Does Y @ sticker ever make sense over CCN full rides for maximizing ROI? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I mean, is anyone turning down YLS/HLS for CCN if $$$ are equal? If not, then clearly HLS/YLS are just fundamentally better.

No. They are clearly more preferable to 0Ls. That is not the same thing.

Even if YLS were superior to CCN (and SH) in some way, it would matter what we are talking about. A decent number of Y folks leverage the school's network to move into clerkships, prestige PI (e.g., certain sections of DOJ, OSG), etc. that benefit from that network specifically. But YLS is not clearly better for someone who wants to work in CA or as a transactional attorney.

And even then, assuming there is some marginal difference for generic BL, its value is another question. And assigning a value of $200k is pretty much untenable IMO.


Also, all the peeps just saying that $200k is small potatoes in the grand scheme of a career have clearly never been financially insecure, or are at least so far removed in time from that experience that they have lost touch with the financial reality of Americans.

[The Lsat Airbender]

And, as others have noted, $200k is not $200k. It is $1.5M, which gets you another summer house or many, many nice vacations. Or most of a Bugatti Veyron/several Phantoms.

Or the sweetest, sweetest prize of all: leaving biglaw sooner. Which is an anvil on the scale of "in-house opportunities".

[Anonymous User]

The prestige obsession driving any pro-Y sentiment on the thread is what gets half my liberal friends at HLS to do fed soc to get a clerkship at the fifth circuit so they can write opinions that are the antithesis of what they actually believe for a 1% shot at Scotus

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

How many YLS admits turn it down for CCN? 5%? 3%? The numbers don't lie.

You know they say all law schools are created equal, but you look at Yale and you look at Columbia and you can see that statement is NOT TRUE! See, normally if you matriculate at a T14 you got a fifty/fifty chance of summering at a V25. But Yale is an academic freak, and it's not normal! So you got a 25 percent at best at getting that reservation at Dorsia! And then you add Harvard to the mix? Your chances of flexing at the country club drastic go down. See, the three-way competition for partnership, you got a 33 and a third chance of winning. But Yale, Yale got a 66 and two thirds chance of winning, cuz Harvard KNOOOWS it can't beat Yale, and it's not even gonna try. So, Columbia, you take your thirty three and a third chance minus Yale's twenty five percent chance (if you was to compare FIRE calculators one on one) and you got an eight and a third chance of getting breakfast. But then you take Yale's 75 percent chance of winnin' (if you was to gun at S&C one on one), and then add 66 and two thirds…percents, Yale got a 141 2/3 chance of eating lobster. Columbia? The numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at Sackerfice Wachtell!

[Anonymous User]

I had a (much less prestigious) similar choice between a lower T14 full ride, and an ivy league T7 on partial scholly. Ok ok, it was Penn, and the other school was Northwestern. I took NU and it was absolutely the right choice, I'm in the same job I'd have gotten from Penn and with less debt. But sometimes I do have a tinge of regret. Not true regret because I know I made the right choice. I still know I was good enough to get into an Ivy (can't really articulate why that's important to me beyond the ranking etc, but it is). Just wanted to toss into the mix to say that I understand why someone would find this a tough decision and be tempted to go with the intangible preftige over the financially prudence choice.

There is no such thing as an "ivy" when it comes to law school. NW and Penn are objectively the same. Both in terms of admissions profiles and in terms of the caliber of students and outcomes. Slight difference being that elite firms that don't attend NW's OCI go to Penn's.

The University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Ivy League. As is Columbia, Harvard, Yale and... Cornell. And a bunch of other schools that don't have law schools. Plus, there's a bunch of schools considered "ivy" that are not actually Ivy (eg Stanford, Chicago).

You're right of course that there is no real significance to ivies in terms of LS quality. And that's why in fact I did take the money. But coming from pretty much nothing like I did, I still have a part of me that wants the meaningless validation of a diploma from an ivy league university.

Penn is a lower-tier Ivy anyway, nobody pretends it’s a better school than Chicago or Stanford overall, and yes, people snobby enough to care about Ivies versus Northwestern make such distinctions. NW and Penn are on the same tier as institutions.

Eh this isn't really true. I have no horse in this race (am an upper Ivy UG) but Penn isn't really a lower tier Ivy, they're more smack dab in the middle. Below HYPC but clearly ahead of BDC. Also, agreed that Penn is not on the same tier as Standford, but Chicago is a more nuanced comparison. Penn is much stronger in big corporate placement than Chicago, while Chicago opens significantly more doors in academia. I think NW is closer to Brown/Dartmouth/Cornell than it is to Penn/Chicago.

This is obviously a holistic institutional comparison, not a law school centered one.

Chicago is a research powerhouse in almost every field and a top-ten global university, Penn has very good professional schools but isn’t at Chicago’s level in most major disciplines (like Chicago’s professional schools are all just as good as Penn’s, but they’re not what it’s known for as a school). Penn’s still an outstanding university, and comparable in its areas of strength, but e.g. it has second-plus-tier departments in all of the hard sciences.

