Top Law Schools

Okay so I can now amend my earlier question because I've received more letters and scholarship info.

NYU sticker (as far as I know) vs.

Cornell sticker (as far as I know) vs.

UT w/ $36, 352 scholarship money per year (they're going to let me pay in-state tuition for merit, plus they gave me a scholarship. That's how I got this figure) vs.

UVA w/ $30,000 in scholarship money per year vs.

Emory w/ $30,000 in scholarship money per year (this is probably off the table because for that I might as well go to UVA. I welcome opinions on that though)

I'm interested in public interest law (immigration law, specifically) for the time being. However, I want big law to be an option. I would much prefer to live in a city where I don't need a car but I guess it's not a total deal breaker.

Confession: I still have to hear back from like six schools but I need to start planning to school visits, paying for deposits, going to events and so on, and I want to start narrowing my focus. Apparently some of the schools I may not hear back from until mid-April which is stressful because that's about when all of these schools want their first deposits. So eliminating some options sooner rather than later would help me a lot. I'm honestly beginning to think I may have applied to too many but it is what it is now.

The numbers don't tell us anything. How much debt will you be in at each?

Also, wait until all aid is in

What are your numbers?
Are the debt figures per year or total?
If these debt figures are total then don't attend any of the T14, go to Emory on a full ride
If there debt figures are per year, then go to UVA (although you will still have like $100-120k in debt).

Hutz_and_Goodman wrote:What are your numbers?
Are the debt figures per year or total?
If these debt figures are total then don't attend any of the T14, go to Emory on a full ride
If there debt figures are per year, then go to UVA (although you will still have like $100-120k in debt).

No sorry for the confusion. These are the scholarship amounts they gave me. I'll edit the question. But okay so with these figures UVA would still cost $45k/year, UT would cost $34k/year, and and Emory would cost $43k/year

BigZuck wrote:The numbers don't tell us anything. How much debt will you be in at each?

Also, wait until all aid is in

Aid I also won't know about until later, which could be a problem for the reasons I stated before. But that would leave UVA's total cost at around $45k per year (with tuition, housing, etc) and UT at about $36k per year (with tuition, housing, etc) and Emory at around $43k per year (with tuition, housing, etc). These prices will be reduced if I get aid but I'm not expecting much..I'm still figuring things out with the FAFSA/needaccess thing and it's kind of a complicated situation.

I commiserate with wanting to start narrowing things down right now but it's still early, wait until you hear about scholarships.

If nothing changes, you can drop Emory and UT

Also, use a debt calculator to find out exactly how much debt you will be in at least. I think Georgetown and one of the Boston schools has them on their websites

UVA is what I would do. NYU is also in play. Cornell is not defensible given NYU. And UT and Emory are not defensible given UVA.

Dude your cycle is nowhere close to ready for this thread. Come back in three months.

But UVA with that scholarship is a great outcome for pretty much anyone. Good work.

this is silly, you will not end up with those final numbers
there's no way uva gives you 90k and you get stiffed at both nyu and cornell

"want pi + but still have option of biglaw + live in city without a car" is basically saying you want to go to nyu
start negotiating right away, see what you can get out of them
come back when you have firm numbers

Ron Don Volante wrote:Dude your cycle is nowhere close to ready for this thread. Come back in three months.

But UVA with that scholarship is a great outcome for pretty much anyone. Good work.

this thread is roughly 2 months premature

BigZuck wrote:I commiserate with wanting to start narrowing things down right now but it's still early, wait until you hear about scholarships.

