Columbia Class of 2020 Forum

[Stay-at-Home Son]

If anyone is interested in a spreadsheet that calculates your take home income in NYC for a bunch of years after graduation let me know.

It's using married filing tax tables but you can change them if you want. Also, I don't think there is any AMT tax but was too lazy to make sure.

You can plug in your spouse income/pretax deductions/loans/monthly expenses to get your personal take home amount.

Yes, interested in checking this out if you can please post. Thanks!

I have it in Excel so should I just email or is there an easy way to post here?

Dropbox public link? I don't think you can directly attach files in TLS posts.

Yep^ or Google Docs? Excel usually converts into Sheets reasonably well.

[CPA-->JD]

If anyone is interested in a spreadsheet that calculates your take home income in NYC for a bunch of years after graduation let me know.

It's using married filing tax tables but you can change them if you want. Also, I don't think there is any AMT tax but was too lazy to make sure.

You can plug in your spouse income/pretax deductions/loans/monthly expenses to get your personal take home amount.

Yes, interested in checking this out if you can please post. Thanks!

I have it in Excel so should I just email or is there an easy way to post here?

Dropbox public link? I don't think you can directly attach files in TLS posts.

Yep^ or Google Docs? Excel usually converts into Sheets reasonably well.

Try this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Once downloaded, you can change anything in red. Let me know if I missed anything.

[DogsAndWriting]

[/quote]

Not sure but I think between 50 and 100 a month, definitely less than 100, and maybe (hopefully!) they have a student discount.[/quote]
In NYC? No way.[/quote]

NYSC can't be more than 60 a month. Back in the day I had like a $30 a month student membership from them.

There's also a BLINK fitness like 15 minutes away from CLS and that's literally the cheapest gym membership you could get, prices start at like $20 a month.[/quote]

Doesn't one of the on campus housing options have a gym? Any word on if it's any good? Apartment gyms are very hit-or-miss[/quote][/quote]

Lenfest has a gym, BUT its only cardio... no freeweights!

I am currently a member of NYSC. Students get a $10 discount from the monthly ~$70 for the standard pass to all other nyscs

And yes, Dodge does get pretty crowded... its gonna suck especially for those who do circuits or supersets....

Anyone here an avid weight lifter? Id be willing to partner up to maintain those gains!![/quote]

Ahhh that's a shame. I think my current apartment gym spoiled me. It's a pretty average place, but weirdly has an awesome, perpetually empty gym (I'm talking a full set of dumbbells, I'm talking TWO barbells, I'm talking a bench press, squat rack, cable machine, etc.). I guess NYSC is going to have to be the move? Maintaining a lifting routine is directly correlated to improved performance in all other areas of my life, so that's how I'm gonna rationalize that $60/month in law school.

[Bearlyalive]

This was just the info I was looking for! Is enrollment into the student groups/organizations fairly easy?

Yes, if you express any interest at all chances are you will have people jumping at you to get you involved. There's a large activity fair right after the start of fall semester, but you can email someone in an org at any time and they'll usually be happy to talk (except right now, we're all dying in finals). Most of my friends are on at least one board for 2L.

Also, with that I'll put in what may be all of yours first plug for Law Revue! (Not to be confused with Law Review) If you don't know what that is, it's a once-a-semester student-run show, consisting of popular songs re-written with funny law school lyrics (and dance routines), plus skits. A huge number of students participate, and you can participate as part of the cast, the writers, or the band. It's a great community. Lots of free beer throughout the semester. The Dean, administrators, and some professors are common attendees at the show. It's a blast, and a great way to meet a lot of people and make friends. No talent or experience required.

[Yellow13]

Hi All! Is 90K an average fin aid offer? Is Colombia Aid need based or merit based?

[jjcorvino]

Hi All! Is 90K an average fin aid offer? Is Colombia Aid need based or merit based?

90k is a fantastic offer, the vast majority of the class gets below that. Honestly it depends on your stats.

[lawdude31]

Hi All! Is 90K an average fin aid offer? Is Colombia Aid need based or merit based?

Take it and run!!

[ottovon]

Anyone else have trouble accessing the online housing application? When I click the link (or any link that starts with facilities.columbia.edu) through the admitted students site I get a 404 Not Found error. If I add "www" in front I get a security warning and when I ignore it I get the same 404 error. Tried Chrome and Edge on Windows 10.

[jpark86]

+100000

But seriously, there's NYSC nearby so if Dodge sucks as much as people say it does I might sign up for that. One of my pet peeves are gyms that suck/too crowded. I want to be able to workout at whatever time I want without having to wait for 3 people to finish benching before I can start.

Agreed. How much does NYSC go for?

Not sure but I think between 50 and 100 a month, definitely less than 100, and maybe (hopefully!) they have a student discount.

