Columbia 1Ls Taking Questions Forum

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

Here's a weird-ish question to pose to a 1L Columbia student: Why should I choose Columbia over NYU? Conversely, what might an NYU student say if I asked the same question?

I'm honestly relatively naive about what makes each school unique, both being in the top 5 and both being in Manhattan and being amazing schools. I'm somewhat borderline for both at 172/3.65. I'm trying to decide which to toss my ED at (one argument for NYU is my chances are slightly better), if either.

If someone can convince me that I should go to CLS or NYU without scholarship over a place like Virginia or Cornell with financial help, I'm going to go for it.

In the end, it really has to come down to personal preferences. Both schools are fantastic; you really can't go wrong with either one. I would encourage anyone choosing between the two to read up on both schools and, if at all possible, visit. I found visiting both schools really helped.

For me, CLS's location was a good selling point. Some people prefer the constant hustle and bustle of the Village (NYU), and that's totally cool - it's all a personal preference. The Village is a fun place, and there's always lots going on. But I like living in the relative quiet of Morningside Heights. Morningside has tons of restaurants, bars, etc, but the it's also a little less chaotic here than it is downtown and midtown. And when I want to head elsewhere in the city, all I have to do is hop on the subway or grab a cab.

I also think the location helps build a sense of community. Nearly every CLS student I know lives in Morningside Heights. IMO, Morningside Heights has a great neighborhood feel. Neighborhood feel + practically everyone living within a few blocks = sense of community.

I love the main undergrad campus (which is across the street from the law school). I think the main campus is gorgeous. I went to a small liberal arts college; having a pretty campus is important to me. As silly as it may sound, walking around the campus - or just sitting on the quad - makes me happy. And that's important to me.

When I visited, I really made an effort to talk with current students at both CLS and NYU. I found students at both schools very friendly. I also made a point of asking students how they liked law school so far, and whether they had any regrets about choosing CLS/NYU. The students I talked with at both schools seemed happy, and said they were glad they chose CLS/NYU. I decided I could be very happy among either CLS students or NYU students.

I sat in on two classes at each school, and was far more impressed by what I saw at CLS. However, that is a VERY, VERY subjective opinion. Furthermore, my small sample size (2 classes at each school) is obviously very vulnerable to sample bias. Maybe I caught two of CLS' best profs, and missed NYU's best profs. Take my opinion on this matter with a grain of salt. Visit both schools, sit in on classes at each, and make your own decision about which you prefer academically.

Finally, if you are particularly interested in a specific subject of law (IP, Con Law, Legal Philosophy, Law and Econ, etc), compare faculty and courses at both CLS and NYU.

[wackjickham]

A friend and I are coming up to visit Columbia and NYU this weekend (NYU on Friday, Columbia on Monday). What are some places I should stop by that a lot of law students frequent around Columbia/Morningside Heights that wouldn't be covered on the tour?

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

A friend and I are coming up to visit Columbia and NYU this weekend (NYU on Friday, Columbia on Monday). What are some places I should stop by that a lot of law students frequent around Columbia/Morningside Heights that wouldn't be covered on the tour?

I'm not precisely sure what you want to check out, so here's an excessively long list of various options. I hope you enjoy your visit!

Drinks:
-The Village Pourhouse (109 & Amsterdam) has a college town feel
-If PBR and darts at a neighborhood bar is more your scene, check out Lionshead (also 109 & Amsterdam)
The two bars are across the street from each other... so if you don't like one, try the other.
There are, of course, a whole bunch of other bars in the area along Broadway, Amsterdam, and Columbus.

Urban escapes:
-St. John the Divine is gorgeous inside. It has its own park, and Morningside Park is behind it. 112th & Amsterdam.
-The main Columbia campus. If the tour doesn't walk you through the main campus, make sure to take yourself there. It's directly across the street from the law school. Check out the quad. Stand on the steps in front of Lowe Library (you can't miss it... it looks like Columbia's version of the Capitol Building). While you're on the main campus, you may also want to check out:
-The overpass/bridge connecting the law school to the main campus. It's just north of 116th & Amsterdam. It's actually probably my favorite part of the law school. I don't know why - I just like the view down Amsterdam.
-St. Paul's Chapel. It's on the main campus, at the northwest base of the overpass/bridge that I just mentioned. Its approximate address is probably 117th & Amsterdam (although no such address exists; Amsterdam skips from 116th to 118th).
-Butler Library. It's the main University library. It's at the south end of the main quad. They may or may not let you in. If you stop by the office (on the left when you walk in the main doors), the person working there may give you a visitor's pass if you explain you're visiting the law school.