[Anonymous User]

I had a (much less prestigious) similar choice between a lower T14 full ride, and an ivy league T7 on partial scholly. Ok ok, it was Penn, and the other school was Northwestern. I took NU and it was absolutely the right choice, I'm in the same job I'd have gotten from Penn and with less debt. But sometimes I do have a tinge of regret. Not true regret because I know I made the right choice. I still know I was good enough to get into an Ivy (can't really articulate why that's important to me beyond the ranking etc, but it is). Just wanted to toss into the mix to say that I understand why someone would find this a tough decision and be tempted to go with the intangible preftige over the financially prudence choice.

There is no such thing as an "ivy" when it comes to law school. NW and Penn are objectively the same. Both in terms of admissions profiles and in terms of the caliber of students and outcomes. Slight difference being that elite firms that don't attend NW's OCI go to Penn's.

The University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Ivy League. As is Columbia, Harvard, Yale and... Cornell. And a bunch of other schools that don't have law schools. Plus, there's a bunch of schools considered "ivy" that are not actually Ivy (eg Stanford, Chicago).

You're right of course that there is no real significance to ivies in terms of LS quality. And that's why in fact I did take the money. But coming from pretty much nothing like I did, I still have a part of me that wants the meaningless validation of a diploma from an ivy league university.

Penn is a lower-tier Ivy anyway, nobody pretends it’s a better school than Chicago or Stanford overall, and yes, people snobby enough to care about Ivies versus Northwestern make such distinctions. NW and Penn are on the same tier as institutions.

Eh this isn't really true. I have no horse in this race (am an upper Ivy UG) but Penn isn't really a lower tier Ivy, they're more smack dab in the middle. Below HYPC but clearly ahead of BDC. Also, agreed that Penn is not on the same tier as Standford, but Chicago is a more nuanced comparison. Penn is much stronger in big corporate placement than Chicago, while Chicago opens significantly more doors in academia. I think NW is closer to Brown/Dartmouth/Cornell than it is to Penn/Chicago.

This is obviously a holistic institutional comparison, not a law school centered one.

Chicago is a research powerhouse in almost every field and a top-ten global university, Penn has very good professional schools but isn’t at Chicago’s level in most major disciplines (like Chicago’s professional schools are all just as good as Penn’s, but they’re not what it’s known for as a school). Penn’s still an outstanding university, and comparable in its areas of strength, but e.g. it has second-plus-tier departments in all of the hard sciences.

According to the True Authority on the subject, Penn is #13 and and Chi #15 on the global university rankings, with a raw score difference of 0.3. (UCLA is in between, and Princeton just after). Northwestern comes in at a lowly #24, between Duke and some Kangaroo school. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... s/rankings
(yes ofc this ranking is meaningless but so is this entire discussion)

[Anonymous User]

I had a Ruby at Chicago and am now a 5-7th year in biglaw. Just few points I would add are that (again assuming a biglaw-interested student)

(1) if you are conservative, and you get the money, go to Chicago. Your odds of clerking for SCOTUS or a conservative feeder are probably nearly as high or even higher from Chicago as they are from Yale (again this is true for conservative students only). For liberals, Yale will dramatically increase your odds of said unicorn possibility. But Chicago's SCOTUS numbers are way above their weight lately and with the present conservative tilt of the Court my guess is that will only continue.

(2) Yale has, in my view, zero advantage for biglaw recruiting over CC (tho maybe a bit over N). The reason is that yes, I might assume you have strong odds of being smart if you went to Y. But I've also seen enough Yalie flameouts who just want to go build an orphanage with the ACLU in Uganda and who think all corporations + capitalism are bad that frankly, I'm going to want to test a Yalie more in interviews on why they actually want to do biglaw. I'll assume a Columbia/Chicago kid actually wants biglaw; can't trust that with a Yalie. Again, Yalies who have the mentality for biglaw end up being awesome -- but getting that mentality is less straightforward there.

(3) I think it's insane to turn down a big scholarship and then sell yourself to biglaw (yes those hundreds of thousands of dollars matter). You have no idea how hard this job is and if you'll like it; planning to just do more years of biglaw for the sake of Yalie prestige is insane. If you want to go on loan forgiveness or do a unicorn civil rights/PI job, then Yale starts to make much more sense. But paying way more to get the same biglaw job you would have gotten from any T-14 is questionable in my view.

[Anonymous User]

I had a (much less prestigious) similar choice between a lower T14 full ride, and an ivy league T7 on partial scholly. Ok ok, it was Penn, and the other school was Northwestern. I took NU and it was absolutely the right choice, I'm in the same job I'd have gotten from Penn and with less debt. But sometimes I do have a tinge of regret. Not true regret because I know I made the right choice. I still know I was good enough to get into an Ivy (can't really articulate why that's important to me beyond the ranking etc, but it is). Just wanted to toss into the mix to say that I understand why someone would find this a tough decision and be tempted to go with the intangible preftige over the financially prudence choice.

There is no such thing as an "ivy" when it comes to law school. NW and Penn are objectively the same. Both in terms of admissions profiles and in terms of the caliber of students and outcomes. Slight difference being that elite firms that don't attend NW's OCI go to Penn's.

The University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Ivy League. As is Columbia, Harvard, Yale and... Cornell. And a bunch of other schools that don't have law schools. Plus, there's a bunch of schools considered "ivy" that are not actually Ivy (eg Stanford, Chicago).

