My choices are waaaay further down in the rankings than yours, but I'm going with the school that is offering me the better scholarship/tuition, because of my age and the fact that I want to go into public-interest law. I just can't justify paying full-tuition for a better school. I'll be 38 next month. I like the idea of leaving the door open to biglaw in case I have a change of heart in school, but are many firms looking to hire a 41-year-old first-year associate? Yeah, age discrimination, blah, blah, but in reality I think they'd want someone younger who is more malleable and can be made to work 80+ hours a week without raising those pesky quality-of-life issues that we think more about as we're older, no?ahduth wrote:Cool, sorry about all the rage before, I shouldn't be allowed to post after drinking martinis.sbalive wrote:Are you from LA? I just randomly picked one of the many crappy towns in the IE.ahduth wrote:No, I've roughly decided on NYU - 25k isn't a massive scholarship, but it's a T6 and it seems to fit with what I'm looking for.introversional wrote:Defintely trolling, b/c I think you're already decided on UCLA. Although you'll probably be annoyed at all the phoneys on the west coast as well.
I hope you actually belong in this thread. You're 30+ and at Columbia? I'd like to hear your perspective. I did not get a good feel out of the ASW.sbalive wrote:Nice troll -- but, seriously, as a Columbia student, I'd be thrilled if you didn't come. Enjoy making $30K doing personal injury work in Fontana
WTF is Fontana?
Anyway, yeah, I belong in this thread. I've had a great time at Columbia, both academically and socially. I haven't found it stuffy -- there are some stuffy students, but there are like over 400 people. I choose not to focus on the negative of a group of people but rather embrace the positive, and I think that's worked out well for me. Also, I've made some very careful decisions in navigating law school -- choosing how I would study, how I would socialize, and what classes / activities I would take on so that I would be happy and fulfilled, without regard to what I thought might be expected or "the right thing to do." But, hey, if I'm going to have all the downsides of being "old," I may as well take advantage of my wisdom & experience
All the options you've got on the table are great. I picked Columbia for three major reasons. First, it seemed like it would open more doors, especially outside New York City and just BigLaw since I didn't want to stay here after graduation & I don't want to live out my life at a BigLaw firm -- and so far, so good. Second, I didn't want the pressure to be at or near the top of my class that I feel I'd have if I went to a lower-ranked school. Third, I'm living in New York but with relatively affordable housing in a neighborhood that is great for running & generally being outdoors -- while still being able to take a subway and quickly get to the city proper... PM if you have other questions.
For me, I have a similar concern about not rotting in Big Law forever. So that cuts both ways - on the one hand, CLS and NYU give me a great shot at finding more interesting positions, or at least ones that get me into a GC's office or something along those lines earlier. The profs I spoke with at NYU about my background definitely thought my experience was an asset, but that I would have to be selective about the firms I looked at. Firms that pulled work from a shared pool and didn't allow for very much partner contact would be poor fits for me, for example.
The flipside is that UCLA would have me graduating with only 75k in debt. I'm just concerned the opportunities wouldn't be there, because in the end I'm going to law school to do something both different and interesting, and I don't want to be debt-free but lacking for interesting career options. UCLA is a very good school, but it's still a notch below the T6.
The cultural thing at CLS was definitely a point for me. The admitted students seemed a lot younger (piles and piles of people graduating college in 2011), and if I remember correctly that impression is borne out by their class profile (relatively to NYU anyhow). The problem with it was that I didn't really talk with very many people who seemed like they had much fire to them. Interestingly one of the people with who I was most impressed was a non-trad 2L, who seemed to be weaving together his current studies with his prior background in a neat way.
At the end of the day, NYU over CLS is purely a fit thing for me. I just question if I should take the money from UCLA, because of my age. Everyone would rather be debt free sooner rather than later, but I feel a little bit of... urgency to it, I suppose.
edit: Oh I'm not from LA at all, I'm from Chicago. I applied to UCLA for the weather.
ETA: I really like the school that is a better deal, btw. There were some others that offered me good scholarships or had low tuition, but I cut them because I didn't like them for various reasons. So it's not JUST cost, but the least expensive of the schools that I actually liked.
Hooray! You made it! Welcome!
