Top Law Schools

Am I crazy to take Columbia over better offers from NU, Duke, and Mich? Goals are to maximize chance of NYC big law, minimize debt, and stay in NYC where I was born and raised but have been away from for about five years. I would also like to be able to do something with Chinese law in the future and am impressed by Columbia's connections there. NU and Duke increased their offers after negotiations and I haven't heard back from Columbia about reconsidering their offer yet. I will be financing almost the entire degree through loans as I have very little in savings. Does the 50k-80k difference in COA make Columbia indefensible? Stats are in my profile.

ottovon wrote:Am I crazy to take Columbia over better offers from NU, Duke, and Mich? Goals are to maximize chance of NYC big law, minimize debt, and stay in NYC where I was born and raised but have been away from for about five years. I would also like to be able to do something with Chinese law in the future and am impressed by Columbia's connections there. NU and Duke increased their offers after negotiations and I haven't heard back from Columbia about reconsidering their offer yet. I will be financing almost the entire degree through loans as I have very little in savings. Does the 50k-80k difference in COA make Columbia indefensible? Stats are in my profile.

Can we get the total COA for these options? If your goal is NYC biglaw, any of these schools will get you there, and you should go with wherever your COA is lowest, which I imagine would be Michigan.

ottovon wrote:Am I crazy to take Columbia over better offers from NU, Duke, and Mich? Goals are to maximize chance of NYC big law, minimize debt, and stay in NYC where I was born and raised but have been away from for about five years. I would also like to be able to do something with Chinese law in the future and am impressed by Columbia's connections there. NU and Duke increased their offers after negotiations and I haven't heard back from Columbia about reconsidering their offer yet. I will be financing almost the entire degree through loans as I have very little in savings. Does the 50k-80k difference in COA make Columbia indefensible? Stats are in my profile.

for your stated goals? yes

presidentspivey wrote:Can we get the total COA for these options? If your goal is NYC biglaw, any of these schools will get you there, and you should go with wherever your COA is lowest, which I imagine would be Michigan.

Duke has the best biglaw placement stats of the non-Columbia options. It's definitely worth an extra $15k. But yeah, no point in going to Columbia for generic biglaw goals.

cavalier1138 wrote:

presidentspivey wrote:Can we get the total COA for these options? If your goal is NYC biglaw, any of these schools will get you there, and you should go with wherever your COA is lowest, which I imagine would be Michigan.

Duke has the best biglaw placement stats of the non-Columbia options. It's definitely worth an extra $15k. But yeah, no point in going to Columbia for generic biglaw goals.

Cavalier is correct. I had forgotten that Duke made a biglaw stat jump of almost 10% year over year. Off-topic, but does anyone know what the driving force behind that was?

Pick the one of the non-columbia three you enjoyed the most. If you can't imagine not being in a city, NU seems like the way to go.

I probably wouldn't take Columbia over Duke at $105k. See if you can get Duke to march Michigan and then go there.

presidentspivey wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:

presidentspivey wrote:Can we get the total COA for these options? If your goal is NYC biglaw, any of these schools will get you there, and you should go with wherever your COA is lowest, which I imagine would be Michigan.

Duke has the best biglaw placement stats of the non-Columbia options. It's definitely worth an extra $15k. But yeah, no point in going to Columbia for generic biglaw goals.

Cavalier is correct. I had forgotten that Duke made a biglaw stat jump of almost 10% year over year. Off-topic, but does anyone know what the driving force behind that was?

They freaked out that they dropped out of the top 10
Honestly I think it's just that they are expanding their alumni network. Alumnus are doing more work than ever to get students where they want to go.