Fordham (sticker) v. Brooklyn (full ride) Forum

[MrAnon]

Fordham has to be one of the most dangerous investments at full price around. It has a B- curve and if you are not in the top 1/4 of the class, your chance of Biglaw falls precipitously. Does it give you a better shot than a SJU or Brooklyn? Yes if you're confident that you can be in the top 1/4 of the class or above. If not, your employment prospects are just as good as SJU, Brooklyn, Cardozo, etc. Take the money, work smart and hard, and be thankful you won't be 200k+ in debt from tuition and NYC cost of living.

This is not true. 1L curve is B to B+. 50% gets B+ or higher.

Hi,

I am currently dealing with a very similar choice. So I need advice. I have just a few days to decide.

I saw the poll and 23 ppl voted fordham in this threa,but when I read it,it sounded like the worst idea ever.

I have been silently reading tls for months,and never really read anything that negative about fordham before.

Anyone willing to counterbalance this thread and give some more input?

It would be great!

What do you want to hear?

This is so true. If you want to hear cheer about a school then go to the admissions office. If you want to know what looking for a job is like check the employment section of this board of jdunderground. Or just go to graduation and ask people where they are working. You are making an enormous investment. You should do the due diligence.

[Master Tofu]

By ways of a PSA, you all are applying to be a lawyer, an individual who will be highly compensated for your judgment and expertise.

This is precisely why you want to avoid schools outside of the very top range. No one is falling over themselves to compensate graduates from non-premier schools for their judgment and expertise. Why on earth would they? They have trouble finding jobs in the first place, and that leads the business community to hurl fistfulls of money at them?

This ties in to the sentence before.

Also, your career doesn't end because you didn't get an offer from a large law firm.

I know people who weren't hired by a large law firm upon graduation or even a few months following graduation, but they are smart motivated individuals and they have since done well for themselves. Ultimately, where you go to school helps because you ride that prestige to a lot of places. But if you are intelligent and goal-oriented, you will go far in life regardless.

[KInDA]

Chose Fordham basically sticker last year. Going into 2L...worst mistake I've ever made in my entire life. I has put me back significantly and I dread waking up each morning.

I just wanted to know how can it be soo bad? This sounds like one found out that he has a terminal disease.

I just wanted to hear from some Fordham students who voted for their school, or anyone else who voted for it.

Finally, do you guys mind disclosing if you are mostly 0Ls,1L or what? Many of people on TLS sound very sure and knowledgeable and I wonder where it's coming from. Experience of graduating from Fordham and working at best buy, or from reading other TLS threads?

[KInDA]

I wasn't looking for cheer about the school. I have heard plenty of that as well as negative stuff. I just wanted to hear their reasoning.Because if you look at the thread the reasoning behind going to Brooklyn on full ride,is explained 10 times over.But there is no opposing opinion. There is no finished thought why would one go to Fordham, while they are people who clearly voted for it. That's what I was asking for.

[MrAnon]

I can speak for why it is so dreadful. You work hard, you finish better than half your classmates, and no job for you! Plus you are saddled with more debt than you can imagine, and you are coming into adulthood. Can you just IBR your worries away at that point? Maybe, if you can find work in a field that supports that plan. And you know, hopefully IBR won't evaporate one day when the government realizes it doesnt have the money to support all these law grads who couldnt find jobs to pay their debts.

Meanwhile, your friends who stood pat with just the undergrad degree and took jobs in sales seem to be ambling along fine. They may not be living lavishly, but they are not drowning under debt like you, and they are ahead in life overall.

[SchopenhauerFTW]

FML

[KInDA]

sounds terrible. So u did go to Fordham then? And what about your peers that had similar grades, still no work?

I mean I know it's hard if you dont have a law job right after graduating, but are you still applying? What if you got one today, still terrible?

I hope I am not getting too personal. Thank you for your response.

[Fordham2014Evening]

.

[KInDA]

So you say top 10% and the rest 90% suffer? lol

[MrAnon]

sounds terrible. So u did go to Fordham then? And what about your peers that had similar grades, still no work?

