<p>Hey everyone, sorry for asking so many questions recently. But I've also recently been thinking about moving to New York in a couple of years from now, in particular Manhattan, which is probably the most interesting borough of New York City in my opinion. Well, we here should all know that law schools in the United States are generally regional, right? That is, unless they're in the top 14, they're not portable and are generally limited to their respective local areas (please tell me if this assumption is fallacious). Okay, so I've been looking at the best law schools in the state of New York. According to U.S. News rankings (which I think everybody here relies on), they are apparently:</p>
<ol>
<li>Columbia University</li>
<li>New York University</li>
<li>Cornell University</li>
<li>Fordham University</li>
</ol>
<p>It seems to me that that's it that's in the top 50 and in the state of New York. The next one on the list would be Yeshiva University, which is #52. And the people on this site don't seem to think very highly of anything below the top 50 (or even the top 14), so let's just say, at least for the purposes of this thread, that only those four in the top 50 are relevant.</p>
<p>Well Columbia and NYU are both ranked very high. They're basically neighbors, on opposite sides of Central Park in Manhattan. That's pretty cool. Top-ranking law school in the busiest part of the United States--what more can you ask for? Next one down the list would be Cornell, which is in a small college town in upstate New York, which isn't really a problem since it's still in the top 14. I don't suppose very many people stick around in Ithaca after graduating, anyway. So I guess that leaves only one in New York that's in the top 50 but not in the top 14. That would be Fordham University.</p>
<p>So, is it any good? I had honestly never heard of it until I looked at its ranking relative to the other New York law schools. It's in Manhattan, more or less right in the middle of Columbia and NYU, which is cool. And I'm thinking that not every lawyer in Manhattan can graduate from either #4 or #6. There has to be some lawyers who didn't go to Columbia or NYU, and those lawyers had to have come from somewhere that's still prestigious but not as prestigious. Am I correct in assuming that at least a sizable portion of such people went to this Fordham University? It seems to be a relatively big dropoff from the previous one on the list, which has me worried about it. I mean there is a rather big gap between Cornell and Fordham, and Fordham isn't even ranked that high in terms of undergrad.</p>
<p>Also, Wikipedia says it's a Catholic/Jesuit institution. I'm neither of those and am in fact not religious at all, but I can be open-minded and "play along" out of respect (or necessity). Does Fordham care about what religion you belong to? Do employers care if you went to a Catholic (as opposed to a religiously neutral) university? I honestly wouldn't mind pretending to be a certain religion (or no religion at all) if it means getting into a school or a job.</p>
<p>I guess I'm also kind of curious about Yeshiva, which is Jewish. I suppose that means Yeshiva would be somewhat more of a culture shock to me; the school appears to have ties to Israel (which is completely foreign and unknown to me), and Judaism is generally just more different from American culture than Catholicism. There would probably be a lot of things that I wouldn't understand, including the Hebrew language. So I'm not too concerned about Yeshiva.</p>
<p>Anyway, in summary, am I overestimating the prestige/worth of Fordham? I arrived at the conclusion that it must be pretty decent to be #4 in a state of 20 million people. And of course not all those 20 million can get into a top 14, so the next one down can't be half bad. I realize that my thinking process is basically just assumption built upon assumption, so that's why I want to get confirmation from College Confidential.</p>