In NYC? No way.

NYSC can't be more than 60 a month. Back in the day I had like a $30 a month student membership from them.

There's also a BLINK fitness like 15 minutes away from CLS and that's literally the cheapest gym membership you could get, prices start at like $20 a month.

Doesn't one of the on campus housing options have a gym? Any word on if it's any good? Apartment gyms are very hit-or-miss

Lenfest has a gym, BUT its only cardio... no freeweights!

I am currently a member of NYSC. Students get a $10 discount from the monthly ~$70 for the standard pass to all other nyscs

And yes, Dodge does get pretty crowded... its gonna suck especially for those who do circuits or supersets....

Anyone here an avid weight lifter? Id be willing to partner up to maintain those gains!![/quote]

Right here bruh, can't let law school take our gains away[/quote]

I am in for the gains club.[/quote]

I'm actually down to make a fb group[/quote]

I know im in the minority but I actually stopped doing most social media (including fb) a while back... perhaps we can a google groups or some other interest page going?

[jpark86]

Not sure but I think between 50 and 100 a month, definitely less than 100, and maybe (hopefully!) they have a student discount.[/quote]
In NYC? No way.[/quote]

NYSC can't be more than 60 a month. Back in the day I had like a $30 a month student membership from them.

There's also a BLINK fitness like 15 minutes away from CLS and that's literally the cheapest gym membership you could get, prices start at like $20 a month.[/quote]

Doesn't one of the on campus housing options have a gym? Any word on if it's any good? Apartment gyms are very hit-or-miss[/quote][/quote]

Lenfest has a gym, BUT its only cardio... no freeweights!

I am currently a member of NYSC. Students get a $10 discount from the monthly ~$70 for the standard pass to all other nyscs

And yes, Dodge does get pretty crowded... its gonna suck especially for those who do circuits or supersets....

Anyone here an avid weight lifter? Id be willing to partner up to maintain those gains!![/quote]

Ahhh that's a shame. I think my current apartment gym spoiled me. It's a pretty average place, but weirdly has an awesome, perpetually empty gym (I'm talking a full set of dumbbells, I'm talking TWO barbells, I'm talking a bench press, squat rack, cable machine, etc.). I guess NYSC is going to have to be the move? Maintaining a lifting routine is directly correlated to improved performance in all other areas of my life, so that's how I'm gonna rationalize that $60/month in law school.[/quote]

Wow thats quite amazing for an apartment gym! yes, nysc or blink seems to be the way to go!
Or you can plan to go to Dodge during random off hours to fully utilize the equipment

[lnsl123]

Anyone else have trouble accessing the online housing application? When I click the link (or any link that starts with facilities.columbia.edu) through the admitted students site I get a 404 Not Found error. If I add "www" in front I get a security warning and when I ignore it I get the same 404 error. Tried Chrome and Edge on Windows 10.

it could be an http vs. https issue. I think someone had trouble with that once.

[CPA-->JD]

If anyone is interested in a spreadsheet that calculates your take home income in NYC for a bunch of years after graduation let me know.

It's using married filing tax tables but you can change them if you want. Also, I don't think there is any AMT tax but was too lazy to make sure.

You can plug in your spouse income/pretax deductions/loans/monthly expenses to get your personal take home amount.

Yes, interested in checking this out if you can please post. Thanks!

I have it in Excel so should I just email or is there an easy way to post here?

Dropbox public link? I don't think you can directly attach files in TLS posts.

Yep^ or Google Docs? Excel usually converts into Sheets reasonably well.

Try this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Once downloaded, you can change anything in red. Let me know if I missed anything.

Did it work for you guys?

[texcellence]

.

[Stay-at-Home Son]

Try this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Once downloaded, you can change anything in red. Let me know if I missed anything.

Did it work for you guys?

Yes, thank you!!

Yeah it looks awesome, thanks so much!

[lawdude31]

Anyone know if you can apply for the federal loan and then not take it? Or are you committing yourself when you give in the paperwork. I don't want to miss the deadline, but also looking into other options.

[CPA-->JD]

Try this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Once downloaded, you can change anything in red. Let me know if I missed anything.

Did it work for you guys?

Yes, thank you!!

Yeah it looks awesome, thanks so much!

My pleasure! It really helped me sleep better knowing that the numbers could work if I get Big Law.

Let me know if there is anything I should add that you think might be useful.

[texcellence]

.

[blessup]

Anyone else have trouble accessing the online housing application? When I click the link (or any link that starts with facilities.columbia.edu) through the admitted students site I get a 404 Not Found error. If I add "www" in front I get a security warning and when I ignore it I get the same 404 error. Tried Chrome and Edge on Windows 10.

it could be an http vs. https issue. I think someone had trouble with that once.

