Top Law Schools

-The schools you are considering
- NYU (75k scholly, 30k for 1L and 2L, 15k for 3L assuming biglaw 2L summer job)
- Michigan (120k scholly, 40k/yr)
Other schools admitted & scholly (if that's helpful): Columbia (50k), Penn (30k), Duke (120k), Northwestern (150k)

-The total Cost of Attendance (COA) of each.
- NYU: 208k
- Michigan: 132k
*I'm not sure about how to calculate loan repayment costs since I'm an international student only eligible for private loans, so I'm only calculating cost of attendance assuming I'm not taking any loans, which is unlikely.
*I'm also trying to look for outside scholarships but I'm not counting on that

-How you will be financing your COA, i.e. loans, family, or savings
- My parents are expected to contribute 40k a year, the rest will be covered by loans

-Where you are from and where you want to work, and other places where you have significant ties (if any)
- I'm not from the U.S. but hope to start my career here (preferably new york)

-Your general career goals
- Big law for the first 5-10 years and transit to public interest (difficult, I know) or in-house (if can't make it into PI work)

-Your LSAT/GPA numbers
173/3.85

-How many times you have taken the LSAT
Once

I'm really uncertain at this point but the NYU deposit deadline is in two days... Ughhhhhh
I would deeply appreciate any input!

NU would probably be my choice, but for some reason you're ignoring it, so probably Michigan. Also, I feel like you underperformed your numbers.

Yeah I kind of like Duke here over NU since you mentioned NYC biglaw

Agreed with the above poster. If you want NYC biglaw I think Duke w/120k is TCR. Is Cornell not on the table?

Guys thanks for your inputs!

I'm eyeing NYU mostly because of its public interest programs. I'm considering Michigan mainly because I felt a decent public-interest spirit and strength at this school after speaking with a civil rights litigation professor and some students who are public-interest oriented.

Now that I'm re-reading my post, I realized I have understated my feelings about public interest. I'm going into biglaw right after graduation mainly because only biglaw firms can/will sponsor visa for international students like myself. Public interest is definitely the end-game -- if this is not too hard (assuming I do more litigation work and pro bono stuff during my biglaw years) -- but biglaw has to be my start-point.

Will what I just said change your minds on your suggestions?

kingpin101 wrote:NU would probably be my choice, but for some reason you're ignoring it, so probably Michigan. Also, I feel like you underperformed your numbers.

Could you explain why you think NU is the right choice? (I could not make it to any of NU's admitted students event and was not totally impressed by what I could find online). It seems to me the total COA of NU would be only 20k lower than Michigan, and Michigan seems to be a better school.

Also, I'm KJD, so I'm curious if taken that into account you still think I underperformed...

kepfd24 wrote:Yeah I kind of like Duke here over NU since you mentioned NYC biglaw

Ahhhh I went to Duke's admitted students events and got the sense that I'm not exactly their "type"...

gazorpazorp wrote:Agreed with the above poster. If you want NYC biglaw I think Duke w/120k is TCR. Is Cornell not on the table?

WL by Cornell. I'm not sure why and was pretty sad about this. : (

charlieww wrote:Guys thanks for your inputs!

I'm eyeing NYU mostly because of its public interest programs. I'm considering Michigan mainly because I felt a decent public-interest spirit and strength at this school after speaking with a civil rights litigation professor and some students who are public-interest oriented.

Now that I'm re-reading my post, I realized I have understated my feelings about public interest. I'm going into biglaw right after graduation mainly because only biglaw firms can/will sponsor visa for international students like myself. Public interest is definitely the end-game -- if this is not too hard (assuming I do more litigation work and pro bono stuff during my biglaw years) -- but biglaw has to be my start-point.

Will what I just said change your minds on your suggestions?

If your starting point is biglaw, then you need to go to the school that will put you in biglaw. 10 years down the line, your school won't matter when it comes to breaking into PI. NYU does have a phenomenal PI focus/culture, but that won't matter when you've already started to build a career and reputation for a decade.

That said, if you're only considering these two, then NYU is the better choice to place you in New York. But as others have mentioned, Duke does really well there, too.

Edit: Also, I have no idea how the visa sponsoring thing works, but will the government really not sponsor you? If you work as a PD, for example, it can be easier to break into other PI work than if you work the same amount of time in a corporate firm.

cavalier1138 wrote: If your starting point is biglaw, then you need to go to the school that will put you in biglaw. 10 years down the line, your school won't matter when it comes to breaking into PI. NYU does have a phenomenal PI focus/culture, but that won't matter when you've already started to build a career and reputation for a decade.

