HYS v. Columbia/NYU/lower T14: Take the money and run?

Graduate School Law School
1

Hi all,

I am a college junior (political science major) at a USNWR top 50 university and I will be applying for law school Fall 2017.

My GPA is a 3.80 right now but I plan to bring it up a bit before law school applications.

I am doing light (~1 hour) study for the LSAT currently ( My diagnostic was a 144 timed, which is horrible for my goals but I do score higher untimed). I am aiming for a 170+ and plan on doing more full time study in the summer of 2017 for the September LSAT. Possibly doing a prep course in the summer?

I am also an underrepresented minority with slightly unique work experience and extracurriculars so hopefully that helps in distinguishing myself in applications. If all goes well I would like to be admitted to HLS…BUT I have no sort of funds for law school and as HYS do not offer merit aid which is what I will be banking on I would willingly take a full ride at a T-14, specifically Columbia, NYU, or even Georgetown (given that my LSAT score allows me admission to any).

I want to work in government although I know these jobs are hard to come by so I would be “open” to BigLaw (life/work balance is really major for me as well as loving/not getting too bored of my profession so any other legal job recommendations would be appreciated).

My question is, in line with my goals of public service/ possibly public interest in civil rights or some sort of litigation, should I attend HYS with no financial aid if admitted but can arguably offer better access to work in federal agencies or a lower T-14 with merit scholarships, especially full rides?

I know it is a bit early for these considerations but I am concerned about competitive government job prospects post-law school and also loans for law school. I’d rather not go into BigLaw which is what Columbia, my next choice after HLS, seems to place graduates.

Essentially any advice for when to decide to take the money and run when you are admitted to all top schools but are fearful of debt and unemployment.

(I know I seem a bit confident about admission to T-14 schools - forgive me, just positive thinking). Also, correct me if I am wrong in my line of thinking that HYS grads receive better public service opportunities than the rest of the T-14?

2

I would do a prep class in the summer; I took a Kaplan class and it helped me, but surely others are also good options. I’d focus on that above all.

For the question you asked, I turned down scholarships and went to H. I thought that it was worth every penny and more.

For debt: you will have a lot of it if you take out loans and go to HYS, but those schools also have generous debt forgiveness programs. I have no experience in public interest/government work so I don’t know how those programs impact people in government work, but they might help.

For unemployment: the HYS names can give you a career with no unemployment if you want it. I’d say that the risk of unemployment in your case would be due to choosing to work in government. In any career where you are a cost center (meaning that you’re paid a salary but do not bring in revenues yourself), the risk of unemployment is significantly higher than if you’re in my line of work–private practice, where you can have no worries about being axed as long as you generate enough clients. That has nothing to do with where you went to school.

So I’d go to HYS in a flash, but I’d also consider the type of career that you want. If you want no unemployment, then you should focus on being someone who generates business/clients–which excludes being a government lawyer. Is there a way to work in private practice while accomplishing what you want? There are public interest law firms, and law firms that represent nonprofits. Can you work in those?

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HappyAlumunus- I completely agree Harvard is worth the money. I visited and I really enjoyed my time there.

I am open to private practice.I worked for a top law firm during my undergraduate career. However, my impression of BigLaw was…not the best but not the worst. While the firm was great and people were nice, it seems many attorneys leave after a couple years and I honestly couldn’t tell where they go - some, likely in-house. Also the hours did not appear to get more manageable the higher your year. I really do not enjoy the idea of long hour (80+) weeks consistently but I am not in any way adverse to hard work. Also, a reason BigLaw terrified me was because you’re entire job depends on clients needs (even if that means working weekends or always being available via email/phone) and it seemed unemployment was guaranteed in BigLaw due to burnout and the hierarchy of partner track hiring (not everyone can generate business for the firm or is a good fit for partners). Again, it is too early to tell what kind of lawyer I would be but I don’t know if firm life is the best fit balance wise although they do produce interesting work. Maybe the career associate route for me? But even those positions seem hard to come by.

I have sort of been banking on public service because it seems like a good balance of interesting work but managable hours without the threat of be “let go” unless you make serious mistakes - while with firms some attorneys are let go because they may not seem like partner potential as years go by.

I don’t know anything about public interest firms but I would certainly be open to them as they seem like a good trade off! Thanks for the great ideas, I will look into these…

4

You’re definitely doing the right thing by thinking about these options.

The hours in private practice do not get any better, but at least the more senior you get, the more control you have over when you work, which helps.

I have had friends in public service and they have been let go for reasons beyond their control: politics, bosses with different priorities, etc. At least in private practice you rise or fall based on how much business you bring in or how much talent you have in a lucrative field where lawyers are in short supply, so you have more control over your job security.

Please keep in mind that the number of lawyers who do, post-law school, what they planned to do before going to law school is about zero. I certainly have had a very different career than I planned, but you learn about yourself and what career options there are as you go along, and the path is never linear.