Sandwiches:
-Milano Market(113th & Broadway)
-Hamilton Deli (116th & Amsterdam)
-Many people prefer Milano Market's sandwiches, but HamDel is across the street from the law school, and therefore gets a lot of law school traffic.

Sit down sandwiches and coffee:
-Max Cafe (the cafe, not the restaurant). Amsterdam between 122nd and 123rd.

Cheap dinner:
-Columbia Cottage. Decent Chinese food and free wine with dinner (you have to ask for the wine). How can you go wrong? 111th & Amsterdam
-Taqueria y Fonda la Mexicana. Good food, and way too much of it. It's on the west side of Amsterdam, just south of 108th. (There's a different Spanish place across the street, on the east side of Amsterdam at 108th... so make sure you go to the right one.)

If for some reason you want to check out the local supermarket, I recommend the West Side Market. 110th & Broadway.

[Moxie]

Thanks so much for answering questions!

1) I know that Columbia is well known for placing most of it's students into BigLaw, but do you know if Columbia does a good job of placing graduates in prestigious government positions (ex: DOJ?)

2) Do you know of many students who plan on pursuing clerkships upon graduation? TLS' profile on CLS says about ~10% of graduates pursue clerkship which I thought was kind of low. Any ideas as to why this is?

Thanks again

[Renzo]

How badly are you going to lose at the Dean's cup this year, and how much will said ass-whooping hurt?

[irie]

How are grocery prices in Morningside Heights? I cook dinner pretty much 5-6 nights a week to save money and I usually get my groceries from Gristedes and Wholefoods or one of the low/mid scale stores in Manhattan (no Dean and Deluca for me). I also use the street vendors pretty often for fruits and stuff. Not sure if any of you guys are familiar with the markets in lower Manhattan, but how do the common supermarkets near Columbia compare? Do most law students (or grad students in general) cook their own food? I haven't been on a meal plan since freshman year of college, which was over 5 years ago, so not really a big fan of campus food.

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

Thanks so much for answering questions!

1) I know that Columbia is well known for placing most of it's students into BigLaw, but do you know if Columbia does a good job of placing graduates in prestigious government positions (ex: DOJ?)

2) Do you know of many students who plan on pursuing clerkships upon graduation? TLS' profile on CLS says about ~10% of graduates pursue clerkship which I thought was kind of low. Any ideas as to why this is?

Thanks again

My answers to both questions are substantially the same, so I'll answer them together. For many years, for one reason or another, many CLS students went to Big Law after graduation. Conversely, fewer CLSers (compared to students at peer schools) went into clerking, academia, and gov't work straight after graduation. None of that information is surprising - it's all available here: http://officialguide.lsac.org/ and http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2428438260. But I don't think the data indicate that CLS is better than its peers at placing into Big Law, or worse than its peers at placing into clerkships, academia, or gov't work. Pretty much the same things that qualify you to work at Cravath qualify you to make a damn good clerk. The data, in my belief, largely reflect self-selection.

The problem - and it's what your questions get at - is trying to separate the self-selection (the actual placement) from the potential placement. I don't have any helpful information. I'd expect that CLS students who want to clerk or work for the DOJ have a pretty good shot - at least as good a shot as students at peer schools have. But I don't have hard data. If I were you, here's the sort of data I'd try to dig up:
Out of the CLSers who apply for clerkships, how many get clerkships?
How many get federal clerkships?
What was the rank of the lowest ranking CLS student who landed a federal clerkship in each of the last 5 years?
Repeat same questions (minus the federal one) for DOJ.

Sorry that my answer is less-than-complete. The honest answer is I don't really know, but I'd expect CLS to do fairly well and be on-par with its peers.

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

How badly are you going to lose at the Dean's cup this year, and how much will said ass-whooping hurt?

Haha, not a chance!

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

How are grocery prices in Morningside Heights? I cook dinner pretty much 5-6 nights a week to save money and I usually get my groceries from Gristedes and Wholefoods or one of the low/mid scale stores in Manhattan (no Dean and Deluca for me). I also use the street vendors pretty often for fruits and stuff. Not sure if any of you guys are familiar with the markets in lower Manhattan, but how do the common supermarkets near Columbia compare? Do most law students (or grad students in general) cook their own food? I haven't been on a meal plan since freshman year of college, which was over 5 years ago, so not really a big fan of campus food.

I'm not really sure how prices compare. I know a few people up here who go to Fairway, but that's a little far for me. I walk to the Westside Market. There's a Westside Market in Chelsea - you might want to drop in there to compare prices. Or just catch the 1 uptown one day if you're really curious! As for quality, I love the Westside Market. I think they have great stuff. It's not quite as big as a typical Fairway or Wholefoods, but they pack a lot of stuff into the store.

