give you a blackberry (or anything other than an ulcer, for that matter) is tiny.

[polkadotred]

CUNY is a public interest school. Don't go there if you're not interested in public interest. It is (very) rare to see CUNY grads doing anything other than public interest (sometimes they can get some very good public interest jobs, but the odds suggest that it won't be you, or any other particular person).

How hard do you think it would be for someone to transfer out of CUNY after the first year? Again let's just assume that this student was top 5-10% of the class (after putting in a lot of work ). Do they stand a chance at Columbia/NYU/Fordham? Might they have more of a chance because they might be one of only a handful of student from CUNY applying to transfer to that school?

[bk1]

How hard do you think it would be for someone to transfer out of CUNY after the first year? Again let's just assume that this student was top 5-10% of the class (after putting in a lot of work ). Do they stand a chance at Columbia/NYU/Fordham? Might they have more of a chance because they might be one of only a handful of student from CUNY applying to transfer to that school?

Assuming top 5-10% is foolish. There is a 90-95% chance you won't be there so there is no reason to contemplate it until it actually happens.

[polkadotred]

Any advice much appreciated.

Brooklyn is Tier 1. I would have to pay full tuition however.

CUNY is Tier 4 but I have a full scholarship. Going in I would have LSAT and GPA far above the top 75% of the class, presumably meaning I would be at the top of the class without too much effort.

My question--is Brooklyn worth the $46,610 tuition? Would it be better to graduate from Brooklyn middle of the class with debt or CUNY at the very top of the class with no debt? (this is of course a guess)

Graduating I would probably want to work at a firm for two years max. for the resume before moving on to something different. I do not in any way want the NYC work-is-your-life-attached-to-my-BB routine, but I also do not think I will take the Public Interest route.

Thanks in advance.

Lot's of poor assumptions in this post. CUNY students will be a driven bunch, I would never take the risk of attending a school just because I thought I could do well there. The predictors of success just aren't accurate enough to rely on.

Also, and this is not a faulty assumption, up until the change in tier structure this year, #67 in the rankings has been classified as a tier 2 school.

Finally, yeah, 46k for Brooklyn is too much. Do you have any other options in between? Unless you want Public Interest exclusively, CUNY is a poor choice.

I actually have Boston College w/ no financial assistance. I know, it's the obvious choice at #27 but I wanted to see what people thought of the NYC schools that I have available right now...

[bk1]

I actually have Boston College w/ no financial assistance. I know, it's the obvious choice at #27 but I wanted to see what people thought of the NYC schools that I have available right now...

BC would be a better bet than Brooklyn for NYC. But again, BC at sticker is quite risky (though leaps and bounds less risky than Brooklyn).

I think I would take BC in the situation of BC vs BLS vs CUNY, but all of these choices are pretty bad/mediocre. However, since you don't want a job that requires a ton of work and don't want to work in PI then the only real option for you is to either go to school with minimal debt since you won't be doing biglaw and won't be using a school's LRAP. So you should go to CUNY out of all of these options.

[paratactical]

I actually have Boston College w/ no financial assistance. I know, it's the obvious choice at #27 but I wanted to see what people thought of the NYC schools that I have available right now...

If my options were the two schools listed in the subject of this thread, I would take a few years off and work and get a better LSAT score. BC with no money might draw me in, but I'd also be content to work in Boston for the rest of my life.

[NothingRlyMattress]

BC.