I mean I know it's hard if you dont have a law job right after graduating, but are you still applying? What if you got one today, still terrible?

I hope I am not getting too personal. Thank you for your response.

I have a former career, I'm returning to it. How many 0Ls have that? Its not worth continuing to apply. Friends in similar situations have gotten jobs paying 45-55k at small firms in Long Island and New Jersey. I am older and cannot hack that with the debtload. My former career pays better. I make what they might make in 10 years.

[Fordham2014Evening]

.

[Lolek]

Haven't people been on TLS for years?

Where are all the Fordham grads with supposedly insane loan debts and no jobs? Wouldn't any of them come back here to cry about it?

I just find it odd that people claim 1/3rd or 1/4th of the class can get big law and the rest are screwed...yet none of these people admit to this being the case?

Where do they all go? I'm legitimately curious.

P.S.

If you strike out at OCI, you're telling me that your law degree (regardless of institution) becomes worthless?

[Master Tofu]

Haven't people been on TLS for years?

Where are all the Fordham grads with supposedly insane loan debts and no jobs? Wouldn't any of them come back here to cry about it?

I just find it odd that people claim 1/3rd or 1/4th of the class can get big law and the rest are screwed...yet none of these people admit to this being the case?

Where do they all go? I'm legitimately curious.

P.S.

If you strike out at OCI, you're telling me that your law degree (regardless of institution) becomes worthless?

Pre-ITE, people in the top half of the class at Fordham have a good shot at landing a job with the large law firms. Conventional wisdom is that if you're top third, you are a lock for a large firm job. I don't know what the numbers are ITE.

That being said, I do think you brought up a good point. I have classmates who didn't get a job while in school land jobs outside of school doing interesting/sophisticated work at small firms/in-house for reasonable pay - nothing like the horror stories that we hear on JDUnderground or Craigslist. That was part of what I had in mind when I say that it is not big law or bust. Now, how much of an impact did the Fordham degree have in them getting those jobs? I don't know but I do think it helps from talking to people at other schools regarding their experiences.

[MrAnon]

A big part of it is being in NYC area. You DO NOT want to be in NYC or perhaps LA with a second tier law degree.

[bk1]

Where are all the Fordham grads with supposedly insane loan debts and no jobs? Wouldn't any of them come back here to cry about it?

Most Fordham grads have legal jobs. Those people who aren't in biglaw or PSLF jobs are probably slowly paying off their debt but I mean who wants to end up having to pay $300,000+ after interest and be indebted for a couple decades? You also have people whose family are helping them out.

If you strike out at OCI, you're telling me that your law degree (regardless of institution) becomes worthless?

It doesn't become worthless, but you have just locked yourself out of the number one way of paying off sticker price debt. All that you're left with are PSLF qualifying jobs which are limited and are not easy to get.

[bk1]

A big part of it is being in NYC area. You DO NOT want to be in NYC or perhaps LA with a second tier law degree.

I disagree with the NYC part. (If we are ignoring the cost of NYC as well as scholarship stipulations) NYC T2's do pretty damn well comparatively. Yeah they have a lot of top tier competition but NYC is large enough and robust enough to absorb that fairly well. I'm trying to think of T2's that I'd rather take a no stipulations full ride at over BLS/Cardozo and I can only think of a few (Houston, UNLV, Rutgers, UNM, GSU, etc).

[MrAnon]

why are you talking about fullrides and throwing in all these caveats about scholarships? Look, NYC is a corporate town. Its for a big business. CLS and NYU service that tier. That is the NYC people move here for. There is a second tier of NYC and Brooklyn and Cardozo service that tier primarily. That is the local tier. The problem with working on the local tier is that you make a local salary, not the corporate salary, and the corporate salary is really the standard. So if you are working on the local tier you are substandard in NYC.

If you are going to be working local tier you are much better off doing it in a city where the corporate tier is not so predominant. That could be Raleigh, Richmond, Providence, Indianapolis, Memphis etc. Yes those cities do cater to some national corporate interest, but it is a limited sector of the economy. If you are going to get into the game of court appearances and the like, you want to do it in those towns where the economy better supports that lifestyle.