Columbia c/o 2017 Applicants (2013-2014 cycle) Forum

[t-14orbust]

Checking in. Going to be a good 6 months with y'all.

Who else is retaking (or taking) October?

Retaking Oct and possibly Dec/Feb.

You aiming for HYS? I'd imagine your 171+3.5+URM(I'm assuming AA?) would be a lock.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

Checking in. Going to be a good 6 months with y'all.

Who else is retaking (or taking) October?

Retaking Oct and possibly Dec/Feb.

You aiming for HYS? I'd imagine your 171+3.5+URM(I'm assuming AA?) would be a lock.

Yep, aiming for HYS. Plus I just think I can do better.

[t-14orbust]

Checking in. Going to be a good 6 months with y'all.

Who else is retaking (or taking) October?

Retaking Oct and possibly Dec/Feb.

You aiming for HYS? I'd imagine your 171+3.5+URM(I'm assuming AA?) would be a lock.

Yep, aiming for HYS. Plus I just think I can do better.

Hopefully I'll see you there, I think you're already in but aim for the stars I suppose. Was 171 your first take? If so, I'm willing to wager you go 173+

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

CLS '16 with some data you all might find useful w/r/t the notion that CLS favors strong UGs. We have access to a census of UGs for each matriculant, which I don't think CLS publishes. IMO, it represents good evidence that CLS places a decent amount of weight on a strong UG.

Minus those who have withdrawn their information, don't have a UG listed for whatever reason, or attended international schools (mostly Canadian), there are 345 1Ls with a listed UG.

Top 10 most represented UGs:

1. Columbia
2. Brown
3. Cornell
4. Dartmouth
T5: Duke
T5: Georgetown
T5: Harvard
T5: Penn
T5: Yale
T10: Berkeley
T10: Princeton

UG Type:

USNWR Top 10 LAC: 24 (7.0%)

Ivy: 114 (33.3%)
Columbia: 28 (8.2%)
HYP: 32 (9.4%)
Other Ivy: 54 (15.8%)

Other USNWR Top 25: 95 (27.8%)

USNWR 26-50: 50 (14.6%)

All other schools: 62 (18.1%)

Interesting tidbit: 18 of the schools in USNWR's T25 sent six or more students, whereas no non-T50 school sent more than three.

Decide for yourselves to what extent CLS is deliberately selecting those students versus the extent to which 170+ scorers come disproportionately from strong UGs.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

T14orbust: yeah first take. Good luck on the retake.

[lunaraeon]

Minus those who have withdrawn their information, don't have a UG listed for whatever reason, or attended international schools (mostly Canadian)

I did a cursory check for people from my undergrad (and anyone who posted in the forum) but wouldn't mind finding the rest of the Canadian school students. Did you just go through LawNet?

[Tariffs]

Who else is retaking (or taking) October?

Retaking a 159 from last December (I had never even heard of powerscore, etc.) Tryna get that 170+ bro

[Dr. Dre]

Who else is retaking (or taking) October?

Retaking a 159 from last December (I had never even heard of powerscore, etc.) Tryna get that 170+ bro

what did you use bro?

[bbkk]

Checking in. Here's hoping that my October LSAT goes well!

+1

[blink]

Checking in. Here's hoping that my October LSAT goes well!

+1

[blink]

Checking in, retaking the October LSAT. 82,000 for the first year... here's hoping for lots and lots of scholarship money.

Hey good luck!

CLS '16 here (same as banjo). Re: financial aid, columbja $ comes in two forms:

1) the named fellowships given in your acceptance letter, which are half (butler) and full (hamilton) tuition scholarships -- historically these are exclusively to poach HYS kids, i.e. for 175+/3.75+. About 20 hamiltons are offered each year. Theres nothing in-between half and full.

2) everyone else applies separately w/ fafsa/needaccess and received finaid grants in April. These range from $30K up to $85K, but Ive only seen a handful that high. If you are at CLS medians, expect $30-50K total over three years -- not actually a huge dent in tuition, but they spread it out to a large number of people in the class so most admitted students can expect $10K/year off that $80K CoA, but not much more (as you can see on lawschoolnumbers).

Lastly, Columbia claims (and to some extent, actually does) to incorporate need-based in a similar fashion to HYS. The grants in 2) are a combination of need and merit, whereas 1) is strictly numbers. If you are from an extremely low income family, your aid may be higher than your numbers would dictate.

Its also worth noting that Columbia CoA projection is higher than necessary. After receiving my housing/rent/utilities and budgeting ALL my living expenses, mine comes to ~$76K total (rather than $82K, and you can make it lower -- I have higher than average expenditures) before deducting grants. Hope this helps and best of luck!

Even at 76K, how the hell do people go here for sticker and sleep at night? That's nearly a quarter MILLION in student loans!!! Getting in at sticker would almost feel like rejection for me...

[jcccc]

160k starting salary, 100k post-tax. Yea yea economy is shit but it still is CLS, I'm pretty sure only the bottom 20% or 15% have a hard time getting big law after gradding. The thing is, if you really want to make it work, you will.

[blink]

160k starting salary, 100k post-tax. Yea yea economy is shit but it still is CLS, I'm pretty sure only the bottom 20% or 15% have a hard time getting big law after gradding. The thing is, if you really want to make it work, you will.

