B $$$ vs NY Schools $$-$$$$ Forum

[Typhoon24]

Hey guys,

Since I've made peace with the likelihood that I won't get into S (close to 100% chance of being WL or dinged), I wanted to get TLS' input on where is the best school to attend and see if I had missed anything in my deliberations.

Schools:

Berk: 105k + 17k need based a year, so if I don't get any need based my 2nd and 3rd years, it'll be ~120k, if I do get what I received the first year throughout law school, 156k.
NYU: 87.5k
Cornell: 150k
Columbia: no fin aid package yet, but since it's need only, it probably won't be more than 50k.

-Berk CoA would be between 90k and 120k (contingent on need based aid), NYU's will be around 150k, and Cornell would be 90k, CLS would be 200kish at best.

-No ties to either NY or CA, although I would prefer to live in California--particularly SF (family friends, college friends, and weather). Note that while I would prefer CA over NY, I am not adamant about my preference.
-Eventually I would like to get into environmental law. for big law the first couple of years/paying off loans, it would probably go SF > NYC > LA > secondary west-coast markets.

So right now, as you'd expect, I'm leaning B. I just want to know if it is stupid to give up CN and a full ride at cornell to do so.

Thanks!

[arklaw13]

Berkeley and it's not close.

[jbagelboy]

Preference for CA + incredible grant = Berkeley.

Might be worth just showing CLS your total Cal aid before withdrawing completely just to see if they can even come close. Ppl were getting $90k need based alone, which might make this a tougher call (since you're paying OOS at Cal, which us just as expensive as cls).