You're right of course that there is no real significance to ivies in terms of LS quality. And that's why in fact I did take the money. But coming from pretty much nothing like I did, I still have a part of me that wants the meaningless validation of a diploma from an ivy league university.

Penn is a lower-tier Ivy anyway, nobody pretends it’s a better school than Chicago or Stanford overall, and yes, people snobby enough to care about Ivies versus Northwestern make such distinctions. NW and Penn are on the same tier as institutions.

Eh this isn't really true. I have no horse in this race (am an upper Ivy UG) but Penn isn't really a lower tier Ivy, they're more smack dab in the middle. Below HYPC but clearly ahead of BDC. Also, agreed that Penn is not on the same tier as Standford, but Chicago is a more nuanced comparison. Penn is much stronger in big corporate placement than Chicago, while Chicago opens significantly more doors in academia. I think NW is closer to Brown/Dartmouth/Cornell than it is to Penn/Chicago.

This is obviously a holistic institutional comparison, not a law school centered one.

Chicago is a research powerhouse in almost every field and a top-ten global university, Penn has very good professional schools but isn’t at Chicago’s level in most major disciplines (like Chicago’s professional schools are all just as good as Penn’s, but they’re not what it’s known for as a school). Penn’s still an outstanding university, and comparable in its areas of strength, but e.g. it has second-plus-tier departments in all of the hard sciences.

Chicago ug alum here. Our perspective was very much that we were on-par w/ Columbia and Penn (admittedly we thought Penn was less intellectual, but they got better jobs), while being easily beaten out by HYPS. Slightly different vibe re: law school; @ my HYS Chi is definitely talked about as a near-peer to peer, while I don't remember the last time anyone mentioned Columbia, NYU, or Penn.

[Anonymous User]

(3) I think it's insane to turn down a big scholarship and then sell yourself to biglaw (yes those hundreds of thousands of dollars matter). You have no idea how hard this job is and if you'll like it; planning to just do more years of biglaw for the sake of Yalie prestige is insane. If you want to go on loan forgiveness or do a unicorn civil rights/PI job, then Yale starts to make much more sense. But paying way more to get the same biglaw job you would have gotten from any T-14 is questionable in my view.

I think this last point actually tilts slightly in the opposite direction. You have no idea how hard this job is and if you'll like it. So a degree from Yale, and all that that involves, long-term, and broadly, improves your chances of successfully pivoting your career in a new direction in a greater number of ways, in a greater number of places, and using a greater number of resources, nationally but also internationally. It's marginal value, but it's real, and we're talking about your life here.

[Anonymous User]

I think this last point actually tilts slightly in the opposite direction. You have no idea how hard this job is and if you'll like it. So a degree from Yale, and all that that involves, long-term, and broadly, improves your chances of successfully pivoting your career in a new direction in a greater number of ways, in a greater number of places, and using a greater number of resources, nationally but also internationally. It's marginal value, but it's real, and we're talking about your life here.

Again, it depends on the field. Prestige PI like SDNY AUSA or BigFed? Yes. Generic in-house? No one ITT has provided any reason to believe so.

And if the concern is money, saving the $200k and inevitably having lucrative in-house opportunities seems like the right play regardless.

[Anonymous User]

I had a (much less prestigious) similar choice between a lower T14 full ride, and an ivy league T7 on partial scholly. Ok ok, it was Penn, and the other school was Northwestern. I took NU and it was absolutely the right choice, I'm in the same job I'd have gotten from Penn and with less debt. But sometimes I do have a tinge of regret. Not true regret because I know I made the right choice. I still know I was good enough to get into an Ivy (can't really articulate why that's important to me beyond the ranking etc, but it is). Just wanted to toss into the mix to say that I understand why someone would find this a tough decision and be tempted to go with the intangible preftige over the financially prudence choice.

There is no such thing as an "ivy" when it comes to law school. NW and Penn are objectively the same. Both in terms of admissions profiles and in terms of the caliber of students and outcomes. Slight difference being that elite firms that don't attend NW's OCI go to Penn's.

The University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Ivy League. As is Columbia, Harvard, Yale and... Cornell. And a bunch of other schools that don't have law schools. Plus, there's a bunch of schools considered "ivy" that are not actually Ivy (eg Stanford, Chicago).

You're right of course that there is no real significance to ivies in terms of LS quality. And that's why in fact I did take the money. But coming from pretty much nothing like I did, I still have a part of me that wants the meaningless validation of a diploma from an ivy league university.

Penn is a lower-tier Ivy anyway, nobody pretends it’s a better school than Chicago or Stanford overall, and yes, people snobby enough to care about Ivies versus Northwestern make such distinctions. NW and Penn are on the same tier as institutions.

Eh this isn't really true. I have no horse in this race (am an upper Ivy UG) but Penn isn't really a lower tier Ivy, they're more smack dab in the middle. Below HYPC but clearly ahead of BDC. Also, agreed that Penn is not on the same tier as Standford, but Chicago is a more nuanced comparison. Penn is much stronger in big corporate placement than Chicago, while Chicago opens significantly more doors in academia. I think NW is closer to Brown/Dartmouth/Cornell than it is to Penn/Chicago.

This is obviously a holistic institutional comparison, not a law school centered one.