I do my own cooking. I rarely order delivery (once so far) and don't go out to eat all that often. However, I have friends who are just the opposite: they rarely cook, and often order delivery or go out to eat. You can easily do either; it's a matter of personal preference.

I too get a good chunk of my produce from street vendors. There are a bunch of them here (including one right outside the front door Jerome Greene, which is our main law school building). There are also a bunch of hot sandwich, burger, gyro, etc vendors in the area.

[superserial]

fellow 1Ls... do any of you know if we can take language classes at the UG school?

[irie]

thx for the great answers!

[chevrondeference]

To the person asking about CLS placement in non-biglaw - that's a very good question and one that I'm not totally sure of myself after having spent 2.5 years here. But I have some impressions that might be helpful.

The poster who said that the school focuses on getting people into biglaw was correct. That track is well oiled and if you want to do that, in a normal year, you are led through every step of the way. The rest of the options require a little more elbow grease.

Government/Public Interest. There are a lot of resources at the school if you are willing to seek them out. Unlike the regular career services office, you have to take a lot more initiative in landing a government/public interest job. That said, there are some public interest organizations to which the school has great ties. (Almost all in New York or California). In my anecdotal experience, some PI employers have viewed CLS as a huge positive. Others have been confused as to why someone who was really into public interest wouldn't go to NYU. Government positions seem like they are more used to seeing CLS applicants (and seem to like them). The long and the short of it, self selection, peer pressure, and ease of access tend to steer students away from public interest options. When all your friends are signing up for EIP, even someone dead set on PI may have second thoughts and end up at a big firm. But if you are determined to do something else, there are considerable resources and connections available to you.

Clerkships. The data breaks down roughly like this: A little over 60% of 3L federal clerkship applicants are successful. (I think the school usually places 40-60 federal clerks as 3Ls). The success rate is higher among graduates. CLS actually places a fairly normal amount of clerks, and a lot of the data that people have been relying on in these forums indicating it places substantially less than its peers doesn't seem accurate to me (though I don't know). The weird thing about the school's clerkship program is that it is entirely geared toward New York and California. This has two main effects - 1) the average "prestige" of the clerkships CLS students typically get is very high. They place very well on the 2d Circuit, 9th Circuit, and SDNY; 2) the downside of this is that for students who want to branch out, there is not much institutional knowledge. Judges in other places don't tend to have the connections to the school that really drive clerkship hiring. (With a few significant exceptions who look for CLS candidates each year).

Whatever the case, I would definitely not take any school other than Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, or Chicago over Columbia because you think it is more likely to place you in a clerkship, PI, or government.

I'm happy to take more specific questions- I'm a Columbia 3L and have some experience with clerkships and government jobs.

[chris0805]

Government/Public Interest. There are a lot of resources at the school if you are willing to seek them out. Unlike the regular career services office, you have to take a lot more initiative in landing a government/public interest job. That said, there are some public interest organizations to which the school has great ties. (Almost all in New York or California). In my anecdotal experience, some PI employers have viewed CLS as a huge positive. Others have been confused as to why someone who was really into public interest wouldn't go to NYU. Government positions seem like they are more used to seeing CLS applicants (and seem to like them). The long and the short of it, self selection, peer pressure, and ease of access tend to steer students away from public interest options. When all your friends are signing up for EIP, even someone dead set on PI may have second thoughts and end up at a big firm. But if you are determined to do something else, there are considerable resources and connections available to you.

I would just add that I (also a 3L) have never run into employers being confused by PI students that chose Columbia over NYU (I'm sure it happens, just adding my own anectdotal experience).

I think the peer pressure is huge, but I you'll see that at all the top schools except MAYBE Yale. NYU's 8-10 % is definitely better than CLS' 3-6%, but it's still a significant minority. You start to feel a little crazy when you turn down (what used to be) a guarantee of 160+ to go for a slew of gambles that pay 40K... then add the fact that only 1 in 20 (or 1 in 10) of your classmates are making that decision and it's easy to second guess yourself if you don't already have a strong commitment to the work.

All in all, I've had a great public interest experience at CLS, would definitely recommend it to a friend, etc. I still need to get one those job things , but I have some interviews, prospects, and fellowship stuff coming up so I'm not too worried... yet.

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

Thank you so much to the 3Ls who helped with the PI & clerkship info! Moxie, I hope you find their answers helpful, since I fully acknowledge my answer really didn't answer much at all

fellow 1Ls... do any of you know if we can take language classes at the UG school?

Definitely - I know a 3L who did. I'm not sure if you can next semester, or if you have to wait for 2L year.

