Columbia vs. NYU (and a few others) Forum

[Tariffs]

Can't believe I'm finally at the point in my cycle where I need to post in this forum. After visiting ASWs and receiving initial scholarship offers, I still haven't a clue which school I should choose. This is the current picture:

Columbia ($50k), total COA is $250k
NYU ($62.5k), total COA is $225k
UVA ($105k), total COA is $148k
Cornell ($105k), total COA is $170k

I'm going to be financing law school exclusively via loans and any scholarship money I receive. I'm originally from NJ and go to school in upstate NY, and I'd like to return to the tri-state area and live/work in NYC. Most of my family is concentrated in the NYC area as well. I'm not set on any particular career path/area of law yet. I'm heavily leaning towards CLS or NYU, though the significant differences in COA cause me to question that preference at times. I just e-mailed both NYU and CLS about increasing their offers, but I wanted to get an idea of what people would do in my shoes now seeing as the deadline to accept NYU, UVA, and Cornell's scholarship offers is in a week. I have just under a 3.5 GPA, and scored a 172 on the LSAT in two takes. Any advice would be much appreciated.

ETA: holy shit never noticed the Georgetown COA calculator, edited the COA numbers to reflect its' results at a 4% annual increase.

[krnpridejk]

Can't believe I'm finally at the point in my cycle where I need to post in this forum. After visiting ASWs and receiving initial scholarship offers, I still haven't a clue which school I should choose. This is the current picture:

Columbia ($50k), total COA is $210k
NYU ($62.5k), total COA is $190k
UVA ($105k), total COA is $125k
Cornell ($105k), total COA is $140k

I'm going to be financing law school exclusively via loans and any scholarship money I receive. I'm originally from NJ and go to school in upstate NY, and I'd like to return to the tri-state area and live/work in NYC. Most of my family is concentrated in the NYC area as well. I'm not set on any particular career path/area of law yet. I'm heavily leaning towards CLS or NYU, though the significant differences in COA cause me to question that preference at times. I just e-mailed both NYU and CLS about increasing their offers, but I wanted to get an idea of what people would do in my shoes now seeing as the deadline to accept NYU, UVA, and Cornell's scholarship offers is in a week. I have just under a 3.5 GPA, and scored a 172 on the LSAT in two takes. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Wow~ congrats on those amazing offers!! I probably would pick NYU if I was in ur situation, only cuz taking out more than 200K in loans just seems too much! xP
Lol but wow~I wish I was in a similar situation as you....The highest I got into was Cornell, and still waiting on NYU (my #1 choice) and Northwestern... but I have a question... Regarding "deadline to accept Cornell's scholarship coming up in a week," does it say somewhere either on the Admitted Students section of their webpage or the financial aid letter somewhere about when we need to accept our scholarship offer by? Cuz i don't see anything of those sort anywhere except the 1st Deposit deadline on 4/25, almost 2 weeks from now... Cuz I was planning on waiting until I hear sth from NYU or NU before trying to negotiate my scholarship offer... Maybe I should do email them like NOW if it's true that our deadline to accept our scholly offer is so soon!! ;;Thanks!

[Theopliske8711]

I think those numbers are a bit off, not accounting for SA money. 62.5k will be well above 200k. It would need to be closer to 90k to be around 190k.

[aboutmydaylight]

Can't believe I'm finally at the point in my cycle where I need to post in this forum. After visiting ASWs and receiving initial scholarship offers, I still haven't a clue which school I should choose. This is the current picture:

Columbia ($50k), total COA is $210k
NYU ($62.5k), total COA is $190k
UVA ($105k), total COA is $125k
Cornell ($105k), total COA is $140k

I'm going to be financing law school exclusively via loans and any scholarship money I receive. I'm originally from NJ and go to school in upstate NY, and I'd like to return to the tri-state area and live/work in NYC. Most of my family is concentrated in the NYC area as well. I'm not set on any particular career path/area of law yet. I'm heavily leaning towards CLS or NYU, though the significant differences in COA cause me to question that preference at times. I just e-mailed both NYU and CLS about increasing their offers, but I wanted to get an idea of what people would do in my shoes now seeing as the deadline to accept NYU, UVA, and Cornell's scholarship offers is in a week. I have just under a 3.5 GPA, and scored a 172 on the LSAT in two takes. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Use UVA to negotiate with everyone else.

[arklaw13]

Cornell should probably be off your list. No way it's worth more than Virginia. Also Nix NYU as well. Columbia is worth $20k more than NYU. Between Columbia and UVA, just depends on how safe a bet you want.

[Tariffs]

I think those numbers are a bit off, not accounting for SA money. 62.5k will be well above 200k. It would need to be closer to 90k to be around 190k.

I didn't take into account interest rates on loans, those COA numbers are just tuition, fees, books, estimated COL, and the percentage increase in tuition and COL each year which I got from law school transparency.

[Tariffs]

Use UVA to negotiate with everyone else.

That's the current plan, and I'm waiting to hear back about updated offers. As of now though, should neither school come through with more money, what would you choose?

[Tiago Splitter]

I'd go with UVA. Given your goals and preferences it makes sense to pay more for CLS or NYU but right now they're too much more.