Top Law Schools

As of now I have narrowed my choices down to these four:

NYU at sticker: Visited for ASW and was impressed mostly with the job opportunities and my conversations with the dean and other faculty members. I was less excited after I left ASW than I was after my other visits but still think that I could be very happy at NYU. Being in NYC seems to be a pretty big advantage for pursuing biglaw. Interested in their law and business program.

Penn at sticker (for now?): I have not heard back about merit scholarships from Penn, but I have sent a negotiation email with some of my scholarships from other schools. Visited Penn and loved the area and all of the current and prospective students that I met. The opportunity to take business classes at Wharton is a big advantage for me as well.

Duke with 60k: Visited for ASW and loved the small class size, the people, and the area. The Duke students that I talked to all seemed to genuinely enjoy their time at Duke and have a strong sense of community within the law school. My total cost of attendance at Duke would likely be 70k or so less at than at NYU or Penn because of COL differences.

WUSTL with 135k: Have not visited but I've been through the St. Louis area before. Not a huge fan of the area, but I hear that WUSTL's campus is very nice.

After law school, I would like to do biglaw either in New York or Chicago (have ties to Chicago). Is the 60-70k difference at Duke worth the decreased chances at biglaw? What scholarship from Penn would you need to take it over NYU or Duke? Should WUSTL even be in the conversation?

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm having a really tough time trying to make a decision.

Sounds like its between Duke or NYU. However, if you could get some money from Penn (like 30-40K), then I think maybe that would tip it.

I'd take the $ at Duke considering Duke (like most of the T14) primarily places into NYC.

Anyone else have any thoughts? Is NYUs placement considerably better than Penn and Duke? I know that is conventional wisdom, but looking at the stats it seems that Penn usually places just as high of a percentage into biglaw.

badgers22 wrote:Anyone else have any thoughts? Is NYUs placement considerably better than Penn and Duke? I know that is conventional wisdom, but looking at the stats it seems that Penn usually places just as high of a percentage into biglaw.

NYU's class is significantly more PI focused than Penn's. They are close but I'd hazard that NYU has an appreciable edge once you account for self-selection.

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Rock Chalk wrote:While this may be true, the recent NLJ 250 stats have Penn very close behind Columbia (53.31% to 55.2%), so if NYU would place appreciably better then Penn absent self-selection into PI, then it would have to place better than CLS too since the gap is less than 2%, and I've always heard that Columbia placed better than NYU even controlled for self-selection. Like I said, you could be right that NYU's placement is better, but I don't know if it would be significantly better given Penn's impressive numbers lately.

This makes sense but I feel that since NYU places around 5 times (going off of memory here) the amount of kids into PI that Penn does (something like 2% versus 10%), that has to widen the gap of NYU compared to Penn.

That being said, I don't think taking Penn over NYU for biglaw is wrong, but I do think there may be a slight edge for NYU.