Yes. If you are using HTTPS Everywhere, the site won't load (not sure if my Privacy Badger and Disconnect also affected it). I ended up just using Edge to access the site and it worked fine.

[01panm]

Anyone know if you can apply for the federal loan and then not take it? Or are you committing yourself when you give in the paperwork. I don't want to miss the deadline, but also looking into other options.

I pretty sure you can opt out of certain line items in the student budget but someone else might know better than I. Or maybe give finaid a call.

I'm pretty sure that applying for the loan means you are able to, but by no means required to, spend up to the limit. When the school gives you the loan money, there's a certain grace period (120 days? not sure) in which you can return unspent money without accruing interest on it.

Disclaimer: I got this all from UVA's ASD and not Columbia's, but I would expect that federal loans work the same way at all schools.

[ottovon]

So people that are trying to live in UAH housing, are you indicating that you will not be requesting Law School Housing? I'd like to list my preferences as UAH, then the 400 block, then Lionsgate but it seems that if you list Law Building preferences they will prioritize those over UAH.

[Dr_OIT]

Me when I remember I'm going to Columbia:

Me when I look at my loan and income spreadsheets (which don't factor in any expected bonuses) and come to terms with my plan to pay $3,100 a month in loan repayments after graduation, increasing the monthly repayment amount by $100 each year, until 2029:

+180 so bad

[hellohalo]

So people that are trying to live in UAH housing, are you indicating that you will not be requesting Law School Housing? I'd like to list my preferences as UAH, then the 400 block, then Lionsgate but it seems that if you list Law Building preferences they will prioritize those over UAH.

I guess the point is if you prefer UAH to the law building, then you will just get UAH as law accommodation is more demanded.

[Dr_OIT]

One of these days I'm going to make a spreadsheet with projected income, expenses, and actual tax tables so I can sleep at little better knowing that I'm not crazy for doing this.

Here's a screenshot of my draft.

http://imgur.com/a/krtQk

Assumptions:
- I max out my 401k contribution at $20k a year (which is where the max annual contribution will probably be by then) and I get an employer match of my 401k contributions up to 5% of my gross salary.
- I put a few grand a year to a Roth IRA or other savings vehicle that I fund with pre-tax dollars as well as few grand in pre-tax dollars to my flexible spending account for health expenses.
- A 35% tax rate.
- Additional savings of $1K a month from my after-tax income in year 1, increasing steadily each year.
- Not factoring in bonuses, because it just makes people plan horribly. I learned that the hard way. Plus, the first year bonus is a stub year bonus, not the full amount. And if you lateral to another firm at some point but you get the timing wrong, you might lose out on a bonus from your old firm but not get the full-year bonus from the new firm.
-Assumes I take advantage of the full six-month grace period on loan repayment so I can aggressively save a bit in the summer and fall of 2020 before starting repayment basically at the start of 2021 (or in Nov/Dec 2020). That's why the spreadsheet starts with "2021".

Result:
In year 1, I'm left with $4,300 a month for my actual life (rent, discretionary spending, charitable giving, travel) and $3,100 per month for student loans.


If anyone's curious, this is based on financing my education with:
- My scholarship/tuition grant from CLS (basically a Butler)
-$12.5K saved each of my two summers (the most you can expect to save toward school expenses if you make $3.5K pre-tax per week, work 8 weeks, get taxed, and pay rent/living expenses over the summers using your summer income)
-Student loans for the rest

Can send you the spreadsheet if you want, though I'm sure yours would be better.

I thought the cap on annual Roth contributions was $5,500?

[WordsworthIsBae]

So people that are trying to live in UAH housing, are you indicating that you will not be requesting Law School Housing? I'd like to list my preferences as UAH, then the 400 block, then Lionsgate but it seems that if you list Law Building preferences they will prioritize those over UAH.

I don't think we have the option of applying for both and prioritizing one over the other. So yeah, I opted out of requesting law student housing to be considered for UAH.

[Dr_OIT]

All a go for CLS!

1- Does anyone have any idea when we get housing assignments? (I realize the application deadline is May 15th.)

2- What is this Destination thread??? Late to the party

This was posted on the CLS 2020 FB group:

Applicants may expect housing approval and assignments to arrive via email during the assignment windows listed below.

Family lotteries: May 22 - 30
Couples lotteries: May 29 - June 2
Single student lotteries: June 1 - 25

Housing assignments can take up to two weeks after approval notification. Housing assignments will include the assigned housing unit address, cost of the unit, floor plan (if available), and the date of unit availability.

Note: Approved applicants will receive one housing assignment. UAH provides a five-day acceptance window, and students should contact UAH directly if an extension is needed.