That said, if you're only considering these two, then NYU is the better choice to place you in New York. But as others have mentioned, Duke does really well there, too.

Edit: Also, I have no idea how the visa sponsoring thing works, but will the government really not sponsor you? If you work as a PD, for example, it can be easier to break into other PI work than if you work the same amount of time in a corporate firm.

I was told by a career service staff at NYU that federal government definitely does not provide sponsorship but some state government might do, but to her knowledge all international students went to biglaw immediately after law school.

I really appreciate your input about the insignificance of law school 10 years into my career. I did not give that enough thought.

I'm curious about why you would put Duke over Michigan? It appears to me their employment stats are similar (though maybe Duke send more people to NYC?), and Michigan, as a school, seems to have "better" culture (collegiality, happier students, etc.).

Finally I don't think I'm that dead-set on landing in NYC, though I find that to be the most common go-to place for biglaw employment.

charlieww wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote: If your starting point is biglaw, then you need to go to the school that will put you in biglaw. 10 years down the line, your school won't matter when it comes to breaking into PI. NYU does have a phenomenal PI focus/culture, but that won't matter when you've already started to build a career and reputation for a decade.

That said, if you're only considering these two, then NYU is the better choice to place you in New York. But as others have mentioned, Duke does really well there, too.

Edit: Also, I have no idea how the visa sponsoring thing works, but will the government really not sponsor you? If you work as a PD, for example, it can be easier to break into other PI work than if you work the same amount of time in a corporate firm.

I was told by a career service staff at NYU that federal government definitely does not provide sponsorship but some state government might do, but to her knowledge all international students went to biglaw immediately after law school.

I really appreciate your input about the insignificance of law school 10 years into my career. I did not give that enough thought.

I'm curious about why you would put Duke over Michigan? It appears to me their employment stats are similar (though maybe Duke send more people to NYC?), and Michigan, as a school, seems to have "better" culture (collegiality, happier students, etc.).

Finally I don't think I'm that dead-set on landing in NYC, though I find that to be the most common go-to place for biglaw employment.

I put Duke over Michigan for both biglaw and NY biglaw placement. If the latter is your goal, then Duke will be much better at getting you there. Duke placed 32% of their class in NY last year, while Michigan only placed 23% there. More importantly, Duke places almost its entire class in clerkships or firm law. Michigan has more people going directly into government/PI work, because that's their focus.

In general, if your goal is NY biglaw, then Duke will be a better choice than Michigan (and NYU would place better than both if the New York part is just as important as the biglaw part). But if you feel like one school is just a better fit for you (and the location of your job doesn't really matter as much), then I'd just trust your gut.

If I'm understanding correctly, your parents will contribute $40,000 per year, above any scholarships you receive at schools, right? If that's the case, then you could probably manage to attend NYU having taken out between $30K and $50K in loans total. If you secure summer associate positions during your 1L and 2L summers, you could reduce the loan number even more. And attending Duke, Northwestern, or Michigan would probably mean that you won't need to take out any loans.

Aeon wrote:If I'm understanding correctly, your parents will contribute $40,000 per year, above any scholarships you receive at schools, right? If that's the case, then you could probably manage to attend NYU having taken out between $30K and $50K in loans total. If you secure summer associate positions during your 1L and 2L summers, you could reduce the loan number even more. And attending Duke, Northwestern, or Michigan would probably mean that you won't need to take out any loans.

Yep that is my situation. Would you find NYU worth the loans?

charlieww wrote:

Aeon wrote:If I'm understanding correctly, your parents will contribute $40,000 per year, above any scholarships you receive at schools, right? If that's the case, then you could probably manage to attend NYU having taken out between $30K and $50K in loans total. If you secure summer associate positions during your 1L and 2L summers, you could reduce the loan number even more. And attending Duke, Northwestern, or Michigan would probably mean that you won't need to take out any loans.

Yep that is my situation. Would you find NYU worth the loans?