[rx3r]

OMG. I'm in love with your school. This is going to sound crazy, but Yale was bo---ring in comparison.

I'm going to be crushed if I don't get in. Any random application tips?

[Moxie]

Thank you so much to the 3Ls who helped with the PI & clerkship info! Moxie, I hope you find their answers helpful, since I fully acknowledge my answer really didn't answer much at all

Thanks so much guys, your answers were just what I was looking for.
MeTalkPretty- No worries, that's my favorite part of these threads, everyone from a school comes together to answer each question to the fullest

[superserial]

any Columbians care to weigh in on our elective options/professors?

1. Art of Legal Persuasion with Prof. Robert Ferguson
2. Ideas of the First Amendment with Prof. Vincent Blasi
3. Law and Contemporary Society with Prof. Eben Moglen
4. Lawyering Across Multiple Legal Orders with Professors George Bermann & Katharina Pistor
5. Legislation with Prof. Peter Strauss
6. Principles of Intellectual Property with Prof. Clarisa Long
7. The United States and the International Legal System with Prof. Matthew Waxman

[deneuve39]

any Columbians care to weigh in on our elective options/professors?

1. Art of Legal Persuasion with Prof. Robert Ferguson
2. Ideas of the First Amendment with Prof. Vincent Blasi
3. Law and Contemporary Society with Prof. Eben Moglen
4. Lawyering Across Multiple Legal Orders with Professors George Bermann & Katharina Pistor
5. Legislation with Prof. Peter Strauss
6. Principles of Intellectual Property with Prof. Clarisa Long
7. The United States and the International Legal System with Prof. Matthew Waxman

Take Legislation at your own peril...
Also I've heard that Moglen is super eclectic and decides grades pretty arbitrarily, although I've talked to people who liked the overall experience of his class. Waxman's class is more foreign policy stuff than international law. I've heard fantastic things about Prof. Ferguson, although I'm still not sure what his class is about...

[M51]

any Columbians care to weigh in on our elective options/professors?

1. Art of Legal Persuasion with Prof. Robert Ferguson
2. Ideas of the First Amendment with Prof. Vincent Blasi
3. Law and Contemporary Society with Prof. Eben Moglen
4. Lawyering Across Multiple Legal Orders with Professors George Bermann & Katharina Pistor
5. Legislation with Prof. Peter Strauss
6. Principles of Intellectual Property with Prof. Clarisa Long
7. The United States and the International Legal System with Prof. Matthew Waxman

This should prob be in another thread, but:

1 is widely held to be the best elective. Prof is great. Class is low stress and general enough to be interesting to just about everyone. There's actually no way to prep for the final, so you essentially only have to study for 3 finals instead of 4.
3 is Moglen ranting about things. He's somewhere between a cross between a socialist and an anarchist. He knows his shit inside and out, and has developed his own outlook to the point where he will be logically correct 100% of the time, even when he's wrong. He likes it when you disagree w/ intelligent comments/questions, but since he is correct, you must therefore be wrong, and he will gladly let you know just where your logic erred. He also vowed to never give grades again, so I'm not sure why they're letting him do this again. This year, there was some controversy w/ his grades, and (this is second handed info) he only gave "interm" grades, which are apparently at the lowest end of the curve, with an option to revise your final paper for a higher grade "eventually" (meaning, post-OCI). Taking one of his classes now, love every minute, but def not a normal class, and not for certain types of people. That whole "every answer is a correct answer!" mentality most profs have does not apply here, not even slightly, and he doesn't hide that fact.
4 is very difficult material and a lot of work, and most people who had that class hated it. You should really love the topic to pick this one.
5 will be interesting. I'm not sure if they've had this class before, but they offer Legislation as a 2L/3L class every year (I'm in it now, Briffault teaches it)... so I'm not sure if it'll be the same thing.
6 was what I took. Diff prof this year. It was interesting if you are leaning towards doing something IP/Entertainment related. Every single person who went in thinking “maybe I'll be interested in IP” exited knowing for a fact they would never do IP. This is also an actual class, w/ actual cases and blackletter and everything. This class can usually subsitute as a pre-req for a lot of upper IP offerings, so it's also a good way to be able to take certain seminars Fall 2L year, or if you just don't plan on taking Copyright ever.

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

Bump to see if any other applicants (or prospective applicants) have questions.

M51 and deneuve, thanks for the helpful info on electives!

[Blazers4Life]

If I decide to hedge my bets and ED to NYU in order to (hopefully) secure a t5 spot, will I regret not giving Columbia a chance a couple years from now?

