Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA) Forum

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redanon20

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Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by redanon20 » Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:46 pm

Hi all,

I was hoping to get some fresh perspectives/advice on the decision above and suggestions about making the law school decision generally.

I am looking to clerk and then head into Big Law litigation (in case its helpful, the practice areas I am currently interested in are white collar defense and antitrust). I am single, geographically flexible/undecided after law school, and will graduate in my early 30's.

In terms of my goals, I think Duke wins out. The two have similar BL placement, but Duke does better at placing clerks. I am not sure if I should also consider Duke to be more portable, as a lot of Northwestern grads end up in Illinois. My suspicion is that this is almost entirely attributable to Northwestern's location in a major market, but it is important to me if a significant portion of Northwestern grads are "stuck" in Chicago.

Northwestern is appealing in other ways. If the decision were limited to spending 3 years in Chicago vs. 3 years in Durham, my gut is telling me Chicago. I currently live in the Bay Area and have gotten used to city living. Durham will likely require I get a car, which is an extra expense that Northwestern will not require. Further, I already have friends in Chicago, but not in Durham. Finally, as an older applicant, Northwestern has some extra appeal (slightly higher median age) although this is minor.

These are my considerations and I have a tough choice ahead. What would you all be considering in addition to this? Let me know if I can provide any other helpful info.

Bonus info/question to anyone who is bored:

I also have offers from Penn, UVA, and Berkeley (these offers did not include any scholarship) and an offer from GULC at ~110k COA. Currently, I do not consider these offers to be competitive, but I have yet to engage these schools in negotiation. At what cost differential do you all think these schools become competitive/preferred in my situation?

Thanks for reading!

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by crazywafflez » Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:41 pm

I think NW or Duke are defensible. Go to whichever you prefer. I think they are fairly equal in portability- especially if you just want NYC. The costs aren't that different by any means, and with them so close you are allowed to be pickier on other things like COL, atmosphere, student body etc.
To me, Penn, UVA, Cal, NW, Duke, Mich, and Cornell are all fairly interchangeable. There may be some variability between them but at equal costs just go to your preferred location in the market you want.
I personally would choose Duke between the 2 you presented- as I'm from the South and I would prefer to stay in the south or maybe go to the southwest. If I were midwestern though, or loved Midwest markets I'd probs pick NW. However, go to the one you like best.
As far as the cost differentials, idk to me, UVA and Duke are peers and I wouldn't pay more for one over the other. Maybe I'd pay a bit more for an Ivy pedigree if it were in a location I liked or placed better in a market I wanted? I.e. if my preferred markets were NYC or DC and I had NW or Duke or Cal at like 95k vs. Penn at 115k, I'd probs take Penn. But if it were like 95k at NW and 150k at Penn, I'd take NW. I think you'd just have to make a judgment call. I don't see a big difference though between Cal or NW etc. unless you wanted to be on the west coast or midwest respectively and wouldn't see a reason to pay more.

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Po$eidon

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by Po$eidon » Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:57 am

Just gonna start by saying that I’m a Northwestern student so I’m biased, but I think either choice is entirely defensible and at 10k the choice really should be where do you want to go and where would you prefer to work.

With that out of the way, here’s some things to think about with NU. First, you’re not trapped in Chicago — it’s actually easier to go elsewhere (kids who went NYC or CA over-performed the Chicago kids this year and usually). We’re a well-known school nationally and we place well. We just have a large number of older students that don’t want to keep moving around. I’d say we’re roughly equal to Duke in the northeast and the west, stronger in the midwest, and weaker in the South. Overall, a wash.

The somewhat older student body not only affects our placement it also affects our clerkship rate: great clerkships require good grades at all T14s, but they also require a willingness to apply broadly to maximize that rate. Like CLS and NYU, we underperform our clerkship potential because NU students don’t want to leave the cities (UChi which has a really young class a doesn’t stay in Chicago as often).

NU is awesome for externships (Chicago has a large number of great externship options and NU grads run this city), and I find it’s really nice to live in a city. I also think getting an in on a second market is useful for OCI (and NU counts as a Chicago in for sure).

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Po$eidon

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by Po$eidon » Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:08 am

Also, want to add to the above: NU is the T14 utopia of older applicants. I’d easily spend 10k more for that atmosphere difference alone. Fewer unhinged K-JDs, easier friendships, a city to fall back to versus living like a 19 yr old in a college town, and instead of being the weirdo old in your section, you’re at the school where firms intentionally come to your campus looking for someone just like you, in age and experiences.

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by redanon20 » Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:56 pm

crazywafflez wrote:
Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:41 pm
I think NW or Duke are defensible. Go to whichever you prefer. I think they are fairly equal in portability- especially if you just want NYC. The costs aren't that different by any means, and with them so close you are allowed to be pickier on other things like COL, atmosphere, student body etc.
To me, Penn, UVA, Cal, NW, Duke, Mich, and Cornell are all fairly interchangeable. There may be some variability between them but at equal costs just go to your preferred location in the market you want.
I personally would choose Duke between the 2 you presented- as I'm from the South and I would prefer to stay in the south or maybe go to the southwest. If I were midwestern though, or loved Midwest markets I'd probs pick NW. However, go to the one you like best.
As far as the cost differentials, idk to me, UVA and Duke are peers and I wouldn't pay more for one over the other. Maybe I'd pay a bit more for an Ivy pedigree if it were in a location I liked or placed better in a market I wanted? I.e. if my preferred markets were NYC or DC and I had NW or Duke or Cal at like 95k vs. Penn at 115k, I'd probs take Penn. But if it were like 95k at NW and 150k at Penn, I'd take NW. I think you'd just have to make a judgment call. I don't see a big difference though between Cal or NW etc. unless you wanted to be on the west coast or midwest respectively and wouldn't see a reason to pay more.
Thank you for the input!

