Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance Forum

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Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jan 22, 2020 12:01 pm

Posing my current situation as a hypothetical that I believe could be useful to many 1L on this site:

First semester grades are 3.94 at NYC T2, where I receive about a 3/4th tuition scholarship. Our school does not rank until the end of the academic year, so I can't be certain about class rank until then. Likely top 5-10%.

Interested in a variety of career paths. Should I stay or should I try to go? If try to go, where and how?

Pennoyer v. Meh

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Re: Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by Pennoyer v. Meh » Thu Jan 23, 2020 12:10 pm

Based purely on grades, you'll likely be competitive for everywhere from CCN down, with potential for HYS depending on if you're URM/other lightning in a bottle factors.

What do you mean "variety of career paths"? BigLaw, Federal Government, State Government, Academia? Where do you want to be long-term? T2 in NYC strikes me as Fordham (or possibly Cardozo); if the former, not clear how much you gain if your goal is BigLaw in NYC, since a ~3.9 at Fordham is pretty well-set, especially if you have a 75% scholarship. If the latter, I'd still think you're in good shape, but you'd need to network more aggressively. However, if you're goal is to go outside of NYC, or to clerk, or the federal government, transferring would likely be prudent.

Additional details might alter the analysis, but that's my gut reading based on the information provided.

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Re: Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by decimalsanddollars » Thu Jan 23, 2020 12:55 pm

General advice assuming you're at Cardozo or Brooklyn: it may be difficult to get into Yale or Stanford, but Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU (especially the latter two) will probably take you. You'd be paying sticker for the last two years, which would be a burden depending on what you do afterward. From your position, it's probably only worth it if you transfer to the top 6 schools. If you're particularly debt-averse and not prestige-focused, it may be a good move to stay, but as explained below, it probably makes sense to transfer for certain career paths.

I'll give some brief advice based on each of the "variety of career paths" you may be referring to, in no particular order:

V5-V10 corporate work in NYC (to partner or in-house): I would lean toward transferring. There would be more debt, and perhaps you could get a job like this without transferring, but it will be much easier to do so if you transfer. You'll likely be able to pay the higher loan balance quickly and have an easier time lateraling, clerking, or going in-house with a brand-name (HYSCCN) law degree on your resume.
Corporate Biglaw in basically any other market: transfer. Cardozo and Brooklyn are not national-placement schools, but basically all markets recruit from HYSCCN.
Academia: transfer 100%. It'll be hard to break into the market at all from your current school, and an overwhelming majority of placement power depends on rank/prestige of your JD.
Biglaw or boutique litigation: probably transfer and consider clerking right away. See below.
Clerking straight out: probably transfer. Many judges will only seriously consider apps from the top X schools plus their alma mater or local schools, and depending where you want to clerk (e.g. 2d Cir/SDNY), being at a top 5-6 school is essentially a requirement.
Federal Honors/BigFed: I would lean toward transferring, but it's close. Most of the more competitive honors programs do focus on prestige, but there's no strict cutoff. In any case, you should probably clerk before doing this (see above, which explains leaning transfer), and you should explore loan forgiveness options at your school.
High-prestige public interest: transfer. Hard to get these jobs anyway, but much harder coming from an unimpressive school. Grades matter less than name brand for these jobs generally.
Local public interest: hard call, but I would stay put. Save the money and gun for pro bono opportunities, clinics, and networking. Money is unpredictable and scarce in that line of work, and it'd be hard to find a good way out from under that debt (unless PLSF applies, but make that decision very carefully).
Small firm: don't transfer; save the money and do as well as you can with networking.

Libya

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Re: Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by Libya » Thu Jan 23, 2020 1:08 pm

decimalsanddollars wrote:General advice assuming you're at Cardozo or Brooklyn: it may be difficult to get into Yale or Stanford, but Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU (especially the latter two) will probably take you. You'd be paying sticker for the last two years, which would be a burden depending on what you do afterward. From your position, it's probably only worth it if you transfer to the top 6 schools. If you're particularly debt-averse and not prestige-focused, it may be a good move to stay, but as explained below, it probably makes sense to transfer for certain career paths.

