Top Law Schools

Key Dates:
Early Decision Tuition Deadline: January 23
Merit Aid decisions and named scholarship interview invites: Mid-February to March
Admitted Students Weekends: March 5-6, March 26-27, and April 16-17
Deposit Deadline: May 1

Financial Aid info:
FAQ: http://www.law.nyu.edu/admittedstudents/financialaid
FAFSA: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov
Need Access Application: http://www.needaccess.org/Students/Student.aspx

On campus housing info:
NYU says that 2/3 of 1L students live in on-campus housing. Information can be found here http://www.law.nyu.edu/admittedstudents ... ceservices and here http://www.law.nyu.edu/housing/.

The housing application will be available on February 2, and the Housing Application Priority Deadline is May 15.

Off Campus housing resources:
Information on all of the many NYC Neighborhoods: http://www.streetadvisor.com/search/cit ... y-new-york
Craigslist alternative: http://streeteasy.com/
Craigslist alternative #2: http://www.nakedapartments.com/
Craigslist alternative #3: http://apartable.com/

General information about looking for an apartment in NYC (including brokers, no fee apartments, neighborhood guides, etc.): http://www.urbanedgeny.com/apartment-guide

Admitted Students Weekends:
March 5-6, March 27-28, and April 16-17
Information available here: http://www.law.nyu.edu/admittedstudents ... tudentdays

Fun videos to get into the spirit of New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CWyialymHg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LmPBPWHJu4

Pictures to follow as soon as I hit the 100-post mark. Maybe we could start a conversation about brokers in NYC and I could talk about my positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation. Or we could talk about having a large dog in New York. Or about how the microbrewery scene on the east coast is about 3 years behind the microbrewery scene in the western half of the country. Lots of options to get me talking, really.
I welcome ideas for other polls and other information to be included in this post.

h/t to Pulstar for the format of this thread, which I ripped shamelessly from his Penn post. And big thanks to smccgrey for the banner!

whoooooo someone finally made this!

checking in!

I wish it counted as a post each time I edited the OP. That's happened a dozen times already.

tk17 wrote:Maybe we could start a conversation about brokers in NYC and I could talk about my positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation. Or we could talk about having a large dog in New York. Or about how the microbrewery scene on the east coast is about 3 years behind the microbrewery scene in the western half of the country. Lots of options to get me talking, really.

Hahah I'd like to hear about your positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation - sounds interesting

Also checking in!

Checking in! Thank you for making this thread Isn't there an ASW on 4/16-17 as well?

Never been to NYC so I'm definitely trying to visit during one of the ASWs. It's getting off work that's the tricky part.

lc39 wrote:Checking in! Thank you for making this thread Isn't there an ASW on 4/16-17 as well?

There sure is. Thanks for the catch. I've updated the post and poll.

Pylon, I'll tell my sorry once I make it back home. A lot of typing for a phone.

lc39 wrote:Never been to NYC so I'm definitely trying to visit during one of the ASWs. It's getting off work that's the tricky part.

+1

Checkin in

Thanks so much for making this! NYU is defs a top choice, and will for sure be at one of (not sure which, yet) the ASWs.

Checking in! Even though I visited NYU in the fall, I will be returning again in the spring for ASW to remind myself how awesome it is.

Checking in! Thanks for making the thread. I'm already getting really excited about going to the first ASW.

Checking in! Great to see this thread

So excited about this thread! I will be at the first ASW. Can't wait!

pylon wrote:

tk17 wrote:Maybe we could start a conversation about brokers in NYC and I could talk about my positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation.

Hahah I'd like to hear about your positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation - sounds interesting

Also checking in!

Here is my two cents on brokers.

For those who are unfamiliar with the NYC rental scene, a large number of apartments are only available through rental real estate brokers. If you want one of these apartments, you can’t avoid dealing with the brokers and paying the fee.

Yes, the fee. The broker’s fee is the responsibility of the tenant and ranges from 8%-15% of the annual rent (roughly 1-2 months of rent) paid upfront (in addition to the deposit and first month’s rent) that you will never see again. It amounts to paying for the privilege to rent certain apartments. It’s painful. And often (e.g. for broker-fee apartments listed on craigslist), it feels like you’re paying them a ton of money for them to do nothing.

As such, one can understand why most people moving to (or within) New York do everything in their power to avoid going through brokers. Glance through last year’s admitted students thread (or do a google search) and you’ll find tons and tons of people who say that you should never ever under any circumstances use a broker.

I argue that it’s not always a bad idea, and in some cases it’s even a good one.

My wife and I used a broker to find my current apartment. We paid a broker fee of over $2,000. It sucked. But it was the right decision for us because

1) We were moving in from far away, and we weren’t going to be able to spend a ton of time in the city before we moved in. We didn’t know a ton about neighborhoods or how reasonable our criteria were. Finding an apartment without a broker involves combing through craigslist, racing to apartments that are taken within 24 hours of being posted, and dealing with scams and occasionally dishonest people. Using a broker allowed us to set up several appointments for the day we arrived in the city, and we ended up taking the first one we saw.

2) We have a large dog. This can be an obstacle when looking for apartments in NYC. Demand is so high that landlord can be picky about who they choose, and that often means that dogs, especially large dogs, aren’t allowed.

3) Avoiding broker-fee apartments means that you’re essentially limiting yourself to around 50% (wild guess based on vague memory of a statistic) of the already short inventory in NYC.

4) Broker-fee apartments sometimes have slightly lower rents than comparable non-broker fee apartments. We got a cozy 1 bedroom for $150 less than what our friends were paying for their studio roughly 6 blocks away. And then our landlord didn’t raise our rent last year while our friends got priced out and had to move. If you amortize the fee over a couple years, we easily saved money by paying the upfront expense. And if I end up going to school in NYC, we’ll stay put as long as the rent does, which could end up being a screaming deal.

5) We found a reliable broker. Yelp is your friend. Some brokers are awesome, some are awful, and some are in between. Find someone with excellent reviews, and at the very least you’ll know that they’re being honest for you.

Brokers definitely aren’t the right decision for everyone. And paying the upfront money is terrible. But they aren’t necessarily the devil that everyone else makes them out to be.

After all of that, I'd also like to mention that I feel like the most important factor in finding a place to stay in NYC is luck.

All of the above can be boiled down to "We got lucky."

Talking to friends, it seems that everyone who has a great living situation got lucky in some way. A friend of a friend was moving out and told them about it before it was listed, their grandma's best friend's nephew knew the landlord, etc. etc.

Checkinggggg in

Checking in, would love to go to ASW but will have to see how my final exam timetable is.

Checking in!

tk17 wrote:

pylon wrote:

tk17 wrote:Maybe we could start a conversation about brokers in NYC and I could talk about my positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation.

Hahah I'd like to hear about your positive experience in the face of near-universal condemnation - sounds interesting

Also checking in!

Here is my two cents on brokers.

...

Ugh yeah my friend just went through the broker system in NYC and though she got a great place it was a huge hassle. I imagine it would have been far worse without one.

Greetings!

Checking in! NYU is one of my top contenders!

Checking in! Love this place, daydreaming of affording it

lc39 wrote:Never been to NYC so I'm definitely trying to visit during one of the ASWs. It's getting off work that's the tricky part.

so vicariously excited for you, lc

.

curlietop86 wrote:hi guys!

anyone know when they send out scholarship info (for things like Furman or for general merit/need)? love NYU and that would be a huge factor.

IIRC, merit/need aid starts rolling out in February, I think roughly dependent on when you submit the FAFSA and the need access. Interviews for named scholarships go out mid-February to March.

Btw don't need to fill out need access for merit aid