nyu or fordham Forum

[iheartlaw]

oh so you are/were a pt student at fordham? how many units did you have after your 1L if you dont mind me asking?

[ZXCVBNM]

22 but am taking 7 this summer

[iheartlaw]

okay cool. good luck on whatever you decide. i took 21 units and 5 over the summer which is why i was asking.

[MrKappus]

Just to join the dogpile, I think you'd be crazy to give up top 1-2% at Fordham if you (1) want NYC biglaw, and (2) don't care about clerkships. Congrats on the baller grades.

[prncaspian3]

Just to join the dogpile, I think you'd be crazy to give up top 1-2% at Fordham if you (1) want NYC biglaw, and (2) don't care about clerkships.

IMO, even #2 only slightly bodes in favor in NYU (if you care about clerking). For instance, I have a buddy who recently graduated from Fordham Law with similar stats, and he is now clerking at the 2nd Circuit. There are other similar stories. How many, I can't say, but my sense is that judges are increasingly diversifying the pool of schools from which to take clerks.

[MrKappus]

Just to join the dogpile, I think you'd be crazy to give up top 1-2% at Fordham if you (1) want NYC biglaw, and (2) don't care about clerkships.

IMO, even #2 only slightly bodes in favor in NYU (if you care about clerking). For instance, I have a buddy who recently graduated from Fordham Law with similar stats, and he is now clerking at the 2nd Circuit. There are other similar stories. How many, I can't say, but my sense is that judges are increasingly diversifying the pool of schools from which to take clerks.

yeah, but clerkships would be the ONLY argument for even considering taking NYU over top 1-2% at Fordham, so I felt it was necessary to mention. you're right though.

[ZXCVBNM]

Thanks for all of your advice. I thought long and hard and did tons of research and I'm transferring in the end. I spoke with people in hiring positions and almost all said to transfer. Law is prestige oriented and NYU opens more doors. Not that staying at Fordham would necessarily be a bad move. You get to take your resume and grades to OCI at NYU so you only gain. In the long run no one asks about your GPA or Law Review, only where you've worked, what you've done and what school you went to. I might want to lateral to a gov't job or in house counsel and an NYU degree for better or worse will be much more helpful for that purpose. I'm thinking long term and big picture. Short term interviewing for my first job is hard to predict and probably a wash. Would probably do the same if I stayed or transfered. Anyway, thanks again for all your comments. Feel free to respond or discuss further for others benefit that will be in the same position.

[Dead Ringer]

I think you made a good choice. And hey, loads more free time because you aren't on LR.

[270910]

Thanks for all of your advice. I thought long and hard and did tons of research and I'm transferring in the end. I spoke with people in hiring positions and almost all said to transfer. Law is prestige oriented and NYU opens more doors. Not that staying at Fordham would necessarily be a bad move. You get to take your resume and grades to OCI at NYU so you only gain. In the long run no one asks about your GPA or Law Review, only where you've worked, what you've done and what school you went to. I might want to lateral to a gov't job or in house counsel and an NYU degree for better or worse will be much more helpful for that purpose. I'm thinking long term and big picture. Short term interviewing for my first job is hard to predict and probably a wash. Would probably do the same if I stayed or transfered. Anyway, thanks again for all your comments. Feel free to respond or discuss further for others benefit that will be in the same position.

Sounds like you're going to be happy; that counts for a lot (despite what most law students would have you believe)

Enjoy NYU and don't look back (lest you turn into a pillar of salt as ITE destroys Fordham with meteors and sexy angels).

[Total Litigator]

I thought this was a very interesting thread, but I resisting throwing in my 2 cents. Honestly both choices are great and I really don't think you could have gone wrong with either.

Enjoy NYU. personally, I would have chosen NYU as well, but only for reasons of foolish pride.

[UCLAtransfer]

OP- If you just decided to transfer now, are you still cool for bidding on firms and everything for OCI? I'm sure you took this into account, but it seems odd that bidding wouldn't have happened yet.

[ZXCVBNM]

nyu reserves a good number of interview spots for transfer students. transfer bidding is in another week. Thanks for everyone's well wishes!

[Badger3920]

Hopefully I can lend my little bit of insight in a useful way.

First, I would stay if I were you. You're at a very well respected school in the region you want to work in.

Second, I made the opposite choice. I just transferred from UC Hastings to Columbia, but my target market is in San Francisco. So far, I've been doing excellently at EIP (OCI). Interviewers are more than familiar with hastings (especially because most of my interviewers ALSO interview the schools in SF - and practice in SF).

Obviously, my circumstances were a bit different (San Francisco is a smaller, very over-saturated legal market). However, I felt like posting my experience would reassure you in either decision you make. I'll echo those who have said that it's not like transferring to NYU would cause employers to forget how well you did your 1L year. However, you're right - don't transfer just to be a prestige whore. Fordham is excellent in New York, and you're at the top of it. You can do whatever you want in this situation, but I'd take Fordham, journal, and the small $$ they're giving you, and run.

Best of luck

[ToTransferOrNot]

Try to leverage money out of Fordham using your NYU acceptance, but I would stay under these circumstances. That is kind of hypocritical of me, given that I transfered under similar circumstances (from Wisconsin to Chicago,) but at least I had the excuse that Wisconsin wasn't in my target city, and no Chicago biglaw firms really did OCI at Wisconsin in 2009.

[Badger3920]

I dont think it's hypocritical of you at all. These are all hard questions with a lot of different factors. If you tweak the variables in his question just a little bit, NYU becomes a more potentially obvious choice (like if New York isn't his target market) or if he were at a non-fordham school.

You and I did something similar, despite the fact that I had to move farther.

[270910]

OP already made the decision.

[ZXCVBNM]

thanks guys....i decided to transfer to NYU and am happy about it. best of luck to all of you.

[20160810]

I'd stay. You're pretty much guaranteed a kick-ass job.

[ZXCVBNM]

I'd stay. You're pretty much guaranteed a kick-ass job.

did he even read the post above?!

[underdawg]

i know this is already over, but a bunch of anti-prestige whores to the max here wow. he's giving up $10k to go to nyu. the fordham GPA can stay on the transcript (i assume). the high fordham rank is now final and can't be fucked up by a crappy 2L and 3L. unless you had some insane connections with profs or some personal connection to fordham, going to nyu is the waay smarter choice imo.

if there were more money on the table, then it'd be a more interesting scenario.

sure, work experience should count for everything after graduation. i'm just hypothesizing here, but for 90% of biglaw lawyers (the ones that never become partner), it's not all that easy to sift through who has been kicking butt and who has simply been good enough to get by. how would people do that? through samples, recs, and how you describe it? don't you think those are all gamed?

my main point is that it seems fairly obvious to me that "all that matters is your work product!" is true only for the very small number of us that will actually really distinguish themselves and decidedly not true for the rest of us.

[PDaddy]

Fordham top 1-2%, LR ... OR NYU? Only have a few days to decide.

If you're doing that well, stay where you are. Top 1-2% at Fordham can get you in anywhere you want to go (even out west) if you have career services put in some work for you. After top-5%, you're staying in the northeast/east, and after top-10-15%, you're staying in NYC...after that, you're working at a boutique firm in NYC, and after top-40%, you probably don't have a job anyways.

I'd rather be top-1-2% at Fordham than top-20% at NYU.