I'll give some brief advice based on each of the "variety of career paths" you may be referring to, in no particular order:

V5-V10 corporate work in NYC (to partner or in-house): I would lean toward transferring. There would be more debt, and perhaps you could get a job like this without transferring, but it will be much easier to do so if you transfer. You'll likely be able to pay the higher loan balance quickly and have an easier time lateraling, clerking, or going in-house with a brand-name (HYSCCN) law degree on your resume.
Corporate Biglaw in basically any other market: transfer. Cardozo and Brooklyn are not national-placement schools, but basically all markets recruit from HYSCCN.
Academia: transfer 100%. It'll be hard to break into the market at all from your current school, and an overwhelming majority of placement power depends on rank/prestige of your JD.
Biglaw or boutique litigation: probably transfer and consider clerking right away. See below.
Clerking straight out: probably transfer. Many judges will only seriously consider apps from the top X schools plus their alma mater or local schools, and depending where you want to clerk (e.g. 2d Cir/SDNY), being at a top 5-6 school is essentially a requirement.
Federal Honors/BigFed: I would lean toward transferring, but it's close. Most of the more competitive honors programs do focus on prestige, but there's no strict cutoff. In any case, you should probably clerk before doing this (see above, which explains leaning transfer), and you should explore loan forgiveness options at your school.
High-prestige public interest: transfer. Hard to get these jobs anyway, but much harder coming from an unimpressive school. Grades matter less than name brand for these jobs generally.
Local public interest: hard call, but I would stay put. Save the money and gun for pro bono opportunities, clinics, and networking. Money is unpredictable and scarce in that line of work, and it'd be hard to find a good way out from under that debt (unless PLSF applies, but make that decision very carefully).
Small firm: don't transfer; save the money and do as well as you can with networking.
Is two years of HLS worth the extra 200K in debt just to work at a V10 instead of a V50/60/70? I can’t imagine the exit options at DPW, for example, compared to WFG/FF for corporate are worth that much, right? I’m sure they are better however 2 years of HLS tuition is alot of money and I personally would not pay it if my only goal was corp->in house

decimalsanddollars

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Re: Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by decimalsanddollars » Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:10 pm

Libya wrote:
decimalsanddollars wrote:General advice assuming you're at Cardozo or Brooklyn: it may be difficult to get into Yale or Stanford, but Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU (especially the latter two) will probably take you. You'd be paying sticker for the last two years, which would be a burden depending on what you do afterward. From your position, it's probably only worth it if you transfer to the top 6 schools. If you're particularly debt-averse and not prestige-focused, it may be a good move to stay, but as explained below, it probably makes sense to transfer for certain career paths.

I'll give some brief advice based on each of the "variety of career paths" you may be referring to, in no particular order:

V5-V10 corporate work in NYC (to partner or in-house): I would lean toward transferring. There would be more debt, and perhaps you could get a job like this without transferring, but it will be much easier to do so if you transfer. You'll likely be able to pay the higher loan balance quickly and have an easier time lateraling, clerking, or going in-house with a brand-name (HYSCCN) law degree on your resume.
Corporate Biglaw in basically any other market: transfer. Cardozo and Brooklyn are not national-placement schools, but basically all markets recruit from HYSCCN.
Academia: transfer 100%. It'll be hard to break into the market at all from your current school, and an overwhelming majority of placement power depends on rank/prestige of your JD.
Biglaw or boutique litigation: probably transfer and consider clerking right away. See below.
Clerking straight out: probably transfer. Many judges will only seriously consider apps from the top X schools plus their alma mater or local schools, and depending where you want to clerk (e.g. 2d Cir/SDNY), being at a top 5-6 school is essentially a requirement.
Federal Honors/BigFed: I would lean toward transferring, but it's close. Most of the more competitive honors programs do focus on prestige, but there's no strict cutoff. In any case, you should probably clerk before doing this (see above, which explains leaning transfer), and you should explore loan forgiveness options at your school.
High-prestige public interest: transfer. Hard to get these jobs anyway, but much harder coming from an unimpressive school. Grades matter less than name brand for these jobs generally.
Local public interest: hard call, but I would stay put. Save the money and gun for pro bono opportunities, clinics, and networking. Money is unpredictable and scarce in that line of work, and it'd be hard to find a good way out from under that debt (unless PLSF applies, but make that decision very carefully).
Small firm: don't transfer; save the money and do as well as you can with networking.
Is two years of HLS worth the extra 200K in debt just to work at a V10 instead of a V50/60/70? I can’t imagine the exit options at DPW, for example, compared to WFG/FF for corporate are worth that much, right? I’m sure they are better however 2 years of HLS tuition is alot of money and I personally would not pay it if my only goal was corp->in house
Ok, so my main problem with this is the math. HLS tuition is $67k, which is a lot. Cardozo is over $62k, and Brooklyn is $59.8k (assuming a 30-credit year). Assuming OP goes to the cheaper of those two and has a 75% scholarship, they're paying $14,950, plus cost of living in NYC---at least $42,600 COA per year. Taking Harvard's ABA 509 living expenses at face value, total COA is around $98,600, which is $56,000 more per year. Even if you factor in accrued interest for the difference over 2 years, you're still under $120,000 difference at graduation---not $200k.

