Stanford vs Columbia Forum

[OsFerat]

Hey all,

Sorry if this topic has been done to death.

I have strong ties to the east coast, and in the long-run I'll probably want to live/work there. I can see myself in biglaw, but I'm not deadset on it quite yet, and might be interested in legal academia or clerking.

I'm deciding between Stanford and Columbia (haven't heard from Harvard or Yale yet).

How does Stanford's rep weigh against Columbia's regional power if I end up moving back east? How big is the difference between the schools?

[abl]

For clerkships, the difference is real. Ditto for academia and for a select number of similarly highly, highly selective positions. For biglaw, there's probably a statistically measurable difference, but it's pretty negligible--especially for NYC biglaw (which is less selective than DC or Boston biglaw).

It's up to you how you want to weigh this. Is money a differentiating factor? Both schools will give you a strong shot of having your choice of elite biglaw. Neither school will guarantee a clerkship (although Stanford probably puts you in coin flip territory). And academia will be somewhat of a long shot from either school. Does that help?

[OsFerat]

It does.

If I ended up wanting to do NYC biglaw, would I be hurt by taking Stanford over Columbia?
More specifically, how much do regional ties offset rep/prestige?

[Aeon]

Congratulations on two very excellent options. I expect you won't have many difficulties finding a job on the East Coast from either Columbia or Stanford. If you want to leave open the possibility of clerking and academia, I'd think that Stanford would have an edge there.

Would your total cost of attendance be similar at both?

[legends159]

It does.

If I ended up wanting to do NYC biglaw, would I be hurt by taking Stanford over Columbia?
More specifically, how much do regional ties offset rep/prestige?

Nope. You can get any NYC biglaw from SLS as you can out of CLS. It'll be easier from SLS since maybe 15-25% of the 180 kids are gunning for NYC biglaw compared to CLS where it's closer to 75% of the 500 kids.

You don't need ties to do NYC biglaw. Just say you want to work in NY and you're good.

[abl]

It does.

If I ended up wanting to do NYC biglaw, would I be hurt by taking Stanford over Columbia?

Not at all. Given that relatively few Stanford students do NYC biglaw, you'll be making yourself a scarce commodity if you choose Stanford, which I think is an advantage that more than balances out whatever regional bonus points Columbia gets. I had a pre-law school friend who went to Stanford and got a job at Wachtell with unremarkable grades -- because, (s)he later told me, there were few SLS students interested during that particular year so (s)he really only had to sell the interviewer on the fact that (s)he was a good candidate (as opposed to being the best of many Stanford candidates--which would be the point at which the relative strength of your grades matters the most).

Regardless of whether you buy that Stanford has a meaningful leg up for NYC biglaw, at worst Stanford's not going to hurt you for NYC biglaw relative to Columbia.

[OsFerat]

Congratulations on two very excellent options. I expect you won't have many difficulties finding a job on the East Coast from either Columbia or Stanford. If you want to leave open the possibility of clerking and academia, I'd think that Stanford would have an edge there.

Would your total cost of attendance be similar at both?

I haven't received $ offers yet. Presumably the Stanford acceptance could be used to get some amount of merit aid from Columbia?
Assuming Stanford ends up being a bit (but not a ton) more expensive, would it be fair to call it money well spent?

[abl]

It does.

If I ended up wanting to do NYC biglaw, would I be hurt by taking Stanford over Columbia?

Not at all. Given that relatively few Stanford students do NYC biglaw, you'll be making yourself a scarce commodity if you choose Stanford, which I think is an advantage that more than balances out whatever regional bonus points Columbia gets. I had a pre-law school friend who went to Stanford and got a job at Wachtell with unremarkable grades -- because, (s)he later told me, there were few SLS students interested during that particular year so (s)he really only had to sell the interviewer on the fact that (s)he was a good candidate (as opposed to being the best of many Stanford candidates--which would be the point at which the relative strength of your grades matters the most).

Regardless of whether you buy that Stanford has a meaningful leg up for NYC biglaw, at worst Stanford's not going to hurt you for NYC biglaw relative to Columbia.

