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I'm currently in school in NY and having a lot of trouble deciding whether to take an offer at the best firm in a large but secondary market still paying 180 (think Boston/Dallas/Miami/Philly) or at one of several mid-tier NY firms I have an offer at. I've lived in the other city before and really liked it, but I fear that I'll always regret moving away from NY. That said I'd be working on larger and more complex deals (pretty set on corporate) in the secondary market. If I ever wanted to go elsewhere though, especially back to NY, I'm not sure how much more or less valuable more complex work would be than having done some time in NY. On the other hand if I go to the secondary market I'll undoubtedly have a much higher quality of life materially, and feel like there might be slightly more respect for life outside of work, even if it is very marginal.

Sorry for not asking a highly directed question here, but I'm intentionally leaving it somewhat open-ended to try to gather a lot of different opinions. If you're too hung up on how personal of a question it is, what would you do/have done given the above information?

If you want to live in New York go to New York if you want to live in the other city go to the other city.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm currently in school in NY and having a lot of trouble deciding whether to take an offer at the best firm in a large but secondary market still paying 180 (think Boston/Dallas/Miami/Philly) or at one of several mid-tier NY firms I have an offer at. I've lived in the other city before and really liked it, but I fear that I'll always regret moving away from NY. That said I'd be working on larger and more complex deals (pretty set on corporate) in the secondary market. If I ever wanted to go elsewhere though, especially back to NY, I'm not sure how much more or less valuable more complex work would be than having done some time in NY. On the other hand if I go to the secondary market I'll undoubtedly have a much higher quality of life materially, and feel like there might be slightly more respect for life outside of work, even if it is very marginal.

Sorry for not asking a highly directed question here, but I'm intentionally leaving it somewhat open-ended to try to gather a lot of different opinions. If you're too hung up on how personal of a question it is, what would you do/have done given the above information?

It depends. I'd personally take the lower COL and run. All those cities have plenty of things to do (Dallas is admittedly more limited), but, like you said, you may have a semblance of a life.

Go to the city where you want to be long-term.

Not OP, but does this change if the non-NYC firm no-offers a significant portion of the class each year?

star fox wrote:If you want to live in New York go to New York if you want to live in the other city go to the other city.

This. Prestige/Quality of Work considerations come secondary to location, in my mind.

Anonymous User wrote:Not OP, but does this change if the non-NYC firm no-offers a significant portion of the class each year?

It would 100% for me, but I guess it's up to your personal risk tolerance and how much you want to be in the other city over NY.

Anonymous User wrote:Not OP, but does this change if the non-NYC firm no-offers a significant portion of the class each year?

Go to the city you want to be in. Unless the non-NYC firm no-offers a signification portion of each class year... unless you know exactly why the firm doesn't offer certain people and are confident that you won't be the one being no offered (which I doubt you can know, tbh).

OP here. None of the firms in question no-offer.

Anonymous User wrote:Not OP, but does this change if the non-NYC firm no-offers a significant portion of the class each year?

Having a job beats being in your favorite city so yeah.

Go where u want to end up. People vastly overstate how easy it is to move to a top secondary market firm. Thinking they'll want u just bc u have NYC on your resume is a mistake