Where do I go? Forum

[futurelawyabro]

Hi all, I'm a 21 year old female choosing between the following schools:

Duke Law (171K COA and 91K tuition, 114k scholarship)
NYU Law (286K COA and 179k tuition, 26k scholarship)
Berkeley Law (206K COA and 96K tuition, 75k scholarship but in state tuition)

I am in the privileged situation where my family is covering all expenses. However, I don't want to be an unnecessary burden either. I have ties to LA (where I grew up) and NYC (where I went for college). I am firmly big law or bust and have an interest in entertainment law down the line. I am a little worried about the safety at Berkeley relative to the other two, after speaking from students. Not sure if that's warranted. I will be practicing in LA or NYC after law school. No interest in SF or DC. Have a significant other in LA as well, but he claims that none of these make a difference for us considering we're going to be long distance either way (will be going back to practice in LA if we stay together, which I hope happens but who knows). Thank you

I took the LSAT once. 3.8mid GPA. 172 LSAT.

[cavalier1138]

I'd go with Duke. You already have LA ties, and Berkeley wouldn't give you a huge leg up in SoCal anyway. NYU isn't worth that much extra for your goals.

[crazywafflez]

I wouldn't go NYU at those cost differences. I think you should take either Duke or Cal. I personally would take Duke, but think that Cal is a defensible choice given it may have a slight advantage in SoCal (i'll let folks from the area say its strength in that market) and you wouldn't have as much of a commute to see your family/SO. I still would take Duke though and don't think Cal is worth 30k more than it unless you've got really good other reasons.

[Dcc617]

How rich are your parents? If they’re super rich then probably NYU. If they’re not that rich, probably Duke.

[Sls17]

Given that your family can cover your COA in any of these scenarios, I’d strongly consider Berkeley if I were you. It will be so much easier to see your SO and having that support, during 1L especially, is not a small consideration.

[apple22]

Re safety issues--I don't think the Bay Area is going to be significantly more or less safe than NYC at the moment, although I really suppose it depends on where you commute in from. I'm not too familiar with Duke's area to speak to that.

If your family wants to pay I would have a talk with them and see what their thoughts are, and how much they really are comfortable paying. You probably already have, but I thought I'd just put that out there. When I was applying my mother kindly offered to help out with the costs but then was shocked when I showed her how much each school's respective COA was.

If you're very rich and the money really isn't an issue, I would just go with whatever part of the country you feel like living in. They are all very different areas. Like someone else said, you already have ties to CA, and NY doesn't require them. Biglaw is attainable at any of the three.