I want to add my own experience, as a HYS (not necessarily S) alum who at one point applied to work in a city with relative few alums from my school. My experience, and seeing the experience of my friends, is that alumni network tends not to be that crucial coming out of HYS: alumni connections are most helpful in getting your leg in the door, but coming from HYS you're likely going to get attention from interviewers based on your school alone. I found that being in the position of being one of the few candidates from [x desirable school] seemed to be a pretty big leg up, as a number of interviewers specifically mentioned wanting to add someone from my school to the firm. The point I'm trying to make isn't about the desirability of HYS specifically -- I imagine that you'll experience this in certain markets coming from most of the T14. The point I'm trying to make is about the value of being an unusual and attractive candidate in hiring.

I'm sure that you get less of what I experienced in NYC, where there are undoubtedly many Stanford grads. But I think that applying to a firm that gets relatively few applications from your school is a fairly strong advantage when you attend a school from which the firm would like to be regularly hiring.

[abl]

Congratulations on two very excellent options. I expect you won't have many difficulties finding a job on the East Coast from either Columbia or Stanford. If you want to leave open the possibility of clerking and academia, I'd think that Stanford would have an edge there.

Would your total cost of attendance be similar at both?

I haven't received $ offers yet. Presumably the Stanford acceptance could be used to get some amount of merit aid from Columbia?
Assuming Stanford ends up being a bit (but not a ton) more expensive, would it be fair to call it money well spent?

It depends on how much you value the increase in chances of clerking, academia, etc, that Stanford gives you, and how much different the COA ends up being. If Stanford is $200,000 more than Columbia and you only place a slight value on the possibility of a clerkship, well, that's probably not money well spent. On the other hand, if Stanford is $10 more than Columbia and you desperately want to clerk, then it is. This is going to be a personal balance -- and once you get your aid, you'll find that folks on this board are more than happy to weigh in with how they personally weigh the probabilities and the money.

As I've shared before, I personally place a lot of value on things like clerking--an incredibly rewarding experience that opens up doors to other rewarding practices throughout your career. And I personally place relatively little value on debt, as I have found that once I have hit a certain amount of disposable income, anything additional to that only adds slightly to my happiness. Most people on this board, though, weigh the personal cost of debt more heavily than I do and the personal benefits of things like clerking less. The crucial question for you to ask is not what I care about or what they care about -- it's what you care about.

[Aeon]

Congratulations on two very excellent options. I expect you won't have many difficulties finding a job on the East Coast from either Columbia or Stanford. If you want to leave open the possibility of clerking and academia, I'd think that Stanford would have an edge there.

Would your total cost of attendance be similar at both?

I haven't received $ offers yet. Presumably the Stanford acceptance could be used to get some amount of merit aid from Columbia?
Assuming Stanford ends up being a bit (but not a ton) more expensive, would it be fair to call it money well spent?

I don't know to what extent Columbia would be willing to award or increase merit scholarships based simply on acceptances to other schools (versus negotiating with an offer from Chicago, for example). But it probably wouldn't hurt to try, I suppose -- though I would wait until they start sending out merit scholarship offers before trying to negotiate.

I think abl is correct about weighing the options. You have to determine your priorities and how much value you place on various outcomes.

[OsFerat]

Thanks all for the thoughtful and well-reasoned responses. I think I'm leaning towards Stanford, but I'll wait till I have all the information before making a final choice.

[Tiago Splitter]

Columbia tends not to be terribly generous with scholarships if they didn't give you a big one with the acceptance. Your choices might ultimately come down to Stanford and a different T-14 that gave you a full ride. Don't close any doors yet.

[WinterComing]

Congratulations on two very excellent options. I expect you won't have many difficulties finding a job on the East Coast from either Columbia or Stanford. If you want to leave open the possibility of clerking and academia, I'd think that Stanford would have an edge there.

Would your total cost of attendance be similar at both?

I haven't received $ offers yet. Presumably the Stanford acceptance could be used to get some amount of merit aid from Columbia?
Assuming Stanford ends up being a bit (but not a ton) more expensive, would it be fair to call it money well spent?

I don't know to what extent Columbia would be willing to award or increase merit scholarships based simply on acceptances to other schools (versus negotiating with an offer from Chicago, for example). But it probably wouldn't hurt to try, I suppose -- though I would wait until they start sending out merit scholarship offers before trying to negotiate.