Probably not.

existentialcrisis wrote:

charlieww wrote:

Aeon wrote:If I'm understanding correctly, your parents will contribute $40,000 per year, above any scholarships you receive at schools, right? If that's the case, then you could probably manage to attend NYU having taken out between $30K and $50K in loans total. If you secure summer associate positions during your 1L and 2L summers, you could reduce the loan number even more. And attending Duke, Northwestern, or Michigan would probably mean that you won't need to take out any loans.

Yep that is my situation. Would you find NYU worth the loans?

Probably not.

Really?

You can't defend <$50k debt and the all-but-guaranteed NY biglaw career here?

I'm not sure that Duke isn't a better choice for free, but just between Michigan and NYU, NYU is clearly going to be better for NY biglaw placement.

cavalier1138 wrote:

existentialcrisis wrote:

charlieww wrote:

Aeon wrote:If I'm understanding correctly, your parents will contribute $40,000 per year, above any scholarships you receive at schools, right? If that's the case, then you could probably manage to attend NYU having taken out between $30K and $50K in loans total. If you secure summer associate positions during your 1L and 2L summers, you could reduce the loan number even more. And attending Duke, Northwestern, or Michigan would probably mean that you won't need to take out any loans.

Yep that is my situation. Would you find NYU worth the loans?

Probably not.

Really?

You can't defend <$50k debt and the all-but-guaranteed NY biglaw career here?

I'm not sure that Duke isn't a better choice for free, but just between Michigan and NYU, NYU is clearly going to be better for NY biglaw placement.

Well, in a vacuum, I think NYU can certainly be worth 50k in debt. I guess this depends on how rich OP's parents are. Since they're giving 40k a year, I guess I assumed that they don't have fuck you money and that 160k was significant for them.

I don't think NYU would be a terrible choice, but if OP wants NY big law from Duke or NU, they would probably get it and be able to graduate debt free/save their parents some money.

Are you authorized to work in the US? If you're not, you're going to have a tough time getting a PI organization to sponsor your visa.

charlieww wrote:

Aeon wrote:If I'm understanding correctly, your parents will contribute $40,000 per year, above any scholarships you receive at schools, right? If that's the case, then you could probably manage to attend NYU having taken out between $30K and $50K in loans total. If you secure summer associate positions during your 1L and 2L summers, you could reduce the loan number even more. And attending Duke, Northwestern, or Michigan would probably mean that you won't need to take out any loans.

Yep that is my situation. Would you find NYU worth the loans?

It depends on your debt tolerance and ultimate goals. NYU is a public interest powerhouse, so you'd be able to forge connections there that might help down the road as you look to move from BigLaw to PI. A trap for the unwary, however, is that the longer you spend in BigLaw, the more difficult it usually is to jump to PI. Is working for international organizations, like the UN, EU, The Hague, etc., a possibility out of law school for you?

Returning to BigLaw, the wild card is your immigration situation. I know that firms will occasionally sponsor people for visas, but I don't know much about their policies beyond that. If a firm is looking to expend time and money to arrange a visa, my hunch is that they might be more amenable to doing that for a graduate of a more "prestigious" law school. Also, going to Columbia or NYU will put you right in NYC, which is great for building a network if that's where you want to end up. On the other hand, some firms might want to diversify their entering classes, and so coming from Duke or Northwestern or Michigan might give you a slight boost. It's hard to say, and of course I'm happy to be corrected by someone more familiar with these situations.

charlieww wrote:

kepfd24 wrote:Yeah I kind of like Duke here over NU since you mentioned NYC biglaw

Ahhhh I went to Duke's admitted students events and got the sense that I'm not exactly their "type"...

I don't know what you mean. They gave you a chunk of money. Clearly they like you. Maybe you just didn't feel comfortable there? I could understand making a decision based off of some 'intangible' factor. But given your goals I still like Duke the most here.

Michigan. Just a more pleasant experience. You will be in NYC for big law so you will have plenty of time for the big apple. As always it kind of depends on where you place in the grade spectrum. Top 30% at each there is little difference. Median or below then NYU. I would seriously think about Columbia for the minor price difference.

Michigan...private loans are terrible and I would suggest that you avoid them to the extent that it's possible to do so.

However, I'd also consider the reputation of these schools in your home country and whether one of them would provide a substantially better fallback should your plan to become employed in the US fail.

I think you underperformed a bit... either way, $200k+ is just too much for any school, perhaps even Yale. So NYU is out. $130k isn't insane for Michigan, though I'd feel better if it were a little cheaper. You're pushing the upper bound of responsibility a bit.