Northwestern 1L/2L/3L/Grads Taking Questions and Challenges Forum

[Eugenie Danglars]

I was just looking at NU's budget for 2011-2012... $77,399...wow. 6-11k/year more than the other schools I'm considering. Does tuition go down for 2l and 3l?

Also... Chi estimates 13k for housing and NU estimates 14k... which is more realistic? I can't imagine them being that close given their neighborhoods.

Do NU students get to ride the subways/buses for free with their student ID?

I'm just a 0L, so I dunno about the housing- I know I'll be paying 550 in rent next year to share a 2br.

NU will give us a subway/bus pass- but I don't think it's really free. Seems to be part of our "transportation" budget.

[09042014]

I was just looking at NU's budget for 2011-2012... $77,399...wow. 6-11k/year more than the other schools I'm considering. Does tuition go down for 2l and 3l?

Also... Chi estimates 13k for housing and NU estimates 14k... which is more realistic? I can't imagine them being that close given their neighborhoods.

Do NU students get to ride the subways/buses for free with their student ID?

They include 2 or 3K for a laptop in the first year budget. You shouldn't spend nearly that much on a laptop. If you already have one, don't buy a new one. If you don't have one, don't spend any more than 600 dollars.

But 77,399, is 4K more than this years. How much is tuition?

[sarahlawg]

They include 2 or 3K for a laptop in the first year budget. You shouldn't spend nearly that much on a laptop. If you already have one, don't buy a new one. If you don't have one, don't spend any more than 600 dollars.

But 77,399, is 4K more than this years. How much is tuition?

yeah, 2k for a laptop. Looking at last year's budget, the room/board went up about 2k as well as tuition up 2k this year.

Tuition is $51,670 this year!

[Bumi]

But 77,399, is 4K more than this years. How much is tuition?

$51,670.00*

* - Estimated tuition. Official tuition rate for the year has not yet been determined.

IIRC it's 4.5% more than last year.

[09042014]

They include 2 or 3K for a laptop in the first year budget. You shouldn't spend nearly that much on a laptop. If you already have one, don't buy a new one. If you don't have one, don't spend any more than 600 dollars.

But 77,399, is 4K more than this years. How much is tuition?

yeah, 2k for a laptop. Looking at last year's budget, the room/board went up about 2k as well as tuition up 2k this year.

Tuition is $51,670 this year!

Cost of living is pretty tight on what they were giving. Though I don't live frugally at all.

[Holly Golightly]

They include 2 or 3K for a laptop in the first year budget. You shouldn't spend nearly that much on a laptop. If you already have one, don't buy a new one. If you don't have one, don't spend any more than 600 dollars.

But 77,399, is 4K more than this years. How much is tuition?

yeah, 2k for a laptop. Looking at last year's budget, the room/board went up about 2k as well as tuition up 2k this year.

Tuition is $51,670 this year!

Cost of living is pretty tight on what they were giving. Though I don't live frugally at all.

It is not nearly enough money if you don't have roommates. SAVE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN BEFORE 1L!

[alexonfyre]

They include 2 or 3K for a laptop in the first year budget. You shouldn't spend nearly that much on a laptop. If you already have one, don't buy a new one. If you don't have one, don't spend any more than 600 dollars.

But 77,399, is 4K more than this years. How much is tuition?

yeah, 2k for a laptop. Looking at last year's budget, the room/board went up about 2k as well as tuition up 2k this year.

Tuition is $51,670 this year!

Cost of living is pretty tight on what they were giving. Though I don't live frugally at all.

It is not nearly enough money if you don't have roommates. SAVE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN BEFORE 1L!

Say you went into it with $0 in the bank. Would you still pay 100% of sticker price and COL to go to NU, if offered a full ride from the lower Tier 1 (Say 35-50 range?)

[bjsesq]

Say you went into it with $0 in the bank. Would you still pay 100% of sticker price and COL to go to NU, if offered a full ride from the lower Tier 1 (Say 35-50 range?)

This is all about your goals. If you are a biglaw or bust type kid, go to NU. I've said this before: I don't think going to any school besides YHS at sticker is a great idea. I am likely a minority opinion, though.

[EarlCat]

Do NU students get to ride the subways/buses for free with their student ID?

We get a U-pass that lets us ride "free" while school is in (not for summer or xmas break). I think we actually pay for it among our various fees.

[ArchRoark]

Say you went into it with $0 in the bank. Would you still pay 100% of sticker price and COL to go to NU, if offered a full ride from the lower Tier 1 (Say 35-50 range?)

This is all about your goals. If you are a biglaw or bust type kid, go to NU. I've said this before: I don't think going to any school besides YHS at sticker is a great idea. I am likely a minority opinion, though.

I am in the exact same situation and I am leaning towards the full-ride. It is going to be hard to turn down NU though.

[alexonfyre]

Say you went into it with $0 in the bank. Would you still pay 100% of sticker price and COL to go to NU, if offered a full ride from the lower Tier 1 (Say 35-50 range?)

This is all about your goals. If you are a biglaw or bust type kid, go to NU. I've said this before: I don't think going to any school besides YHS at sticker is a great idea. I am likely a minority opinion, though.

