Top Law Schools

I am just curious, I am seeing a lot of people getting full tuitions cholarships from schools like Columbia, NYU, NU, Duke etc, essentially non HYS schools, but instead decline the scholarship and pay sticker at HYS. I guess my question is why would anyone give up those kinds of dollars and maybe have less than $60K in debt vs going to HYS and having >$200K in debt....to me it doesn't make any sense...am I just crazy? All those schools are excellent top schools...I need to reconcile that thought process

Columbia and NYU are excellent schools. Harvard and Yale are better.

Duke shouldn't even be in that conversation.

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rinkrat19 wrote:Columbia and NYU are excellent schools. Harvard and Yale are better.

Duke shouldn't even be in that conversation.

Ok, fine..take CCN.....full scholly, why give that up???

nickb285 wrote:If you think biglaw is awesome and you love making monthly payments, it's a good idea.

But you can get big law from CCN

NanaP wrote:

nickb285 wrote:If you think biglaw is awesome and you love making monthly payments, it's a good idea.

But you can get big law from CCN

The employment numbers aren't identical. Maybe they want a clerkship. Maybe they really are trying to gun for that elusive international human rights NGO job. Maybe their parents are paying for school and they don't care about the cost. Maybe they look better in Harvard crimson than Columbia blue. Maybe they have the tiger parents from hell who think Columbia is basically failure. Why do you care?

rinkrat19 wrote:

NanaP wrote:

nickb285 wrote:If you think biglaw is awesome and you love making monthly payments, it's a good idea.

But you can get big law from CCN

The employment numbers aren't identical. Maybe they want a clerkship. Maybe they really are trying to gun for that elusive international human rights NGO job. Maybe their parents are paying for school and they don't care about the cost. Maybe they look better in Harvard crimson than Columbia blue. Maybe they have the tiger parents from hell who think Columbia is basically failure. Why do you care?

well first of all, relax.....I was just curious...for anyone who went through it..the decision process...so calm down

.

One thing to take into consideration is the better loan repayment programs at HYS vs CCN. Looking at it from this perspective, if you make biglaw you won't have too much of a problem paying off your loans, and you get a better shot at clerkships/academia/etc, which for some people might be worth the extra debt load. If at any point you cannot get a biglaw job, the repayment programs has a better chance at making the outcome tolerable than CCN. I'm not saying it's definitely a good idea to go HYS over CCN but I can see why some people do it. I think with a half-tuition scholarship the argument for HYS over CCN becomes stronger.

hq2x wrote:One thing to take into consideration is the better loan repayment programs at HYS vs CCN. Looking at it from this perspective, if you make biglaw you won't have too much of a problem paying off your loans, and you get a better shot at clerkships/academia/etc, which for some people might be worth the extra debt load. If at any point you cannot get a biglaw job, the repayment programs has a better chance at making the outcome tolerable than CCN. I'm not saying it's definitely a good idea to go HYS over CCN but I can see why some people do it. I think with a half-tuition scholarship the argument for HYS over CCN becomes stronger.

The idea that getting big law makes your debt irrelevant is total 0L bullshit. I'm basically Sally Mae's bottom bitch for 5 years AND THAT IS WINNING the law school gamble.


Turning down a fullride at a T14 is a stupid move.

Someone close to me turned down a full ride plus stipend at CCN to go to HYS (not exactly at sticker, but still it's 6 figures of debt) purely for the prestige. Not necessarily because the prestige can help her with a specific career goal, but it'd make her feel better to go to the absolute best school in the country. And she really cares what people think of her at dinner parties (most of her friends are snobs). I think it's silly, but I guess different things make different people happy.

nickb285 wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:they look better in Harvard crimson than Columbia blue

dat preftige

Credited. Prestigewhoreism, plain and simple. Don't get me wrong, I would rather go to HY(S) more than CC (not a big fan of N, but that's just me), but with full scholly at CC I would be foolish to do so.

Desert Fox wrote:

hq2x wrote:One thing to take into consideration is the better loan repayment programs at HYS vs CCN. Looking at it from this perspective, if you make biglaw you won't have too much of a problem paying off your loans, and you get a better shot at clerkships/academia/etc, which for some people might be worth the extra debt load. If at any point you cannot get a biglaw job, the repayment programs has a better chance at making the outcome tolerable than CCN. I'm not saying it's definitely a good idea to go HYS over CCN but I can see why some people do it. I think with a half-tuition scholarship the argument for HYS over CCN becomes stronger.

The idea that getting big law makes your debt irrelevant is total 0L bullshit. I'm basically Sally Mae's bottom bitch for 5 years AND THAT IS WINNING the law school gamble.


Turning down a fullride at a T14 is a stupid move.

True.

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nickb285 wrote:

cinephile wrote:Someone close to me turned down a full ride plus stipend at CCN to go to HYS (not exactly at sticker, but still it's 6 figures of debt) purely for the prestige. Not necessarily because the prestige can help her with a specific career goal, but it'd make her feel better to go to the absolute best school in the country. And she really cares what people think of her at dinner parties (most of her friends are snobs). I think it's silly, but I guess different things make different people happy.