Chicago is a research powerhouse in almost every field and a top-ten global university, Penn has very good professional schools but isn’t at Chicago’s level in most major disciplines (like Chicago’s professional schools are all just as good as Penn’s, but they’re not what it’s known for as a school). Penn’s still an outstanding university, and comparable in its areas of strength, but e.g. it has second-plus-tier departments in all of the hard sciences.

Chicago ug alum here. Our perspective was very much that we were on-par w/ Columbia and Penn (admittedly we thought Penn was less intellectual, but they got better jobs), while being easily beaten out by HYPS. Slightly different vibe re: law school; @ my HYS Chi is definitely talked about as a near-peer to peer, while I don't remember the last time anyone mentioned Columbia, NYU, or Penn.

There is no job that a Penn student could get that a Chicago student couldn't (assuming the same GPA/controlled factors). If there is a hindrance to Chicago students realizing their goals, it is due to their autism.

[Anonymous User]

There is no such thing as an "ivy" when it comes to law school. NW and Penn are objectively the same. Both in terms of admissions profiles and in terms of the caliber of students and outcomes. Slight difference being that elite firms that don't attend NW's OCI go to Penn's.

The University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Ivy League. As is Columbia, Harvard, Yale and... Cornell. And a bunch of other schools that don't have law schools. Plus, there's a bunch of schools considered "ivy" that are not actually Ivy (eg Stanford, Chicago).

You're right of course that there is no real significance to ivies in terms of LS quality. And that's why in fact I did take the money. But coming from pretty much nothing like I did, I still have a part of me that wants the meaningless validation of a diploma from an ivy league university.

Penn is a lower-tier Ivy anyway, nobody pretends it’s a better school than Chicago or Stanford overall, and yes, people snobby enough to care about Ivies versus Northwestern make such distinctions. NW and Penn are on the same tier as institutions.

Eh this isn't really true. I have no horse in this race (am an upper Ivy UG) but Penn isn't really a lower tier Ivy, they're more smack dab in the middle. Below HYPC but clearly ahead of BDC. Also, agreed that Penn is not on the same tier as Standford, but Chicago is a more nuanced comparison. Penn is much stronger in big corporate placement than Chicago, while Chicago opens significantly more doors in academia. I think NW is closer to Brown/Dartmouth/Cornell than it is to Penn/Chicago.

This is obviously a holistic institutional comparison, not a law school centered one.

Chicago is a research powerhouse in almost every field and a top-ten global university, Penn has very good professional schools but isn’t at Chicago’s level in most major disciplines (like Chicago’s professional schools are all just as good as Penn’s, but they’re not what it’s known for as a school). Penn’s still an outstanding university, and comparable in its areas of strength, but e.g. it has second-plus-tier departments in all of the hard sciences.

Chicago ug alum here. Our perspective was very much that we were on-par w/ Columbia and Penn (admittedly we thought Penn was less intellectual, but they got better jobs), while being easily beaten out by HYPS. Slightly different vibe re: law school; @ my HYS Chi is definitely talked about as a near-peer to peer, while I don't remember the last time anyone mentioned Columbia, NYU, or Penn.

There is no job that a Penn student can get that a Chicago student couldn't (assuming the same GPA/controlled factors). If there is a hindrance to Chicago students realizing their goals, it is due to their autism.

Chicago ug alum again. This is 100% TCR.

[Anonymous User]

A really important point here is how much access to family money you actually have. To someone's point earlier, if you're actually paying full freight at Yale, your family has substantial resources. Will the $200k actually effect you in the same way that $200k effects people whose families do not have the same resources?

Have you considered the potential benefit of legacy-type application admissions for your kids, if you were to have them? I know that is absolutely freaking gross in terms of things that exist, but they do exist. What about the benefit of the Yale network for your kids?

I will say this. I've been out of law school now for 10 years. I didn't have the choice between full ride at CCN vs. admissions at Yale--didn't get accepted at HYS. I'm a CCN grad that had to pay full freight. I'm successful in my career and have not found my degree to be limiting, but I graduated pretty high in my class. Knowing everything that I know now, would I pay another $200k+ to have a Yale degree? Yeah, absolutely, mostly because of what it could mean for my kids. But that's with the benefit of knowing that I survive long enough in biglaw to pay that debt off, etc.

I will also say, I agree with the poster that said that I actually have more skepticism about a Yale graduate's dedication to biglaw than I do a CCN's. That doesn't mean I'm going to hire the CCN person over the Yale person, but it does mean I'm going to prod a bit. The academic credential doesn't really make you all that more useful until you're a mid-level at least (the stuff that juniors do just frankly does not need a ton of intellectual horsepower).

It's a really hard decision. I knew someone in LS that gave up a HYS admission for full ride at CC. They didn't regret it--until they struck out on the SCOTUS search, where they definitely did some second-guessing of the decision. But they have a very successful career now, too.

[The Lsat Airbender]

A really important point here is how much access to family money you actually have. To someone's point earlier, if you're actually paying full freight at Yale, your family has substantial resources. Will the $200k actually effect you in the same way that $200k effects people whose families do not have the same resources?

Have you considered the potential benefit of legacy-type application admissions for your kids, if you were to have them? I know that is absolutely freaking gross in terms of things that exist, but they do exist. What about the benefit of the Yale network for your kids?

