Cornell ($86k) vs NYU ($52k) vs Columbia (?) Forum

[TheNavigator]

Hi TLS,

Trying to decide between the options I currently have. I’m still waiting on news of aid from CLS, but I’m not holding my breath. Just to clarify, the figures in the title refer to the total aid being given, not COA.

My ideal outcome would be DC biglaw in international trade or possibly international arbitration. If my grades make that unlikely I will target NY and Boston. In certain New York firms I would hope to still be able to do international arbitration, but I may just end up doing transactional.

Out of the three CLS would be my top choice, but I realize it is an insane amount of debt. Are NYU and CLS above Cornell enough to warrant this in my case. Debt at Cornell would still be about 200k, so my thoughts are that it would be better to one of those if I would still end up with that kind of debt at Cornell. Would it be insane to go to Columbia at sticker given my other options?

[anymouseqwerty]

To help decide if CLS and NYU are worth the extra cash to achieve your career goals, you can try this method:

Use Chambers to find firms with an international practice using the Global / USA / International categories. Note the top firms in your preferred categories. Then find the firm websites and sort by location and law school. Then find people in your preferred practice areas.

For example, you will find Covington DC. Then sort by international trade and international arbitration. You'll see 6 CLS, 4 NYU, and 0 Cornell lawyers working in international trade/arbitration at Covington DC.

Do this with a few firms. Cornell's small size will likely strongly skew results towards CLS and NYU. So, you may not have many Cornell peers on the same career path, and you'll have to start a new network in DC. It's also possible that fewer firms attend Cornell OCI instead of CLS / NYU. But, there could also be many Cornell grads in DC international trade work. You won't honestly know without doing the searches.

If you do the above for a few hours, you will know more about the DC international trade/arbitration long-term job outcomes for Cornell / NYU / CLS than 99.9% of TLS posters. You'll learn only a tiny portion of what you need to know (someone who works in the field can offer a more complete perspective, and there are other methods), but you'll see the job market with your own eyes and can better rationalize spending the extra cash or not.

[The Lsat Airbender]

NYU plus fifty grand is absolutely better than Columbia.

I agree that saving an extra $34k to attend Cornell is less appealing. But are you sure that's the marginal difference? Cost of living is significantly cheaper in Ithaca than NYC and if the gap were much wider (say, another $50k cheaper than NYU) then that starts to make sense.

Luckily the numbers are close enough and the schools similar enough that you're not dealing with huge downsides. The only way you can go wrong here is attending C at sticker.

[TheNavigator]

To help decide if CLS and NYU are worth the extra cash to achieve your career goals, you can try this method:

Use Chambers to find firms with an international practice using the Global / USA / International categories. Note the top firms in your preferred categories. Then find the firm websites and sort by location and law school. Then find people in your preferred practice areas.

Thank you, using this method it seems Columbia very slightly edges out NYU, but both are significantly more represented than Cornell.

[TheNavigator]

NYU plus fifty grand is absolutely better than Columbia.

I agree that saving an extra $34k to attend Cornell is less appealing. But are you sure that's the marginal difference? Cost of living is significantly cheaper in Ithaca than NYC and if the gap were much wider (say, another $50k cheaper than NYU) then that starts to make sense.

Luckily the numbers are close enough and the schools similar enough that you're not dealing with huge downsides. The only way you can go wrong here is attending C at sticker.

Going to NYU over Cornell would cost about 63k more than Cornell. I know my goals are definitely a reach, but I feel like this would be worth it even if NYU or CLS gives me a marginal advantage over going Cornell. Given that the debt load would still be immense at Cornell, I would feel better about NYU or CLS to raise the possibility of biglaw all together even if I just end up in transactional.

Two more questions if you don’t mind:

- Would it really be that insane to go to CLS, given that all would saddle me with debt and CLS would be the best bet in securing biglaw?

- Do you think NYU may be willing to get closer to my Cornell offer? Should I mention the Columbia admittance to them?

Thanks!

