Choosing a non-T14 School for NYC BigLaw Forum

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

Hey everyone,

Although I haven't heard back from all schools, I think I'm definitely have my list of final contenders. As stated in the subject, I hope to go into NYC BigLaw after law school and eventually becoming an AUSA at the US Attorney's Office SDNY/EDNY.

I know that T14s give me the best chances in terms of getting NY Biglaw but I don't think that's happening because I'm waitlisted (and thus paying sticker if I'm accepted) or have been rejected. I've already sat out another year (3 year gap total) after applying last cycle and have gotten significantly better results this time around. That being said, I don't think that retaking and trying again is an option because I already took the LSAT 3 times. Thus, I've carefully applied to these schools and am considering them right now because I know that they're the next best things to achieve my goals apart from attending T14s. I worked at the US Attorney's Office here in NY for 2 years so I know that getting becoming an AUSA (and NYC Biglaw) is possible from all of these schools (not likely but still possible) but I just wanted to see what you guys think!

3.75/166

Vanderbilt: $20,000 per year / $60,000 total
Notre Dame: $35,000 / $105,000
BU: Haven't heard back about $ yet
Fordham: $30,000/$90,000
BC: $28,000/$84,000
GWU: $20,000/$60,000

*Haven't Begun Negotiating Yet. Any tips/input on this?

Still waiting on HLS/NYU/Wash U/USC/Emory
Waitlisted at: Columbia, Michigan, Cornell, GULC

Thanks!

[waldorf]

Total COA for each? Are you financing everything with loans or just tuition?

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

Total COA for each? Are you financing everything with loans or just tuition?

Let me figure out the COA and I'll get back to you!

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

Total COA for each? Are you financing everything with loans or just tuition?

Financing everything.

COA

Vandy: $174k total
Notre Dame: $117k total
Fordham: $160k
BU: N/A
BC: $126k
GW: $188k

[floatie]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

[floatie]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

I thought BC fed a bit more into NYC, and ND was better for Chicago BL.

[RedPurpleBlue]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

There's no really great reason to do so. My guess would be he really doesn't like the idea of recommending someone go live in South Bend. Both schools have roughly 40% BL + Fed Clerk.

[waldorf]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

I thought BC fed a bit more into NYC, and ND was better for Chicago BL.

This is what I've seen as well, although a lot of it may be self-selection.

I'd vote Vandy or BC, perhaps WUSTL if you can graduate with SIGNIFICANTLY less debt than the options you currently have. You should get pretty good money from them and if anything you can use them as a negotiation tool. I'd keep negotiating with schools and see if you can get some more money.

I would rule out GW. Fordham or BC would be better. For that kind of debt, GW is absolutely a trap school. Avoid avoid avoid.

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

There's no really great reason to do so. My guess would be he really doesn't like the idea of recommending someone go live in South Bend. Both schools have roughly 40% BL + Fed Clerk.

I think that's a pretty legitimate reason to prefer BC over ND? While both schools may have 40% BL+Fedclerk, BC might have 80% of it going to NYC whereas ND might only have 10%.

[RedPurpleBlue]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

There's no really great reason to do so. My guess would be he really doesn't like the idea of recommending someone go live in South Bend. Both schools have roughly 40% BL + Fed Clerk.

I think that's a pretty legitimate reason to prefer BC over ND? While both schools may have 40% BL+Fedclerk, BC might have 80% of it going to NYC whereas ND might only have 10%.

Yep, I forgot for a second that you were targeting NY. BC definitely makes a lot more sense.

[floatie]

Obviously, ride out those T14 waitlists (if you can justify the COA) - from what I've seen on these threads so far it looks like Cornell in particular might be running the risk of underenrolling and might need to turn to the WL quite heavily.

If that doesn't work, my vote is for Vandy or BC. Depending on what you get at BU, you can use those two to negotiate and get your COA down to under $100k

Thanks, appreciate the input!

Definitely riding out the waitlists and am leaning heavily toward Vandy. Any reason why you would put BC over ND?

There's no really great reason to do so. My guess would be he really doesn't like the idea of recommending someone go live in South Bend. Both schools have roughly 40% BL + Fed Clerk.

I think that's a pretty legitimate reason to prefer BC over ND? While both schools may have 40% BL+Fedclerk, BC might have 80% of it going to NYC whereas ND might only have 10%.

Basically, yeah. like I said before, I always associated BC with Boston/NYC and ND with Chicago. Also as someone who's from Indiana, I wouldn't recommend someone go live in South Bend.

[tuesdayninja]

We're looking at basically the same schools haha. I'd go BU/BC. Also, how'd you calculate COA? I've been thinking (non-discounted costs on LST)-(scholly) since I'll be loan financing everything too.

[texas95]

I have no input regarding school choice, but I bet you can get a substantial scholarship bump from GW. I have worse stats than you and got $75k from both GW and ND. With your ND and Vandy offers I wouldn't be surprised to see GW bump you to the $90k range, which may make it a more legitimate option for you.

[lurker816]

Curious as to what your ex-USAO mentors et al say about this? I'm at Vandy and not sure if this is the right call for your ultimate goals (disclaimer, 1L so I haven't done OCI, etc. yet, but I want NY too and don't think I would choose here if I did it over again.) Most of the networking opportunities thus far have been very SE-oriented and if you hope to clerk in one of those districts, I'm pretty sure Vandy hasn't placed in SDNY/EDNY/2nd cir for years. It's kind of tough to figure out if comparatively poor NY placement is due to self-selection or not.