I will say this. I've been out of law school now for 10 years. I didn't have the choice between full ride at CCN vs. admissions at Yale--didn't get accepted at HYS. I'm a CCN grad that had to pay full freight. I'm successful in my career and have not found my degree to be limiting, but I graduated pretty high in my class. Knowing everything that I know now, would I pay another $200k+ to have a Yale degree? Yeah, absolutely, mostly because of what it could mean for my kids. But that's with the benefit of knowing that I survive long enough in biglaw to pay that debt off, etc.

I will also say, I agree with the poster that said that I actually have more skepticism about a Yale graduate's dedication to biglaw than I do a CCN's. That doesn't mean I'm going to hire the CCN person over the Yale person, but it does mean I'm going to prod a bit. The academic credential doesn't really make you all that more useful until you're a mid-level at least (the stuff that juniors do just frankly does not need a ton of intellectual horsepower).

It's a really hard decision. I knew someone in LS that gave up a HYS admission for full ride at CC. They didn't regret it--until they struck out on the SCOTUS search, where they definitely did some second-guessing of the decision. But they have a very successful career now, too.

"Benefits for your kids" or "what it could mean for my kids" is downright fantastical. I'm sorry to prod, but are you first-generation (to elite universities and/or law school generally)? Because it's not clear at all what you're talking about unless you have some kind of deep-set insecurity about your parents' preftige. Especially since we're talking about the marginal benefits for the progeny of YLS grads that don't exist for the offspring of other T6 grads (who tend to work the same jobs, make the same money, and travel in the same social circles).

Never mind that we're weighing these purported benefits against the seven-figure bequest you could make to your kids by saving the $200k in your 20's. Ask anyone on the street if they'd rather have a million-dollar trust fund or be able to say "my dad attended Yale Law".

(And lol @ the presumptuousness of "if only I'd gone to HYS, I'd be clerking for SCOTUS")

[Anonymous User]

The in-house opportunities are going to be better with a YLS degree, ditto for non-legal opportunities. When people on the street want to hire a top lawyer they tell their friends "I hired a Yale-educated lawyer" or a "Harvard-educated lawyer," not a "Northwestern-educated lawyer". The brand differentiation can have significant impacts as far as business development and getting staffed on matters (clients are much more excited to be dealing with YLS associates when paying outlandish rates).

This is so vague as to be worthless.

What in-house opportunities and non-legal opportunities are you referring to? "People on the street" absolutely do not know that YLS beats out, say, CLS or Chicago.

I would love for someone making claims that YLS preftige somehow "opens doors" in the private sector to start being specific about what that means. Otherwise, it sounds like 0L posturing.

And, as others have noted, $200k is not $200k. It is $1.5M, which gets you another summer house or many, many nice vacations. Or most of a Bugatti Veyron/several Phantoms.

Not a HYS grad, but have noticed a little path dependency here: there are a number of YLS grads who’re in non-law roles that just don’t seem to be open to others, often without any biglaw experience. I’m talking VPs and MDs at private equity funds, serious policy positions in government and business, lots of stuff in management across the board. (There are a few from Harvard, too.) People have made starts in life based on YLS and not much else. JD Vance is one (unfortunate) example; there are others, too.

It maybe that some of these roles aren’t as remunerative as being a biglaw partner/F500 GC, but I think on balance that YLS (and to a lesser extent, Harvard and Stanford) opens up certain options that CCN schools do not - from clerking, to academia, to some of the other roles I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

This is not to say that this is the ONLY way to get to these spots - Wachtell and Cravath alums have some of these options (and others) after a few years of work, too, in maybe a way that STB and DPW don’t.

Maybe it’s unjustified, or maybe it’s in part due to the fact that smaller numbers lead to tighter and more helpful networks. (Chicago may have some of this, too.) As others in this thread have suggested, maybe it’s also based on the lack of regret people feel about going to those places. I’ve known partners at V5s who still have massive chips on their shoulders about having gone to Columbia or NYU instead of Harvard.

To answer the OP: financially, if you’re sure you have a plan to independence and no desire to do anything other than biglaw, sure, CCN may be a more rational choice. If, like me, you’re not sure that biglaw is the only thing for you or are struck by the fact that careers are long and there may be other things you want to do, too, YLS will give you options and networks that the others probably won’t. Whether or how much you value this is an intensely personal decision. You see the range of viewpoints in this discussion.

[Anonymous User]

A really important point here is how much access to family money you actually have. To someone's point earlier, if you're actually paying full freight at Yale, your family has substantial resources. Will the $200k actually effect you in the same way that $200k effects people whose families do not have the same resources?

Have you considered the potential benefit of legacy-type application admissions for your kids, if you were to have them? I know that is absolutely freaking gross in terms of things that exist, but they do exist. What about the benefit of the Yale network for your kids?

I will say this. I've been out of law school now for 10 years. I didn't have the choice between full ride at CCN vs. admissions at Yale--didn't get accepted at HYS. I'm a CCN grad that had to pay full freight. I'm successful in my career and have not found my degree to be limiting, but I graduated pretty high in my class. Knowing everything that I know now, would I pay another $200k+ to have a Yale degree? Yeah, absolutely, mostly because of what it could mean for my kids. But that's with the benefit of knowing that I survive long enough in biglaw to pay that debt off, etc.