[crazywafflez]

Is it crazy to take C? No. Is it the worst decision in the world? No. But It just doesn't make sense, I could see taking C at 20k more than NYU, but it isn't worth a 50k differential.
You don't really have a bad choice. You can try showing all 3 of them your offers, maybe someone will move. Maybe tell C if they give you 15k a year or something you'll lock right now after showing your other offers to them, idk.
My guess is none will budge, but if C gives you nothing, tell them for a small scholarship or whatever you'll lock and it is your number one choice.

[nixy]

I don’t think the biglaw numbers at CLS vs NYU justify a big difference in cost; if you don’t get biglaw out of NYU it’s likely you’d struggle at CLS too, while paying more. From what I read here (but others will have much more direct experience and should correct me if this is wrong), the factor that’s more important for getting into DC is grades rather than school name, when you’re choosing between NYU and CLS (and I don’t think that helps pick one school over the other - no evidence you’ll have better grades at one over the other).

Your chances at getting biglaw from CLS are good enough that you’d probably be able to pay off sticker, but it’s a lot of money you don’t get to invest if you have to pay back full price, and if it turns out that you hate biglaw, you may feel stuck because of the debt. So avoiding debt is important.

(I agree with the general sentiment that NYU/CLS are a little better than Cornell for your goals. Cornell at a low price is a great option especially if you want NYC biglaw, so as people have said you don’t have much downside, but NYU/CLS are probably worth at least some chunk of money more.)

[TheNavigator]

Is it crazy to take C? No. Is it the worst decision in the world? No. But It just doesn't make sense, I could see taking C at 20k more than NYU, but it isn't worth a 50k differential.
You don't really have a bad choice. You can try showing all 3 of them your offers, maybe someone will move. Maybe tell C if they give you 15k a year or something you'll lock right now after showing your other offers to them, idk.
My guess is none will budge, but if C gives you nothing, tell them for a small scholarship or whatever you'll lock and it is your number one choice.

Thank you for your input. I'm going to let Columbia know that NYU gave me a deadline to accept the scholarship and see if they get moving in that regard. I'm also going to NYU with Cornell's offer to see if they get closer to it.

I'm wondering if someday I will regret not going to Columbia for the additional prestige, which matters to me even if it shouldn't, especially given that the additional amount could be paid off relatively quickly.

On the other hand, the amount saved at NYU would be equal to the cost of housing in NY for two years, so the savings shouldn't be disregarded. If NYU is able to lower more that would would make this a lot easier.

[TheNavigator]

I don’t think the biglaw numbers at CLS vs NYU justify a big difference in cost; if you don’t get biglaw out of NYU it’s likely you’d struggle at CLS too, while paying more. From what I read here (but others will have much more direct experience and should correct me if this is wrong), the factor that’s more important for getting into DC is grades rather than school name, when you’re choosing between NYU and CLS (and I don’t think that helps pick one school over the other - no evidence you’ll have better grades at one over the other).

Your chances at getting biglaw from CLS are good enough that you’d probably be able to pay off sticker, but it’s a lot of money you don’t get to invest if you have to pay back full price, and if it turns out that you hate biglaw, you may feel stuck because of the debt. So avoiding debt is important.

(I agree with the general sentiment that NYU/CLS are a little better than Cornell for your goals. Cornell at a low price is a great option especially if you want NYC biglaw, so as people have said you don’t have much downside, but NYU/CLS are probably worth at least some chunk of money more.)

I agree that saving the money at NYU makes more sense than sticker at CLS. However, I'm wondering if firms have lower thresholds for CLS over NYU. My guess is that they do for Cornell, which is why despite it clearly being the best option financially, I think I'm willing to pay more for superior placement power. This may matter less with CLS v NYU. The problem is that even at Cornell I'll still have about 200k to pay, so I'm stuck in Biglaw no matter what, although with CLS it is an exta 100k+ so I'll be stuck longer.

[nixy]

I don’t think the thresholds are going to be enough lower, if at all, to make Columbia worth paying materially more for. Nor do I think that Columbia has any materially greater prestige than NYU in the legal world. (Columbia being an Ivy isn’t especially relevant to law school prestige.) Again, paying some amount more for NYU than Cornell due to placement power is arguable, but not for NYU v. Columbia.