I would say that, if someone's straight-out-of-school goal is top corporate groups for biglaw, a $120k debt difference is probably worth it for Harvard over Brooklyn. If OP's goal is corp->in house, I think firm prestige probably matters even more because the bigger firms will have better institutional clients to spin off to (e.g. SullCrom and Goldman Sachs).

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Libya

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Re: Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by Libya » Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:46 pm

decimalsanddollars wrote:
Libya wrote:
decimalsanddollars wrote:General advice assuming you're at Cardozo or Brooklyn: it may be difficult to get into Yale or Stanford, but Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU (especially the latter two) will probably take you. You'd be paying sticker for the last two years, which would be a burden depending on what you do afterward. From your position, it's probably only worth it if you transfer to the top 6 schools. If you're particularly debt-averse and not prestige-focused, it may be a good move to stay, but as explained below, it probably makes sense to transfer for certain career paths.

I'll give some brief advice based on each of the "variety of career paths" you may be referring to, in no particular order:

V5-V10 corporate work in NYC (to partner or in-house): I would lean toward transferring. There would be more debt, and perhaps you could get a job like this without transferring, but it will be much easier to do so if you transfer. You'll likely be able to pay the higher loan balance quickly and have an easier time lateraling, clerking, or going in-house with a brand-name (HYSCCN) law degree on your resume.
Corporate Biglaw in basically any other market: transfer. Cardozo and Brooklyn are not national-placement schools, but basically all markets recruit from HYSCCN.
Academia: transfer 100%. It'll be hard to break into the market at all from your current school, and an overwhelming majority of placement power depends on rank/prestige of your JD.
Biglaw or boutique litigation: probably transfer and consider clerking right away. See below.
Clerking straight out: probably transfer. Many judges will only seriously consider apps from the top X schools plus their alma mater or local schools, and depending where you want to clerk (e.g. 2d Cir/SDNY), being at a top 5-6 school is essentially a requirement.
Federal Honors/BigFed: I would lean toward transferring, but it's close. Most of the more competitive honors programs do focus on prestige, but there's no strict cutoff. In any case, you should probably clerk before doing this (see above, which explains leaning transfer), and you should explore loan forgiveness options at your school.
High-prestige public interest: transfer. Hard to get these jobs anyway, but much harder coming from an unimpressive school. Grades matter less than name brand for these jobs generally.
Local public interest: hard call, but I would stay put. Save the money and gun for pro bono opportunities, clinics, and networking. Money is unpredictable and scarce in that line of work, and it'd be hard to find a good way out from under that debt (unless PLSF applies, but make that decision very carefully).
Small firm: don't transfer; save the money and do as well as you can with networking.
Is two years of HLS worth the extra 200K in debt just to work at a V10 instead of a V50/60/70? I can’t imagine the exit options at DPW, for example, compared to WFG/FF for corporate are worth that much, right? I’m sure they are better however 2 years of HLS tuition is alot of money and I personally would not pay it if my only goal was corp->in house
Ok, so my main problem with this is the math. HLS tuition is $67k, which is a lot. Cardozo is over $62k, and Brooklyn is $59.8k (assuming a 30-credit year). Assuming OP goes to the cheaper of those two and has a 75% scholarship, they're paying $14,950, plus cost of living in NYC---at least $42,600 COA per year. Taking Harvard's ABA 509 living expenses at face value, total COA is around $98,600, which is $56,000 more per year. Even if you factor in accrued interest for the difference over 2 years, you're still under $120,000 difference at graduation---not $200k.

I would say that, if someone's straight-out-of-school goal is top corporate groups for biglaw, a $120k debt difference is probably worth it for Harvard over Brooklyn. If OP's goal is corp->in house, I think firm prestige probably matters even more because the bigger firms will have better institutional clients to spin off to (e.g. SullCrom and Goldman Sachs).
You don’t think they could negotiate up to a full at Cardozo with an HLS acceptance? Also how many people at S&C actually go work for goldman after?

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Re: Stay or Transfer? A Thread of Broad 1L Guidance

Post by decimalsanddollars » Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:12 pm

I think it would be hard to negotiate a full-tuition scholarship PLUS a full cost-of-living-in-NYC stipend from a school that regularly loses people to transferring up. As for Goldman, I don't have real numbers on that, but it's an example of how people at firms who represent major banks (read: V5-V10 firms in NYC) have a much better shot at going in-house at a major bank than someone not coming from that kind of firm.

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