Cornell $$$ vs Duke/UMich $$ Forum

[desespere]

First of all, thanks a bunch to everyone peddling the TLS mantra of "Retake"; this is my second cycle, and it went vastly better than the first. Gay white male, LSAT 169 (first take 167), GPA 3.73. Have an MA in the Dark Liberal Arts, about a year of WE (boring dead-end job with low pay). Dream job is to eventually do white-collar prosecution, which I think is really hard to break into and requires a few years Big Law experience. Barring that, I think I'd like to do prosecution or any agency I can manage to hustle into. I've lived in Boston my whole life and would like to practice there, but NYC, or DC if with the Feds, are also acceptable outcomes. I have a little over 10k undergrad debt, but it's to my parents. I would be paying CoA with Federal loans (might get debt at repayment down by <10k with savings and income between here and August). What do people think? If it matters, BU/BC have each offered me 35k (haven't negotiated). Thanks everyone!

[Otunga]

I think it's clearly Cornell. That's a good deal for their numbers. I'm from New England and am going for Boston, with NYC secondarily, and Cornell seems to have enough pull in Boston to make that plausible. But if you're good with NYC biglaw, go to Cornell. Duke and Mich are peers, arguably inferior for NYC biglaw. They aren't worth all that extra.