I will also say, I agree with the poster that said that I actually have more skepticism about a Yale graduate's dedication to biglaw than I do a CCN's. That doesn't mean I'm going to hire the CCN person over the Yale person, but it does mean I'm going to prod a bit. The academic credential doesn't really make you all that more useful until you're a mid-level at least (the stuff that juniors do just frankly does not need a ton of intellectual horsepower).

It's a really hard decision. I knew someone in LS that gave up a HYS admission for full ride at CC. They didn't regret it--until they struck out on the SCOTUS search, where they definitely did some second-guessing of the decision. But they have a very successful career now, too.

"Benefits for your kids" or "what it could mean for my kids" is downright fantastical. I'm sorry to prod, but are you first-generation (to elite universities and/or law school generally)? Because it's not clear at all what you're talking about unless you have some kind of deep-set insecurity about your parents' preftige. Especially since we're talking about the marginal benefits for the progeny of YLS grads that don't exist for the offspring of other T6 grads (who tend to work the same jobs, make the same money, and travel in the same social circles).

Never mind that we're weighing these purported benefits against the seven-figure bequest you could make to your kids by saving the $200k in your 20's. Ask anyone on the street if they'd rather have a million-dollar trust fund or be able to say "my dad attended Yale Law".

(And lol @ the presumptuousness of "if only I'd gone to HYS, I'd be clerking for SCOTUS")

Quoted anon. Yes, first generation. And I've seen the differences in the networks between my CC and others' HYS. Just being blunt, I'm Chicago. I've found the network to be marginally helpful, but not much beyond that, and I don't see it helping my kids much at all. And Chicago has a very strict, and actually enforced, "we don't do legacies" policy, so I've basically saddled my kids with having no legacy stuff at all, as I went to a shit undergrad.

That said, I'm also willing to admit that I could be giving too much credence to the difference in networks and too little credence to other things, given the correlation between having access to the HYS network and just otherwise having a comparatively more privileged background--I don't "know how to navigate the halls."

My kids will be getting way, way more than a 7-figure amount on current track. There's a ceiling at which everything else is going to charity, so they wouldn't have gotten any benefit from the extra money being in the market. Obviously appreciate that everyone is different in this regard. Being in debt drove me to beat the hell out of both law school biglaw, though, from a performance perspective--I don't know that I'd have landed the way that I did without that specter hanging over my head. Again, totally appreciate that would be different for everyone.

(The person I knew in LS didn't presume they would've gotten SCOTUS if they'd been at HYS instead of CC, it was just "what-if"-ism; the person checked basically every relevant box and, while it's never a surprise that someone strikes out at SCOTUS, they were seen as having a very very good shot at it, so it's hard to ignore that what-if type of stuff.)

[The Lsat Airbender]

Your kids are going to be fine. Nobody is "saddled" for want of legacy preferences; marginally-easier admission to, say, Dartmouth is but a tile in the mosaic of privilege. Thanks to money, they can bootstrap into Ivy+ colleges via boarding school or obscure sports if that's really what you want for them.

As an aside, I think the levee is starting to break on legacy admissions anyway. Chicago's always been weird, but Amherst seems like a real harbinger, and the affirmative action cases before SCOTUS (or state/federal legislation dealing with the same set of issues) could also force a paradigm shift.

[nixy]

I think as well, anyone who goes to those kinds of schools is going to get the main benefits - pedigree and especially the network - regardless of legacy status. And I don’t think legacy preferences really make up for significant deficiencies, so qualified kids will get into at least some of this pool of schools, if not *the* peak chosen one.

[Anonymous User]

A really important point here is how much access to family money you actually have. To someone's point earlier, if you're actually paying full freight at Yale, your family has substantial resources. Will the $200k actually effect you in the same way that $200k effects people whose families do not have the same resources?

Have you considered the potential benefit of legacy-type application admissions for your kids, if you were to have them? I know that is absolutely freaking gross in terms of things that exist, but they do exist. What about the benefit of the Yale network for your kids?

I will say this. I've been out of law school now for 10 years. I didn't have the choice between full ride at CCN vs. admissions at Yale--didn't get accepted at HYS. I'm a CCN grad that had to pay full freight. I'm successful in my career and have not found my degree to be limiting, but I graduated pretty high in my class. Knowing everything that I know now, would I pay another $200k+ to have a Yale degree? Yeah, absolutely, mostly because of what it could mean for my kids. But that's with the benefit of knowing that I survive long enough in biglaw to pay that debt off, etc.

I will also say, I agree with the poster that said that I actually have more skepticism about a Yale graduate's dedication to biglaw than I do a CCN's. That doesn't mean I'm going to hire the CCN person over the Yale person, but it does mean I'm going to prod a bit. The academic credential doesn't really make you all that more useful until you're a mid-level at least (the stuff that juniors do just frankly does not need a ton of intellectual horsepower).

It's a really hard decision. I knew someone in LS that gave up a HYS admission for full ride at CC. They didn't regret it--until they struck out on the SCOTUS search, where they definitely did some second-guessing of the decision. But they have a very successful career now, too.

"Benefits for your kids" or "what it could mean for my kids" is downright fantastical. I'm sorry to prod, but are you first-generation (to elite universities and/or law school generally)? Because it's not clear at all what you're talking about unless you have some kind of deep-set insecurity about your parents' preftige. Especially since we're talking about the marginal benefits for the progeny of YLS grads that don't exist for the offspring of other T6 grads (who tend to work the same jobs, make the same money, and travel in the same social circles).