After reading through, I seem to have a lot in common with the NU students in the thread, so I was hoping to know if, having attended the school, they would choose to go there at full sticker or take the full ride option somewhere else. That said, looking at the 2012 employment numbers from USN, if NU isn't completely lying, then 82% of the class gets a private sector job with the 25-75 salary being 160k, 91% reporting. If you go PI and get a 59k median salary, then you pay $6500 a year for 10 years and your debt is fully paid (assuming $220k worth of debt.) Chances are your pay will go up in that time, and given the current rate of GS promotions you will average about $8500 per year. Your loan payments are all deductible so you make either an average of $120,000+ taxable dollars over 10 years (I don't know how often or how high private sector raises are) in the private sector or about $65k (avg. over 10 years) in PI to completely pay your law school debt. Then by the time you are 40 you are free of school debt and get a de facto raise by the amount your loan payments were. Compare this to a median at the 35-50 where you make $95k avg. in the private sector, and your PI salary would be around 60k (avg.)
Seems like a solid deal to me.

Hm......I guess I sort of answered my own question there....

EDIT: Digging a little further, it would seem that in order to actually best those numbers, you would need to get a full ride to T20, or at least a 3/4 ride to Vandy, UCLA, or UT.

[EarlCat]

After reading through, I seem to have a lot in common with the NU students in the thread, so I was hoping to know if, having attended the school, they would choose to go there at full sticker or take the full ride option somewhere else. That said, looking at the 2012 employment numbers from USN, if NU isn't completely lying, then 82% of the class gets a private sector job with the 25-75 salary being 160k, 91% reporting. If you go PI and get a 59k median salary, then you pay $6500 a year for 10 years and your debt is fully paid (assuming $220k worth of debt.) Chances are your pay will go up in that time, and given the current rate of GS promotions you will average about $8500 per year. Your loan payments are all deductible so you make either an average of $120,000+ taxable dollars over 10 years (I don't know how often or how high private sector raises are) in the private sector or about $65k (avg. over 10 years) in PI to completely pay your law school debt. Then by the time you are 40 you are free of school debt and get a de facto raise by the amount your loan payments were. Compare this to a median at the 35-50 where you make $95k avg. in the private sector, and your PI salary would be around 60k (avg.)
Seems like a solid deal to me.

Hm......I guess I sort of answered my own question there....

EDIT: Digging a little further, it would seem that in order to actually best those numbers, you would need to get a full ride to T20, or at least a 3/4 ride to Vandy, UCLA, or UT.

Huh?

[alexonfyre]

After reading through, I seem to have a lot in common with the NU students in the thread, so I was hoping to know if, having attended the school, they would choose to go there at full sticker or take the full ride option somewhere else. That said, looking at the 2012 employment numbers from USN, if NU isn't completely lying, then 82% of the class gets a private sector job with the 25-75 salary being 160k, 91% reporting. If you go PI and get a 59k median salary, then you pay $6500 a year for 10 years and your debt is fully paid (assuming $220k worth of debt.) Chances are your pay will go up in that time, and given the current rate of GS promotions you will average about $8500 per year. Your loan payments are all deductible so you make either an average of $120,000+ taxable dollars over 10 years (I don't know how often or how high private sector raises are) in the private sector or about $65k (avg. over 10 years) in PI to completely pay your law school debt. Then by the time you are 40 you are free of school debt and get a de facto raise by the amount your loan payments were. Compare this to a median at the 35-50 where you make $95k avg. in the private sector, and your PI salary would be around 60k (avg.)
Seems like a solid deal to me.

Hm......I guess I sort of answered my own question there....

EDIT: Digging a little further, it would seem that in order to actually best those numbers, you would need to get a full ride to T20, or at least a 3/4 ride to Vandy, UCLA, or UT.

Huh?

I was just pulling out all of the data I could find from USN, TLS, NLJ and the schools' websites to see approximately how much money a student would make yearly over a standard 10-year debt term. Turns out that NU will make you more money, despite the debt, than a lower T1 school will make with a full-ride and this is true all the way up to about WUSTL, which is the earliest point (on USN, for simplicity's sake) that a full-ride soundly beats NU at sticker in terms of take home money. This holds for both private sector and PI. Of course this probably also applies to all of the T14, and even more heavily the farther up you go, but since this thread is about NU, I used NU data.

[Eugenie Danglars]

Hey current students, do 1L's always take the same classes each fall or does it vary? I've got a friend who's wrapping up 1L now, and she's offered to give me her study aids, but if I'm not going to use them, she wants to sell them. Thx!

[EarlCat]

Hey current students, do 1L's always take the same classes each fall or does it vary? I've got a friend who's wrapping up 1L now, and she's offered to give me her study aids, but if I'm not going to use them, she wants to sell them. Thx!

More or less. There are 6 core classes (plus CLR, the writing class) that are taken over the first two semesters that are always the same, but you might take one in the fall while another section takes it in the spring.

[09042014]

Hey current students, do 1L's always take the same classes each fall or does it vary? I've got a friend who's wrapping up 1L now, and she's offered to give me her study aids, but if I'm not going to use them, she wants to sell them. Thx!