But if Biglaw is the goal, then why not try for Cornell with a significant scholarship? I understand it's a numbers game and Columbia just gives you a better chance to be able to pay off the loans. But Cornell does pretty well in NYC Biglaw. They tend to throw pretty big money around.

Either way, the important thing is that Breaking Bad is less than two weeks away. lol

[jcccc]

160k starting salary, 100k post-tax. Yea yea economy is shit but it still is CLS, I'm pretty sure only the bottom 20% or 15% have a hard time getting big law after gradding. The thing is, if you really want to make it work, you will.

But if Biglaw is the goal, then why not try for Cornell with a significant scholarship? I understand it's a numbers game and Columbia just gives you a better chance to be able to pay off the loans. But Cornell does pretty well in NYC Biglaw. They tend to throw pretty big money around.

Either way, the important thing is that Breaking Bad is less than two weeks away. lol

Then I guess it all comes down to prestige. We all hate to admit it but prestige is a huge factor for some of us.

[Tariffs]

what did you use bro?

A Princeton Review LSAT book I found in Barnes and Noble

[NYU_Ugrad_Paralegal]

Checking IN. Hoping for Columbia or NYU since I'm aiming for the NY market. GL everybody.

[lastsamurai]

Anybody make it to the information session today? Got stuck at work unfortunately. How was it?

[Humbert Humbert]

Anybody make it to the information session today? Got stuck at work unfortunately. How was it?

I was there. It was good, though not much new information, particularly if you are a regular to this website. It took place in one of their lecture halls - probably about 100 people or so showed up (mostly college students or recent grads, by the look of it). Additionally, they are undergoing some pretty significant renovation in the main lobby of the law school building. It looks nice, from what I could tell.

[SteelPenguin]

Anybody make it to the information session today? Got stuck at work unfortunately. How was it?

I was there. It was good, though not much new information, particularly if you are a regular to this website. It took place in one of their lecture halls - probably about 100 people or so showed up (mostly college students or recent grads, by the look of it). Additionally, they are undergoing some pretty significant renovation in the main lobby of the law school building. It looks nice, from what I could tell.

Yup. I learned a bit about the Columbia overall, but for applications it was mostly stuff already covered by TLS. I'm still glad I went though. Additionally, some of the questions asked towards the end, especially revolving around character and fitness had me holding back laughter.

[NYU_Ugrad_Paralegal]

Yup. I learned a little about the Columbia overall, but for applications it was mostly stuff already covered by TLS. I'm still glad I went though. Additionally, some of the questions asked towards the end, especially revolving around character and fitness had me holding back laughter.

What kind of questions were people asking?

[SteelPenguin]

Yup. I learned a little about the Columbia overall, but for applications it was mostly stuff already covered by TLS. I'm still glad I went though. Additionally, some of the questions asked towards the end, especially revolving around character and fitness had me holding back laughter.

What kind of questions were people asking?

What kind of issues must be disclosed?
Do I have to disclose anything that wasn't a felony (paraphrasing)?
Do I have to disclose all of my speeding tickets?
What if I can't remember all of my speeding tickets in the past 20+ years?
Some of these questions had the applicant asking follow ups.

There were also about 7 different questions about letters of recommendation. Danielle's initial explanation, plus one or two other questions seemed sufficient to me.

Maybe it's just from my experience on TLS, but I would feel a bit strange asking a school like Columbia questions that I could find out with a quick google search. I don't really know any non-TLS law students or applicants though, so my perception is probably very skewed.

[milkandcheerios]

Checking in! CLS is my top choice.

GPA is slightly above median, hoping that my October LSAT will be as well (currently studying, so much pressure )

[TheMostDangerousLG]

There were also about 7 different questions about letters of recommendation. Danielle's initial explanation, plus one or two other questions seemed sufficient to me.

Maybe it's just from my experience on TLS, but I would feel a bit strange asking a school like Columbia questions that I could find out with a quick google search. I don't really know any non-TLS law students or applicants though, so my perception is probably very skewed.

Truuuuuuth. So many questions were just asking the same shit over and over. You could tell the lady was getting frustrated. And seriously, a bunch of the questions asked were just absolute fucking basics about the law school admissions process.

[mindarmed]

160k starting salary, 100k post-tax. Yea yea economy is shit but it still is CLS, I'm pretty sure only the bottom 20% or 15% have a hard time getting big law after gradding. The thing is, if you really want to make it work, you will.

In NYC it's more like 90k post tax FYI.

[mindarmed]

Anybody make it to the information session today? Got stuck at work unfortunately. How was it?

I was there. It was good, though not much new information, particularly if you are a regular to this website. It took place in one of their lecture halls - probably about 100 people or so showed up (mostly college students or recent grads, by the look of it). Additionally, they are undergoing some pretty significant renovation in the main lobby of the law school building. It looks nice, from what I could tell.

Yup. I learned a bit about the Columbia overall, but for applications it was mostly stuff already covered by TLS. I'm still glad I went though. Additionally, some of the questions asked towards the end, especially revolving around character and fitness had me holding back laughter.

I was glad to learn they encourage students to take classes in the business school. But, it did seem that some of the questions were rather basic