Never mind that we're weighing these purported benefits against the seven-figure bequest you could make to your kids by saving the $200k in your 20's. Ask anyone on the street if they'd rather have a million-dollar trust fund or be able to say "my dad attended Yale Law".

(And lol @ the presumptuousness of "if only I'd gone to HYS, I'd be clerking for SCOTUS")

Quoted anon. Yes, first generation. And I've seen the differences in the networks between my CC and others' HYS. Just being blunt, I'm Chicago. I've found the network to be marginally helpful, but not much beyond that, and I don't see it helping my kids much at all. And Chicago has a very strict, and actually enforced, "we don't do legacies" policy, so I've basically saddled my kids with having no legacy stuff at all, as I went to a shit undergrad.

That said, I'm also willing to admit that I could be giving too much credence to the difference in networks and too little credence to other things, given the correlation between having access to the HYS network and just otherwise having a comparatively more privileged background--I don't "know how to navigate the halls."

My kids will be getting way, way more than a 7-figure amount on current track. There's a ceiling at which everything else is going to charity, so they wouldn't have gotten any benefit from the extra money being in the market. Obviously appreciate that everyone is different in this regard. Being in debt drove me to beat the hell out of both law school biglaw, though, from a performance perspective--I don't know that I'd have landed the way that I did without that specter hanging over my head. Again, totally appreciate that would be different for everyone.

(The person I knew in LS didn't presume they would've gotten SCOTUS if they'd been at HYS instead of CC, it was just "what-if"-ism; the person checked basically every relevant box and, while it's never a surprise that someone strikes out at SCOTUS, they were seen as having a very very good shot at it, so it's hard to ignore that what-if type of stuff.)

As someone plugged into both Yale and UChicago, this legacy talk is bizarre to me. If you mean that had you attended YLS, your kids would have an outsized shot at attending YLS, (1) This only matters if your kids want to go to law school and turn out to be exceptionally smart, and (2) I don't think YLS legacy status alone would provide much of a boost for your kid's YLS admissions chances anyways. The class is too small/there are too many other more connected admittees for YLS to be handing out many legacy spots. If you mean that you attending YLS would help your kids get into Yale College, undergraduate admissions weighs graduate school legacy status a lot less than if you'd attended Yale College, so again, not much of a boost.

You are mostly right that people who have not attended H or Y do not understand the massive network advantage of their graduates. But it's becoming more and more difficult to pass on that advantage, and the best way to do so is to have attended the undergraduate college (or give away a million bucks).

Also, re "Chicago doesn't do legacy" or whatever, that's not correct.

[jsnow212]

Just want to point out a major misnomer re: legacy admissions for law school. They are not meaningful in the way UG is. You still need a kid who got a 99th percentile LSAT score and 3.9 GPA to even be considered for YLS. Whether that threshold is met is completely unrelated to where you personally went to law school (especially when comparing schools that choose on the basis of 1-4 point LSAT differences).

[Anonymous User]

Just want to point out a major misnomer re: legacy admissions for law school. They are not meaningful in the way UG is. You still need a kid who got a 99th percentile LSAT score and 3.9 GPA to even be considered for YLS. Whether that threshold is met is completely unrelated to where you personally went to law school (especially when comparing schools that choose on the basis of 1-4 point LSAT differences).

Does going to LS at Yale not give the grad's kid some love for UG admission, especially if you're donating meaningful cash post-grad? Totally appreciate that legacy doesn't translate much to LS. I sincerely hope my kids find something better to do with their lives than go into this profession anyway!

[The Lsat Airbender]

Just want to point out a major misnomer re: legacy admissions for law school. They are not meaningful in the way UG is. You still need a kid who got a 99th percentile LSAT score and 3.9 GPA to even be considered for YLS. Whether that threshold is met is completely unrelated to where you personally went to law school (especially when comparing schools that choose on the basis of 1-4 point LSAT differences).

Does going to LS at Yale not give the grad's kid some love for UG admission, especially if you're donating meaningful cash post-grad? Totally appreciate that legacy doesn't translate much to LS. I sincerely hope my kids find something better to do with their lives than go into this profession anyway!

Insofar as top undergrads care about legacy, it's mostly restricted to parents who are alumni of that college. If you allow for more attenuated relationships, the eligible population exponentiates and gets too big.

There's probably some synergy between being a grad-school alum and making an eight-figure donation—it's easier for everyone involved to save face wrt the resulting "development admit" if you have a bona-fide connection to the university—but the $$$ is what's tipping the scales there, not the law-school diploma.

[Anonymous User]

My understanding has always been that UG admissions only gives a boost to children of graduates of that UG institution. Donations (above a certain, and extremely high, threshold) would put your kids in a different category for special consideration.

[Anonymous User]

A really important point here is how much access to family money you actually have. To someone's point earlier, if you're actually paying full freight at Yale, your family has substantial resources. Will the $200k actually effect you in the same way that $200k effects people whose families do not have the same resources?

Have you considered the potential benefit of legacy-type application admissions for your kids, if you were to have them? I know that is absolutely freaking gross in terms of things that exist, but they do exist. What about the benefit of the Yale network for your kids?