I'm pretty sure all 1L's take Torts, Civ Pro, and Contracts in fall. But this year my section did property while everyone else did Crim.

[Eugenie Danglars]

Awesome, thanks guys.

[bjsesq]

That said, looking at the 2012 employment numbers from USN, if NU isn't completely lying, then 82% of the class gets a private sector job with the 25-75 salary being 160k, 91% reporting.

Do not, I repeat, do not rely on these numbers.

[taw856]

Challenge: Pop-a-shot basketball at Prentice. Go.

[cubswin]

Say you went into it with $0 in the bank. Would you still pay 100% of sticker price and COL to go to NU, if offered a full ride from the lower Tier 1 (Say 35-50 range?)

This is all about your goals. If you are a biglaw or bust type kid, go to NU. I've said this before: I don't think going to any school besides YHS at sticker is a great idea. I am likely a minority opinion, though.

After reading through, I seem to have a lot in common with the NU students in the thread, so I was hoping to know if, having attended the school, they would choose to go there at full sticker or take the full ride option somewhere else. That said, looking at the 2012 employment numbers from USN, if NU isn't completely lying, then 82% of the class gets a private sector job with the 25-75 salary being 160k, 91% reporting. If you go PI and get a 59k median salary, then you pay $6500 a year for 10 years and your debt is fully paid (assuming $220k worth of debt.) Chances are your pay will go up in that time, and given the current rate of GS promotions you will average about $8500 per year. Your loan payments are all deductible so you make either an average of $120,000+ taxable dollars over 10 years (I don't know how often or how high private sector raises are) in the private sector or about $65k (avg. over 10 years) in PI to completely pay your law school debt. Then by the time you are 40 you are free of school debt and get a de facto raise by the amount your loan payments were. Compare this to a median at the 35-50 where you make $95k avg. in the private sector, and your PI salary would be around 60k (avg.)
Seems like a solid deal to me.

Hm......I guess I sort of answered my own question there....

EDIT: Digging a little further, it would seem that in order to actually best those numbers, you would need to get a full ride to T20, or at least a 3/4 ride to Vandy, UCLA, or UT.

I find it odd that you've been a member here since '09 and somehow aren't in on the secret that USN stats are a pile of horseshit.

[homestyle28]

Random question: Do NU students get MS office suite at a discount? I'm beginning to strategize/covet about LS laptops and wonder if I can beat the bundled office price with a student discount.

[jfb]

How is NU for the west, preferably SF?? I've seen the numbers in the info they've sent me, but I imagine that a lot of NU students shoot for Chicago, NYC rather than the west coast. Do any of you know of NU students who have wanted to head west upon graduation and were able to secure employment??

I'm pretty stuck between UCLA w/ 35k and NU w/ 40k, and am waiting for a response to a merit negotiation email sent to UCLA. I was born and raised in MI and am looking forward to getting out of the midwest but could handle 3 years in Chi if NU is my obvious best option.

NU sent about 12% of C/O 2009 to the west coast. Several of my friends are from there and are going back. C/O 2013 saw a huge spike in West-coast enrollees, with 28% of the class being from the west coast. There are now about an even number of people from the west coast, northeast, and midwest.

Not just that, but it's possible to get west coast from NU with absolutely no connections. NU is a great school, and if you have the grades you can go almost anywhere (or even if you only almost have the grades like me).

Nice. Have most students who are working out west after graduating spent a summer or two working there? Is this necessary if you don't really have connections to the west (the only connections I would have are NU alumni I guess)?

Any thoughts on study abroad or spending a summer working overseas? They seem to emphasize it in their mailings more than other schools.

[rinkrat19]

Random question: Do NU students get MS office suite at a discount? I'm beginning to strategize/covet about LS laptops and wonder if I can beat the bundled office price with a student discount.

Looks like a current student will have to investigate this for us, because both the MS academic store site (http://www.microsoft.com/student/en/us/ ... -2010.aspx) and the NU IT dept partner store (http://northwestern.onthehub.com/) require an NU email address/login.

[bdubs]

Random question: Do NU students get MS office suite at a discount? I'm beginning to strategize/covet about LS laptops and wonder if I can beat the bundled office price with a student discount.

You can at least get the standard student discount

http://store.digitalriver.com/store?Act ... eID=msshus

Edit: I already have an NU e-mail and was able to access the site

[rinkrat19]

Hey, Homestyle, I've been meaning to ask you about seat deposits. I 've already paid the first $750 (which for everyone else is due 4/29), because they required it before I could request the deferral. When my deferral was granted, the letter said:

We will require you to submit two additional tuition deposits to the Law School. The first $750 deposit to secure your deferral is due April 29, 2011. Payment of a second $750 deposit, to be forwarded to our office no later than April 30, 2012, will be necessary to confirm your intent to enroll in the academic year 2012-2013.

I'm having a hard time understanding the logic of that 2nd payment due by 4/29 (twice as much money as everyone else, by the same date?). Were your payment due dates the same?

If the 2nd payment were in August or something, I wouldn't mind so much.