Best wishes. I would definitely focus for now on getting a strong LSAT score, and everything else will then fall into place.

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While I appreciate @HappyAlumnus 's perspective, and find it invaluable, it feels somewhat limited to Big Law POV.

First Columbia and NYU have robust public interest efforts and finding government work through those schools is very likely. Columbia is not all Big Law by any measure. NYU is great in public interest, too, and better known for it. That doesn’t mean it is necessarily the right school for you, however. It might be, but there are advantages to smaller programs. Columbia has fewer students going into public interest law, and consequently those students get boutique treatment. If you want PI or government work, there are fellowships and guidance to make sure that happens for you. The loyal alumni network will also serve you well throughout your career. In addition, there’s debt forgiveness so that you can afford to go into public interest / government work. NYU has a lot of PI people which many see as an advantage–and if they have a specialty area that interests you, then def look into it–but you may get less personal attention because you’re one among many. (I’ve known people who worked at NYU before law school and then chose Columbia for PI education, because of the individualized treatment there.) You’re not the “different” person if you do PI or gov at NYU and you’re not going into the area that they are pushing to develop. Columbia is velvet gloves for government and PI work compared with other schools because it’s smaller and it actively works to develop and promote those areas.

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Surely Columbia is going to probably have more scholarships opportunities for me as well which is why it is my 2nd choice but my only complaint is that HLS may have a better environment (more pi/government students among me) and maybe even educational experience (professor wise) for public service focused students that it would be hard to pick Columbia. It is good to know it isnt all BigLaw however since this was my biggest concern and they have efforts in place to attract students with my career interests.

@Dustyfeathers If you have any inclination, can you speak on the job security of government lawyers? I always had the impression that yes the positions are competitive but once you get a fed job and you work hard it is hard/impossible to become unemployed/fired. (Although with a Trump administration I doubt of anymore openings by the time of my law school graduation)

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Your guess is as good as mine! But I think that with a flexible mindset, entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, a great alumni network, you will have many options.

There are many ways into government work and many roles for government attorneys.

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Strongly recommend that you forget about the LSAT right now and focus on A’s, and nothing but A’s. Study/prep for the LSAT after you graduate. Work for a year. Clear 172 and prosper.

If not interested in Clerking or other highly competitive jobs, I’d take the big money at the next tier down.

9

My friend’s son got off the waiting list at HLS after having attended Columbia for 10 days where he received merit aid. Within days, he left Columbia for Harvard at full pay.
He just finished HLS and is working at a NYC biglaw firm where a lot of his colleagues graduated from Columbia.
After a couple of weeks at work, he told his parents that HLS didn’t teach him a thing on how to practice law in real life. I am sure the same can be said about other top law schools.
Now, you decide whether giving up $$$ at Columbia to go to Harvard was worth it.

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^^Of course, how much was the merit aid? For say $10k more in tuition, I’d probably move too. (Remember, NYC is more costly place to live.) But if he had say, $35k/yr of merit aid at Columbia, I hope his 'rents are wealthy, so the $ doesn’t matter.

11

This is all really premature. Focus on your grades, get the best possible score you can on the LSAT, and then see where you get in. Fwiw, I got into Stanford but I didn’t get any merit money to Columbia or Chicago, and only a small amount from NYU. So don’t assume that everyone at HYS turned down full rides to every other law school in the country. Also, HYS do offer some financial aid, it’s just need-based instead of merit-based. And if you are really committed to public interest, you should look into the schools’ LRAP programs, which forgive loans for graduates who work in non-profits or government.

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Thanks all ! This is really helpful! Just trying to make ideas on programs and potential schools! Hopefully merit aid is in my future fingers crossed but more importantly my lsat is where I need it to attend a top school.

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Merit aid is always nice, but remember if you attend a T-14 law school you will probably have a means to repay loans, regardless of merit funding. IMH experience, professional schools, like B-schools and law school, med schools, tend to offer less aid. It’s possible to get aid–and there are fellowships that sometimes pay full tuition etc.–but it’s not the primary focus, compared with, say, a top Ph.D. program which more often comes fully funded. Why? Because the professional schools know that their grads will make enough funds to pay back the loans. Grads being able to pay back loans turns out to be mostly true for the top schools, as their grads are either 1) recruited into top-paying jobs or 2) the school offers some sort of loan forgiveness to help their grads get into certain targeted sectors of work.

By focusing on your grades and your LSAT score, and maybe doing internships and working and otherwise finding that passion in law that can help define you as you move forward, that will get you into a top law school and will take care of most of your financing worries.

Recruiters want grads from the top schools.

BTW there is one grad-school fellowship for professional schools given by the federal government. You may qualify and your target school may offer it. It’s called the FLAS and you need to be studying a foreign language that’s on their list of target languages, often it’s like Arabic, Mandarin, an Eastern European language, Korean, that sort of thing. Not Spanish, French or the standard Romance languages. The FLAS offers full tuition plus a stipend, usually.