I think abl is correct about weighing the options. You have to determine your priorities and how much value you place on various outcomes.

Regarding the bolded: Most of Columbia's merit aid comes in the form of Butler (half tuition) and Hamilton (full tuition) scholarships, which are awarded at the time of acceptance. If you didn't get one of those with your letter, Columbia is known for being pretty stingy with negotiations. Probably doesn't hurt to try, though.

I'm a fellow applicant, so I have no advice about choosing a school. Just wanted to share what I knew about scholarships.

[jbagelboy]

Abl is sharing only one perspective (as am I) and you should appreciate that we have bias based on where we actually went to school and the choice we made. Stanford undeniably has an advantage in clerkship hiring, but I don't see you mentioning clerkships at all. Columbia has a much larger network in new york and places the majority of its students there, but a Stanford grad can still get offers at great firms there. With regards to the private sector they have very comparable placement power and it should come down to money. For public interest organizations and positions in the federal government, the edge goes to Stanford. For international organizations, tribunals, and institutions, Columbia takes the edge (also in international law pedagogy). For tech and IP, Stanford is probably the best school in the country.

At equal cost, with no personal variables in play, Stanford is the right choice. However, if you're interested in what CLS has to offer, please feel free to PM me and I'd be happy to talk about it. CLS has provided me opportunities on both coasts and abroad with firms and judges that I never imagined I'd have when I started law school

[abl]

Hey all,

I can see myself in biglaw, but I'm not deadset on it quite yet, and might be interested in legal academia or clerking.

For international organizations, tribunals, and institutions, Columbia takes the edge (also in international law pedagogy).

I think that's incorrect, and I have personal experience with international law hiring. High profile international law orgs know that HYS are the "best," but are usually a little less educated about ordering in the rest of the T14. Less elite international law orgs are more likely to have misconceptions about which schools are the strongest (usually based on which overall universities have the best reputation in that particular country), but I think that Stanford's overall rep generally outpaces Columbia's, so although there's going to be more variability and more "weird" outcomes with lower profile int'l law outfits, I think that, overall, Stanford has a slight leg up. Columbia traditionally has a stronger reputation for its international law course offerings but (a) that's not a factor I've ever seen a hiring committee ever care about in any job, and (b) I'm not sure if it's as true as it once was.

I agree with you mostly on the rest of your points. I do think that that even for private sector positions, fit and school culture should be factors as well as money. How well you do at Stanford or Columbia will be pretty influenced by how much you're thriving in the school's environment, and that will influence your private sector placement. And Columbia and Stanford have very different school environments.

[jbagelboy]

Hey all,

I can see myself in biglaw, but I'm not deadset on it quite yet, and might be interested in legal academia or clerking.

For international organizations, tribunals, and institutions, Columbia takes the edge (also in international law pedagogy).

I think that's incorrect, and I have personal experience with international law hiring. High profile international law orgs know that HYS are the "best," but are usually a little less educated about ordering in the rest of the T14. Less elite international law orgs are more likely to have misconceptions about which schools are the strongest (usually based on which overall universities have the best reputation in that particular country), but I think that Stanford's overall rep generally outpaces Columbia's, so although there's going to be more variability and more "weird" outcomes with lower profile int'l law outfits, I think that, overall, Stanford has a slight leg up. Columbia traditionally has a stronger reputation for its international law course offerings but (a) that's not a factor I've ever seen a hiring committee ever care about in any job, and (b) I'm not sure if it's as true as it once was.

I agree with you mostly on the rest of your points. I do think that that even for private sector positions, fit and school culture should be factors as well as money. How well you do at Stanford or Columbia will be pretty influenced by how much you're thriving in the school's environment, and that will influence your private sector placement. And Columbia and Stanford have very different school environments.