I will say this. I've been out of law school now for 10 years. I didn't have the choice between full ride at CCN vs. admissions at Yale--didn't get accepted at HYS. I'm a CCN grad that had to pay full freight. I'm successful in my career and have not found my degree to be limiting, but I graduated pretty high in my class. Knowing everything that I know now, would I pay another $200k+ to have a Yale degree? Yeah, absolutely, mostly because of what it could mean for my kids. But that's with the benefit of knowing that I survive long enough in biglaw to pay that debt off, etc.

I will also say, I agree with the poster that said that I actually have more skepticism about a Yale graduate's dedication to biglaw than I do a CCN's. That doesn't mean I'm going to hire the CCN person over the Yale person, but it does mean I'm going to prod a bit. The academic credential doesn't really make you all that more useful until you're a mid-level at least (the stuff that juniors do just frankly does not need a ton of intellectual horsepower).

It's a really hard decision. I knew someone in LS that gave up a HYS admission for full ride at CC. They didn't regret it--until they struck out on the SCOTUS search, where they definitely did some second-guessing of the decision. But they have a very successful career now, too.

"Benefits for your kids" or "what it could mean for my kids" is downright fantastical. I'm sorry to prod, but are you first-generation (to elite universities and/or law school generally)? Because it's not clear at all what you're talking about unless you have some kind of deep-set insecurity about your parents' preftige. Especially since we're talking about the marginal benefits for the progeny of YLS grads that don't exist for the offspring of other T6 grads (who tend to work the same jobs, make the same money, and travel in the same social circles).

Never mind that we're weighing these purported benefits against the seven-figure bequest you could make to your kids by saving the $200k in your 20's. Ask anyone on the street if they'd rather have a million-dollar trust fund or be able to say "my dad attended Yale Law".

(And lol @ the presumptuousness of "if only I'd gone to HYS, I'd be clerking for SCOTUS")

Quoted anon. Yes, first generation. And I've seen the differences in the networks between my CC and others' HYS. Just being blunt, I'm Chicago. I've found the network to be marginally helpful, but not much beyond that, and I don't see it helping my kids much at all. And Chicago has a very strict, and actually enforced, "we don't do legacies" policy, so I've basically saddled my kids with having no legacy stuff at all, as I went to a shit undergrad.

That said, I'm also willing to admit that I could be giving too much credence to the difference in networks and too little credence to other things, given the correlation between having access to the HYS network and just otherwise having a comparatively more privileged background--I don't "know how to navigate the halls."

My kids will be getting way, way more than a 7-figure amount on current track. There's a ceiling at which everything else is going to charity, so they wouldn't have gotten any benefit from the extra money being in the market. Obviously appreciate that everyone is different in this regard. Being in debt drove me to beat the hell out of both law school biglaw, though, from a performance perspective--I don't know that I'd have landed the way that I did without that specter hanging over my head. Again, totally appreciate that would be different for everyone.

(The person I knew in LS didn't presume they would've gotten SCOTUS if they'd been at HYS instead of CC, it was just "what-if"-ism; the person checked basically every relevant box and, while it's never a surprise that someone strikes out at SCOTUS, they were seen as having a very very good shot at it, so it's hard to ignore that what-if type of stuff.)

Sorry, I think you're confused/misinformed--

1. Children of graduate school graduates generally do not get much of a legacy bump, if any
2. Chicago does have legacy admissions, and also has preferences for Lab School graduates, children of professors, CPS students, Chicago fire/police children, and (a bizarrely strong one) athletes. It's not Caltech, it doesn't do purely "meritocratic" admissions, though it does compromise less on test scores than the Ivies. (I'm a double Chicago grad married to another one.) Though I do expect it to ditch legacy before long.

Also fwiw I don't think you really get a tap into the undergrad/MBA/etc. network from going to the law school anywhere you go unless you seek out connections that most law students don't. Like you probably don't have a particular desire to hire people just because they went to Chicago undergrad, and Chicago undergrads don't have a particular desire to hire you just because you went to the Law School, and I think that's pretty universal.

[SGTslaughter]

How many YLS admits turn it down for CCN? 5%? 3%? The numbers don't lie.

You know they say all law schools are created equal, but you look at Yale and you look at Columbia and you can see that statement is NOT TRUE! See, normally if you matriculate at a T14 you got a fifty/fifty chance of summering at a V25. But Yale is an academic freak, and it's not normal! So you got a 25 percent at best at getting that reservation at Dorsia! And then you add Harvard to the mix? Your chances of flexing at the country club drastic go down. See, the three-way competition for partnership, you got a 33 and a third chance of winning. But Yale, Yale got a 66 and two thirds chance of winning, cuz Harvard KNOOOWS it can't beat Yale, and it's not even gonna try. So, Columbia, you take your thirty three and a third chance minus Yale's twenty five percent chance (if you was to compare FIRE calculators one on one) and you got an eight and a third chance of getting breakfast. But then you take Yale's 75 percent chance of winnin' (if you was to gun at S&C one on one), and then add 66 and two thirds…percents, Yale got a 141 2/3 chance of eating lobster. Columbia? The numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at Sackerfice Wachtell!

Underrated shitpost