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redanon20

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by redanon20 » Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:25 pm

Po$eidon wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:08 am
Also, want to add to the above: NU is the T14 utopia of older applicants. I’d easily spend 10k more for that atmosphere difference alone. Fewer unhinged K-JDs, easier friendships, a city to fall back to versus living like a 19 yr old in a college town, and instead of being the weirdo old in your section, you’re at the school where firms intentionally come to your campus looking for someone just like you, in age and experiences.
Thanks for your thoughts as a Northwestern student, much appreciated!

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by laanngo » Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:29 pm

Po$eidon wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:08 am
Also, want to add to the above: NU is the T14 utopia of older applicants. I’d easily spend 10k more for that atmosphere difference alone. Fewer unhinged K-JDs, easier friendships, a city to fall back to versus living like a 19 yr old in a college town, and instead of being the weirdo old in your section, you’re at the school where firms intentionally come to your campus looking for someone just like you, in age and experiences.
Is Durham a college town? I've heard it's similar to New Haven - half ghetto half University?

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Po$eidon

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by Po$eidon » Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:27 pm

laanngo wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:29 pm

Is Durham a college town? I've heard it's similar to New Haven - half ghetto half University?
Durham is definitely bigger than a Charlottesville or an Ithaca or an Ann Arbor, but it’s still minuscule compared to Chicago. Older applicants tend to have more city-life experience and suddenly living in Durham is a big life change.

I’m being a big too harsh to Duke and Durham and largely cuz its location suffers in comparison: due to Chicago’s cheaper-than-NY cost and NU’s central location in a city-city, Northwestern arguably has the best location in the T14. That goes doubly so for older applicants imo.

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by laanngo » Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:02 pm

Po$eidon wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:27 pm
Durham is definitely bigger than a Charlottesville or an Ithaca or an Ann Arbor, but it’s still minuscule compared to Chicago. Older applicants tend to have more city-life experience and suddenly living in Durham is a big life change.

I’m being a big too harsh to Duke and Durham and largely cuz its location suffers in comparison: due to Chicago’s cheaper-than-NY cost and NU’s central location in a city-city, Northwestern arguably has the best location in the T14. That goes doubly so for older applicants imo.
No, what I meant that Durham is intergrated into the triangle like how New Haven is adjacent to the NYC area.

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Po$eidon

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by Po$eidon » Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:53 am

New Haven isn’t very integrated into NYC — it’s a pain to get out there so few regularly make the trek either way (lived a decade in NYC). And the research triangle is no real metropolitan and not comparable to Chicago: it’s basically just three college towns that cumulatively make up something greater than a college town.

redanon20

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by redanon20 » Tue May 18, 2021 4:22 pm

I always like when posters provide updates to these types of posts for future readers, so here is mine:

First, the COA figures above were underestimated primarily because I used the cost information provided on LST, which is from 2019. After readjusting using the 2021 COAs (had to estimate this for NU), my actual decision was between Northwestern at ~124k COA, and Duke at ~95k COA.

I was still torn as deposit deadlines approached, but at the above costs I was leaning Duke. After more reflection, however, I decided I ultimately wanted to end up at Northwestern if possible, so I focused negotiation efforts on that outcome. I was successful and knocked my Northwestern COA down to ~73k. Unfortunately, I did not have time to go back to Duke with the increased Northwestern offer.

As for the other schools I mentioned, I was only successful at bumping Georgetown up slightly, but not into contention (the others schools were behaving as if they were already full or anticipated being overenrolled and did not seem interested in negotiating much with anybody).

Anyway, thanks for the advice above, as well as for the advice on this board generally. Looking forward to starting at Northwestern in the fall.

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Po$eidon

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Re: Northwestern (~95k COA) vs. Duke (~85k COA)

Post by Po$eidon » Tue May 18, 2021 7:34 pm

redanon20 wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 4:22 pm
I always like when posters provide updates to these types of posts for future readers, so here is mine:

First, the COA figures above were underestimated primarily because I used the cost information provided on LST, which is from 2019. After readjusting using the 2021 COAs (had to estimate this for NU), my actual decision was between Northwestern at ~124k COA, and Duke at ~95k COA.

I was still torn as deposit deadlines approached, but at the above costs I was leaning Duke. After more reflection, however, I decided I ultimately wanted to end up at Northwestern if possible, so I focused negotiation efforts on that outcome. I was successful and knocked my Northwestern COA down to ~73k. Unfortunately, I did not have time to go back to Duke with the increased Northwestern offer.

As for the other schools I mentioned, I was only successful at bumping Georgetown up slightly, but not into contention (the others schools were behaving as if they were already full or anticipated being overenrolled and did not seem interested in negotiating much with anybody).

Anyway, thanks for the advice above, as well as for the advice on this board generally. Looking forward to starting at Northwestern in the fall.
Congrats!! That’s a great COA number!!

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