If nothing changes, you can drop Emory and UT

Also, use a debt calculator to find out exactly how much debt you will be in at least. I think Georgetown and one of the Boston schools has them on their websites

If nothing changes you'd say to drop UT even with how much money they're offering? Interesting. But yes, everyone is telling me to wait lol. I'll come back in a few months I guess

Brut wrote:this is silly, you will not end up with those final numbers
there's no way uva gives you 90k and you get stiffed at both nyu and cornell

"want pi + but still have option of biglaw + live in city without a car" is basically saying you want to go to nyu
start negotiating right away, see what you can get out of them
come back when you have firm numbers

Yeah I would love to be at NYU for a lot of reasons but I'm trying to think practically too about money. I've heard that I should negotiate..I just have no idea how to go about that because I've never had to do it before. I guess there's no better time to learn

JohannDeMann wrote:UVA is what I would do. NYU is also in play. Cornell is not defensible given NYU. And UT and Emory are not defensible given UVA.

Yeah I think the offer UVA gave is great; I just know that it would leave me with more debt than Texas though. But I don't get why people are saying UT isn't defensible..I mean is #15 not considered to be a good ranking? I know NYU's is higher obviously...but I didn't think it was like night and day.

Negotiate for more money from each school. If nothing changes, then Virginia seems to be the best choice.

Ron Don Volante wrote:Dude your cycle is nowhere close to ready for this thread. Come back in three months.

But UVA with that scholarship is a great outcome for pretty much anyone. Good work.

Yeah, I'll probably come back. thank you.

Rankings don't matter; job placement does matter.

Cilia wrote:

JohannDeMann wrote:UVA is what I would do. NYU is also in play. Cornell is not defensible given NYU. And UT and Emory are not defensible given UVA.

Yeah I think the offer UVA gave is great; I just know that it would leave me with more debt than Texas though. But I don't get why people are saying UT isn't defensible..I mean is #15 not considered to be a good ranking? I know NYU's is higher obviously...but I didn't think it was like night and day.

I go to UT and with the current scholarship offers UT would not be defensible over UVA. No way.

If you're a Texan who has no interest in ever practicing in another state, I would still have a hard time defending UT over that UVA scholarship.

If you're a straight admit at NYU, you're going to get some money from Cornell. That will likely be the best choice, but as others have said you need to wait for offers, negotiate, and then decide.

Tell all the schools, but particularly UT, about the UVA scholly and ask if they are able to offer additional money.

UVA is completely obvious here. If Cornell gives $40,000/year + or NYU gives $25,000/year + they come into play.

cron1834 wrote:If you're a straight admit at NYU, you're going to get some money from Cornell. That will likely be the best choice, but as others have said you need to wait for offers, negotiate, and then decide.

I guess I just never assumed cornell would give $ just because I got into NYU. that's interesting. I'll wait and see.

Cilia wrote:

cron1834 wrote:If you're a straight admit at NYU, you're going to get some money from Cornell. That will likely be the best choice, but as others have said you need to wait for offers, negotiate, and then decide.

I guess I just never assumed cornell would give $ just because I got into NYU. that's interesting. I'll wait and see.

That assumption would be mistaken; I take it the suggestion is that there's a common cause here - if your numbers are good enough to get you into nyu, they should be good enough for decent $$ at cornell

unlicensedpotato wrote:Tell all the schools, but particularly UT, about the UVA scholly and ask if they are able to offer additional money.

Yeah..I'm just wondering if I should do this now or wait til I know what the financial packages will be for sure. I don't want them to think I'm overzealous or something

Cilia wrote:

unlicensedpotato wrote:Tell all the schools, but particularly UT, about the UVA scholly and ask if they are able to offer additional money.

Yeah..I'm just wondering if I should do this now or wait til I know what the financial packages will be for sure. I don't want them to think I'm overzealous or something

Per this: http://www.utexas.edu/law/finaid/schola ... match.html

I'd wait. Like others have said, there should be money coming from NYU/Cornell that could change things.

Go to whichever school ends up being the cheapest between UVA, NYU, and Cornell unless they all end up being relatively close in price. If that ends up happening and you want to work/live in NY go to one of NYU or Cornell. If you have no location preference and they end up costing the same I would lean NYU as I believe they have a better LRAP than the other two , their curve is structured better than UVA's, and it's better on the margins to give yourself more access to NYC firms sense there are more of them and they give a bigger boost to NYU.