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I am a 3L deciding between a full-tuition scholarship at Northwestern or paying sticker price at NYU for a tax LLM. Please don't show me the chart, I understand that it is usually NYU or bust around here. However, it costs 65K (not including housing). So the question is, how much is the prestige of being at the best tax program worth? Will I be taken seriously in the field if I don't go to NYU?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

ahd_100 wrote:I am a 3L deciding between a full-tuition scholarship at Northwestern or paying sticker price at NYU for a tax LLM. Please don't show me the chart, I understand that it is usually NYU or bust around here. However, it costs 65K (not including housing). So the question is, how much is the prestige of being at the best tax program worth? Will I be taken seriously in the field if I don't go to NYU?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

Do you have a job lined up?

How much debt are you in already?

Where do you want to work, what sort of employer?

[/quote]

Do you have a job lined up?

How much debt are you in already?

Where do you want to work, what sort of employer?[/quote]

I have a job offer from a very small, local law firm that does a little bit of everything (PI, family law, estate planning) and will not pay very well. <--Not super excited about this option.
I have no debt.
I would like to go to a big 4 or practice at a large law firm.

From what I can tell from the employment statistics, NW has placed their students pretty well over the last couple of years, but they are a much younger program. They place less than 20% of their students at large law firms and the majority of students go to accounting firms, but I am not sure what percentage of those are big 4. NYU places about 30% at 100+ attorney law firms and close to 40% at big 4. Also, NYU's program is huge, NW caps out at about 45 students. I imagine that there is more individualized attention on each student when it comes to job placement at NW.

im not very debt averse, so id do NYU in that boat. but if you are debt averse, northwestern's program is well respected in chicago. id expect the average outcome from NU to be big 4 and the average outcome at NYU to be a little higher (biglaw or more unicorn options like clerking), but big law from NU is doable and also big 4 from NYU is very common as well.

NYU and GT have first "dibs" at off campus tax recruiting (TIP). NYU goes to TIP with GT.

NW goes to TARE, which is off campus tax recruiting shared with BU and UF (TARE). Less employers go here. There were like like 4 law firms this year. But all the big 4, across the country was here.

If you have no debt so far, are willing to take some risk, and would like national reach, I would do NYU. NW is the safe option, but with less chance of Biglaw/Big4.