[TheNavigator]

I don’t think the thresholds are going to be enough lower, if at all, to make Columbia worth paying materially more for. Nor do I think that Columbia has any materially greater prestige than NYU in the legal world. (Columbia being an Ivy isn’t especially relevant to law school prestige.) Again, paying some amount more for NYU than Cornell due to placement power is arguable, but not for NYU v. Columbia.

Thanks, that makes sense and I agree that NYU is probably the more reasonable choice between the two.

Do you (or anyone else reading this) think Columbia may have more international pull? I recognize that it is probably a long shot and a pipe dream, but I have contemplated working abroad for some time. The reason I keep trying to find reasons to go to CLS is because I want to make sure I’m not potentially closing any doors if I decide to go to NYU or Cornell.

[The Lsat Airbender]

Do you (or anyone else reading this) think Columbia may have more international pull? I recognize that it is probably a long shot and a pipe dream, but I have contemplated working abroad for some time. The reason I keep trying to find reasons to go to CLS is because I want to make sure I’m not potentially closing any doors if I decide to go to NYU or Cornell.

No, both do equally fine with American firms' satellite offices in places like London and Hong Kong which is by far your best chance of working abroad as a US-trained lawyer. Indeed this is one area where I think the gap between C/N and Cornell is even smaller.

According to 509's, Cornell puts a higher percentage of its class in each of non-U.S. locations than either of the NYC schools. (Looking this up, Cornell also has better per-capita numbers in DC, although we don't know how much of that is PI etc.) Again, if you want the best answer possible you've got to drop the presupposition that Columbia enjoys extra "pull" and go look at the people who have the jobs you want and see where they went to law school. Ideally, ask such people where they see hires come from and/or what school they'd recommend.

[nixy]

I don’t think any T14 school really “closes doors.” Some give you a wider margin for errors than others, but none of them are bad options. LSAT Airbender is right that you need to look at who has the jobs you’re trying to get.

It sounds like you just really want to go to Columbia, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just probably going to cost you a bunch more money. It’s very easy now to say that that money is worth the peace of mind that going to Columbia will bring, except that I really don’t think Columbia is guaranteeing you anything over your other options (except more debt). If this were Columbia versus (say) Notre Dame, it would be a different calculus, but it’s not. And paying off the loans will feel very different after graduation.

[TheNavigator]

No, both do equally fine with American firms' satellite offices in places like London and Hong Kong which is by far your best chance of working abroad as a US-trained lawyer. Indeed this is one area where I think the gap between C/N and Cornell is even smaller.

According to 509's, Cornell puts a higher percentage of its class in each of non-U.S. locations than either of the NYC schools. (Looking this up, Cornell also has better per-capita numbers in DC, although we don't know how much of that is PI etc.) Again, if you want the best answer possible you've got to drop the presupposition that Columbia enjoys extra "pull" and go look at the people who have the jobs you want and see where they went to law school. Ideally, ask such people where they see hires come from and/or what school they'd recommend.

Thank you, I assumed that because Columbia may be a more recognizable name internationally it could impact my opportunities abroad, but I am glad to hear that is not the case.

[TheNavigator]

I don’t think any T14 school really “closes doors.” Some give you a wider margin for errors than others, but none of them are bad options. LSAT Airbender is right that you need to look at who has the jobs you’re trying to get.

It sounds like you just really want to go to Columbia, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just probably going to cost you a bunch more money. It’s very easy now to say that that money is worth the peace of mind that going to Columbia will bring, except that I really don’t think Columbia is guaranteeing you anything over your other options (except more debt). If this were Columbia versus (say) Notre Dame, it would be a different calculus, but it’s not. And paying off the loans will feel very different after graduation.

Thank you for the insight, I am definitely leaning very much towards NYU unless something significant changes.

[TheNavigator]

Should the recent change in rankings have an impact on my decision?

[The Lsat Airbender]

Should the recent change in rankings have an impact on my decision?

[+] Spoiler

no