Good God. I'd have a tough time turning down a full ride plus stipend at a good regional to pay anything like sticker at HYS (granted, I don't have much interest in biglaw, but still). I can't imagine turning down full ride plus stipend at CCN, or even the lower T14.

I've always been baffled as well. I like to think I'm a relatively logical person, so I try to do cost-benefit analysis for these kinds of decisions. And pretty much every thread where its full ride at CCN vs. HYS sticker, you see some of the most delusional inflation of minimally-important factors, and inflation of "keeping doors open" that the student doesn't even know he or she wants (as if those doors were somehow closed at CCN, which is often untrue).

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You have to have a VERY specific set of interests to pick HYS sticker over full ride at any T13. Even then, it's still not a slam-dunk

But yeah if you want biglaw, H over CLS with anything more than a 45K difference is a terrible decision

The only scenario where I think HYS makes sense over T14 with a full ride is where you're certain that:

1) You want a specific kind of job that would be significantly easier to get from HYS than CCN on down (ACLU/DOJ Honors, for instance).
2) You would rather not go to law school for free than do biglaw.
3) You are willing to make a commitment to this kind of practice for the next ten years, knowing basically nothing of the actual environment where you'll be working.

The scenarios where HYS doesn't make sense over T14 full ride, but are commonly cited on TLS as gamechangers, are:

1) Getting a federal clerkship. (seriously, wtf, you're going to spend 250k+ for a 10-15% better chance of a federal clerkship? And then what, biglaw for six years?)
2) NYC Biglaw. Even the infamous BruceWayne has agreed in the past that CCN and HYS are comperable in terms of NYC biglaw placement.
3) Whenever someone says, "PI/govt." Which really means, "I don't want to move to NYC." HYS is neither necessary, nor sufficient for "PI/govt." Once you have a handle on why you're actually going to law school, maybe HYS is an option. Until then, don't take a ten year LRAP commitment/250k non-dischargable debt for the chance of a job that you can't even describe.

Desert Fox wrote:
The idea that getting big law makes your debt irrelevant is total 0L bullshit. I'm basically Sally Mae's bottom bitch for 5 years AND THAT IS WINNING the law school gamble.


Turning down a fullride at a T14 is a stupid move.

Biglaw isn't winning the gamble - that would be clerkships/academia/etc. It isn't really losing the gamble either - that would be some kind of repayment-eligible job. Biglaw is the most popular outcome out of HYS, and while it doesn't make your debt irrelevant, it's not the life sentence to indentured servitude that you're making it out to be. Obviously if all you want is biglaw, you should take the money and never look back. But I don't think it's stupid to gamble on the ~15% chance at getting a dream-job outcome when the downside is that you won't be rich quite as quickly if you end up taking biglaw. LIPP/COAP/LRAP mitigates the really negative outcomes.

Besides, since when is going to law school just for the money a good idea? Go into finance or consulting if all you care about is making moneys. I view any outcome where you have a bearable job with manageable debt as a positive outcome. For sure, there are circumstances where turning down the full ride is stupid: if you have a family, UG debt, etc. But it's not a categorically stupid decision. In fact, without such circumstances, I don't really think you can make a wrong decision. If you're hellbent on law school (god have mercy on us all), you're deliberating between the two best options for entering the field.

hq2x wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:
The idea that getting big law makes your debt irrelevant is total 0L bullshit. I'm basically Sally Mae's bottom bitch for 5 years AND THAT IS WINNING the law school gamble.


Turning down a fullride at a T14 is a stupid move.

Biglaw isn't winning the gamble - that would be clerkships/academia/etc. It isn't really losing the gamble either - that would be some kind of repayment-eligible job. Biglaw is the most popular outcome out of HYS, and while it doesn't make your debt irrelevant, it's not the life sentence to indentured servitude that you're making it out to be. Obviously if all you want is biglaw, you should take the money and never look back. But I don't think it's stupid to gamble on the ~15% chance at getting a dream-job outcome when the downside is that you won't be rich quite as quickly if you end up taking biglaw. LIPP/COAP/LRAP mitigates the really negative outcomes.

Besides, since when is going to law school just for the money a good idea? Go into finance or consulting if all you care about is making moneys. I view any outcome where you have a bearable job with manageable debt as a positive outcome. For sure, there are circumstances where turning down the full ride is stupid: if you have a family, UG debt, etc. But it's not a categorically stupid decision. In fact, without such circumstances, I don't really think you can make a wrong decision. If you're hellbent on law school (god have mercy on us all), you're deliberating between the two best options for entering the field.

1) Clerkships are a 1-2 year temporary job that you do before big law. It isn't winning anything. You are just delaying the assfucking a year while not getting paid enough to service your loans.

2) Academia is a myth and you basically gotta destroy your career in the hopes of getting it.

3) " I view any outcome where you have a bearable job with manageable debt as a positive outcome." Which is why you take the fullride so you have the liberty of doing what you like with manageable debt.