Try to get more $ from Fordham; I got a bunch more last year with slightly worse numbers.

[mrtux45]

We're looking at basically the same schools haha. I'd go BU/BC. Also, how'd you calculate COA? I've been thinking (non-discounted costs on LST)-(scholly) since I'll be loan financing everything too.

Wondering about this question too. So far I have just used the COA breakdown most schools provide on their websites

[ZVBXRPL]

Curious as to what your ex-USAO mentors et al say about this? I'm at Vandy and not sure if this is the right call for your ultimate goals (disclaimer, 1L so I haven't done OCI, etc. yet, but I want NY too and don't think I would choose here if I did it over again.) Most of the networking opportunities thus far have been very SE-oriented and if you hope to clerk in one of those districts, I'm pretty sure Vandy hasn't placed in SDNY/EDNY/2nd cir for years. It's kind of tough to figure out if comparatively poor NY placement is due to self-selection or not.

Try to get more $ from Fordham; I got a bunch more last year with slightly worse numbers.

Do you think it pays to wait to negotiate until seat deposits are due? Especially if im >75th?

[floatie]

Curious as to what your ex-USAO mentors et al say about this? I'm at Vandy and not sure if this is the right call for your ultimate goals (disclaimer, 1L so I haven't done OCI, etc. yet, but I want NY too and don't think I would choose here if I did it over again.) Most of the networking opportunities thus far have been very SE-oriented and if you hope to clerk in one of those districts, I'm pretty sure Vandy hasn't placed in SDNY/EDNY/2nd cir for years. It's kind of tough to figure out if comparatively poor NY placement is due to self-selection or not.

Try to get more $ from Fordham; I got a bunch more last year with slightly worse numbers.

Do you think it pays to wait to negotiate until seat deposits are due? Especially if im >75th?

I don't think so - schools can quite literally run out of money in their scholarship budget and you don't want to end up in that situation. Plus you have a bit more leverage now, since you haven't put down a deposit anywhere. If you have all competing offers in hand, you can negotiate now. Some schools might wait until after the deposit deadline anyways.

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

I have no input regarding school choice, but I bet you can get a substantial scholarship bump from GW. I have worse stats than you and got $75k from both GW and ND. With your ND and Vandy offers I wouldn't be surprised to see GW bump you to the $90k range, which may make it a more legitimate option for you.

Thanks! I think I'll definitely try to see if I can get GW to bump their offer!

Curious as to what your ex-USAO mentors et al say about this? I'm at Vandy and not sure if this is the right call for your ultimate goals (disclaimer, 1L so I haven't done OCI, etc. yet, but I want NY too and don't think I would choose here if I did it over again.) Most of the networking opportunities thus far have been very SE-oriented and if you hope to clerk in one of those districts, I'm pretty sure Vandy hasn't placed in SDNY/EDNY/2nd cir for years. It's kind of tough to figure out if comparatively poor NY placement is due to self-selection or not.

Try to get more $ from Fordham; I got a bunch more last year with slightly worse numbers.

Not going to lie, 80% of them went to Columbia or NYU but there are a handful of GULCs, Vandys, WUSTLs, Fordham. One of my closest mentors is a Vandy alum and he went to a firm in DC before jumping ship to DOJ. I think (and really hope) that the poor NY placement is due to self-selection...

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

We're looking at basically the same schools haha. I'd go BU/BC. Also, how'd you calculate COA? I've been thinking (non-discounted costs on LST)-(scholly) since I'll be loan financing everything too.

Best of luck! Are you going to BU/BC's ASW?

And haha that's exactly what I did. I took the non-discounted cost on LST and subtracted my scholarship from it...if somebody knows a better way to do this, please let me know

[tuesdayninja]

We're looking at basically the same schools haha. I'd go BU/BC. Also, how'd you calculate COA? I've been thinking (non-discounted costs on LST)-(scholly) since I'll be loan financing everything too.

Best of luck! Are you going to BU/BC's ASW?

And haha that's exactly what I did. I took the non-discounted cost on LST and subtracted my scholarship from it...if somebody knows a better way to do this, please let me know

Ah ok, I feel like your BC COA number is too low? BC non-discounted according to LST is 261k?

And I'm, still waiting on admissions at BU. Either way probably won't go to ASW because travel reimbursement is non-existent at both schools and I'm trying to save money for deposits and traveling this summer.

I've visited both campuses this past summer though. Would've been nice to do ASW to meet other prospective students and learn more about the schools. Could see myself at either school.

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

We're looking at basically the same schools haha. I'd go BU/BC. Also, how'd you calculate COA? I've been thinking (non-discounted costs on LST)-(scholly) since I'll be loan financing everything too.

Best of luck! Are you going to BU/BC's ASW?

And haha that's exactly what I did. I took the non-discounted cost on LST and subtracted my scholarship from it...if somebody knows a better way to do this, please let me know

Ah ok, I feel like your BC COA number is too low? BC non-discounted according to LST is 261k?

And I'm, still waiting on admissions at BU. Either way probably won't go to ASW because travel reimbursement is non-existent at both schools and I'm trying to save money for deposits and traveling this summer.

I've visited both campuses this past summer though. Would've been nice to do ASW to meet other prospective students and learn more about the schools. Could see myself at either school.

Wait I'm pretty sure BU reimburses for travel (I think $400? on airfare and hotel?)

and according to LST, BC's annual COA is around $70k so I just multipled that by 3 to get $210k total.