[jms1987]

Whats the political ideology of the student body like? Do they have an active Federalist Society?

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

If I decide to hedge my bets and ED to NYU in order to (hopefully) secure a t5 spot, will I regret not giving Columbia a chance a couple years from now?

That's a tough one. I wish I could give you an honest yes/no answer, but I really can't. Weigh the benefits you'll gain from applying ED against the costs.
Benefits: How much more likely are you to get in if you apply ED? Compare yourself to similar applicants on LSN. If you expect to gain a 30 percentage-point advantage, that's huge (e.g.: your odds go from 40% to 70%). If you expect to gain a 1 percentage-point advantage, that probably isn't worth so much (e.g.: your odds go from 40% to 41%).
Costs: What's the probability of getting into CLS after getting into NYU ED? If you get into both, would you be upset about having to turn down CLS? How upset?

Whats the political ideology of the student body like? Do they have an active Federalist Society?

I would say the majority of students are liberal. It's almost certainly not a 50/50 liberal/conservative split. That being said, I know plenty of conservative students here (plus moderates that often fall under the conservative label in the Northeast) and there's an active Federalist Society.

Edit: Without hard data, any answer to your question becomes very subjective, and is almost certainly biased by the political leanings of the person answering your question. Accordingly, I should add that I'm a conservative moderate. My stances on most issues range from moderate to conservative.

[Blazers4Life]

If I decide to hedge my bets and ED to NYU in order to (hopefully) secure a t5 spot, will I regret not giving Columbia a chance a couple years from now?

That's a tough one. I wish I could give you an honest yes/no answer, but I really can't. Weigh the benefits you'll gain from applying ED against the costs.
Benefits: How much more likely are you to get in if you apply ED? Compare yourself to similar applicants on LSN. If you expect to gain a 30 percentage-point advantage, that's huge (e.g.: your odds go from 40% to 70%). If you expect to gain a 1 percentage-point advantage, that probably isn't worth so much (e.g.: your odds go from 40% to 41%).
Costs: What's the probability of getting into CLS after getting into NYU ED? If you get into both, would you be upset about having to turn down CLS? How upset?

Based on last year's available LSN data for people with my numbers, the likely outcome RD seems to be a waitlist at CLS and a near auto-admit at NYU. There has been talk, though, that this year's cycle will be more competitive in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of median scores. I think I'd put my chances at getting into CLS at 30-40%, and my chances at NYU something like 80% regular decision. It's hard for me to quantify the ED boost, but it feels like ED would basically lock me into an NYU spot.

The fact that the NYU/CLS debate is MUCH closer in my head than NYU/Chicago or NYU/Penn or NYU/Michigan leads me to feel like I should take the safe course. In fact, there are substantive reasons I think I'd prefer NYU to CLS.

[MeTalkPrettyOneDay]

If I decide to hedge my bets and ED to NYU in order to (hopefully) secure a t5 spot, will I regret not giving Columbia a chance a couple years from now?

That's a tough one. I wish I could give you an honest yes/no answer, but I really can't. Weigh the benefits you'll gain from applying ED against the costs.
Benefits: How much more likely are you to get in if you apply ED? Compare yourself to similar applicants on LSN. If you expect to gain a 30 percentage-point advantage, that's huge (e.g.: your odds go from 40% to 70%). If you expect to gain a 1 percentage-point advantage, that probably isn't worth so much (e.g.: your odds go from 40% to 41%).
Costs: What's the probability of getting into CLS after getting into NYU ED? If you get into both, would you be upset about having to turn down CLS? How upset?

Based on last year's available LSN data for people with my numbers, the likely outcome RD seems to be a waitlist at CLS and a near auto-admit at NYU. There has been talk, though, that this year's cycle will be more competitive in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of median scores. I think I'd put my chances at getting into CLS at 30-40%, and my chances at NYU something like 80% regular decision. It's hard for me to quantify the ED boost, but it feels like ED would basically lock me into an NYU spot.

The fact that the NYU/CLS debate is MUCH closer in my head than NYU/Chicago or NYU/Penn or NYU/Michigan leads me to feel like I should take the safe course. In fact, there are substantive reasons I think I'd prefer NYU to CLS.

Yea, that's tough. If you're risk-averse, worried about getting locked out of the t5, and think you prefer NYU to CLS, EDing at NYU would be a perfectly reasonable decision. If you're risk-loving OR could see yourself preferring CLS to NYU, then you'd be wise to apply RD at NYU. Based on your own assessment of your situation and preferences, it wouldn't be crazy of you to ED at NYU. Although I chose CLS over NYU (and I'd do it again in a heartbeat), a reasonable person could choose NYU over CLS