I think it's widely known that SLS until recently has been weak on international law scholarship relative to Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, and they don't have the foundation of Wolfgang Friedman, Louis Henkin, Schechter, and today Damrosch (president of ASIL), Koh (PT), Bermann, Cleveland, and the dozens of high profile leaders of international orgs based in NYC that adjunct (I could list a bunch of famous people, but amal clooney comes to mind as a fun one). I think this tradition absolutely bleeds into the international opportunities for its students: CLS placed first this year in Jessup, as it usually does, beating out Yale and NYU in the final rounds; it paid to send me personally three times to europe during law school on moot court, seminars, and research, due to high profile faculty recognition at institutions abroad; it has the most sophisticated and extensive number of dual degree and study abroad programs with all the world's other top law programs at Oxford, Sciences Po, Assas, ect.; its students are hand-picked by faculty every year for international positions both in public interest (e.g. writing Myanmar's constitution) and institutions (which you might consider "lesser tier", but they aren't); and I could go on and on.

I know it's not really relevant, but what I take most issue with is the claim that international law hiring recognizes some TLS/commercial magazine survey-popularized tier of schools: the plain truth is, they don't, and a lot of it is about relationships. And I'm not talking about your "lesser institutions": you say you've had experience with international law hiring, so have I; I'm talking about the ICJ, the Iran-US claims tribunal, the european commission, the United Nations office of legal affairs, any number of arbitration tribunals. Federal judges will routinely apply a different standard to SLS students over HLS or CLS students, and the contrast with international orgs couldn't be more sharp (unless its a former american federal judge doing the hiring). I think you can recognize that your experiences have been different without positioning yourself as omniscient and devaluing the equally valid experience and knowledge of others.

Regardless, OP, if you are interested in legal academia and clerking, I'd go to Stanford over Columbia all things equal (unless you wanted to be an international law professor), and I'd also take a hard look at Chicago, Yale, and Harvard to compare faculty, resources, ect. It's undeniably true that in the legal world, perceptions of prestige matter, and clerking for an article III judge is almost a necessary credential to pursue academic fellowships. So those numbers matter.

[KiltedKicker]

I'm an admit so my opinion comes from what I've read and heard from others (though I think one can gather pretty accurate info with everything that is available nowadays).

I feel like it should be pointed out that both Stanford and Columbia are very prestigious and will give you a very, very good chance of getting into NYC BigLaw. So, given that, it's probably worth placing some weight on the fact that these are two incredibly different schools in many regards. Visit both and see what you think of the students and atmospheres at each. Would you rather be in NYC for 3 years, or would you rather live in the suburbs? Columbia has about twice as many students as SLS, do you consider that to be a good or bad thing?

Obviously employment and career opportunities should be huge determining factors in what school you choose. But when considering top 5 schools, it seems worthwhile to me to also consider which one you will enjoy attending more.

This is not to say that all of the above mentioned factors aren't important, but simply that the ones I am mentioning should play a role as well

[izha]

Columbia tends not to be terribly generous with scholarships if they didn't give you a big one with the acceptance. Your choices might ultimately come down to Stanford and a different T-14 that gave you a full ride. Don't close any doors yet.

Does Stanford even give any merit scholarship?

[WinterComing]

Columbia tends not to be terribly generous with scholarships if they didn't give you a big one with the acceptance. Your choices might ultimately come down to Stanford and a different T-14 that gave you a full ride. Don't close any doors yet.

Does Stanford even give any merit scholarship?

No, Stanford doesn't. I don't think Tiago was implying otherwise.

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

At equal cost, Stanford is a no brainer to me. I feel like Columbia grads are a dime a dozen in NYC biglaw....either school should easily get you NYC biglaw, but why would you want to do that if you don't need to?

Anyway, I don't know how you're paying for law school, but I'd take $$$ at a T-14 before paying sticker for Stanford.

[stoopkid13]

Not at S but I've heard from friends there that getting the jobs in NY isn't a problem if you want them. Interviewing can be a pain in the ass though when the firm wants you to visit. Even if they pay for the flight and stuff it can be hard to book around classes, travelling can be draining, etc.

[almondjoy]

Not at S but I've heard from friends there that getting the jobs in NY isn't a problem if you want them. Interviewing can be a pain in the ass though when the firm wants you to visit. Even if they pay for the flight and stuff it can be hard to book around classes, travelling can be draining, etc.

eh, I wouldn't worry too much about that. I had to travel for callbacks (opposite direction - from NYC to CA) and it really wasn't tat draining. The firms make it really easy to book a flight and they put you up in nice hotels and whatnot. I treated it as a mini-vacation with some interviews thrown in.