I'm plagiarizing an email I've just sent to Pookie, because I think it's good for people to know the decisions that I'm balancing, and also have enough info to give their input:
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Ok so you have asked a few times about Columbia vs. NYU in the rankings, and I keep forgetting to reply!
Basically they are neck and neck and ALWAYS occupy 4th and 5th behind Yale, Stanford, and Harvard. NYU tends to take 4th over Columbia more often than not, and NYU is *always* ranked #1 in the specialization in international law category, however guess who's #2? lol Yes, Columbia.
The thing is, Columbia is much better reputation-wise (eg: in securing clerkships), but I feel like the whole "internatinal law #2 behind NYU" thing is deceptive, because Columbia has cultivated a strong specializatin in East Asian law and internatinal commercial law (neither of which interest me at all), while NYU's strength in international law comes almost directly from its committment to internatinal human rights law (IHRL -- which IS what matters to me).
Columbia, hands-down, has better housing.
I could never get into Columbia's business school if I wanted to do a joint JD-MBA.
(sorry I'm going throught the lists of pros and cons in case you didn't catch-on, lol)
In terms of summer support, Columbia has a FANTASTIC "HRIP" (human rights internship program) where you are hand-placed in amazing organizations AND funded, and they recommend people serious about IHRL do the HRIP in their 1L and 2L summers. The catch? You have to apply, and only about 50% of the people get it (even though who are we kidding? I'd totally get it ;p). NYU, on the other hand, does not have as many DIRECT "you will take NYU interns every year" agreements with top UN organizations like Columbia does, BUT it has GUARANTEED (eg: no competition) funding EVERY summer that students want to work in public service.
About the law repayment programs, they are both good (two of the top in the nation) but compared to the ACTUAL top repayment programs (eg: Yale and Harvard) they are disappointing in their inclusion of caps/stricter regulatins about what kinds of employment count. It's a complicated comparison (although for both, the general system is that they calculate how much you owe your loan people each year, and cut you a loan check for a percentage of that each year depending on how much they think you can pay, given your income...after a certain number of years in the program they start to forgive the checks they've given you):
- NYU begins forgiving the debt after 5 years in the program, whereas Columbia does not begin until after 7 years
- Columbia does not have an income cap, but NYU does: $30,000 above the base qualifying income (so $44 + $30k = $74,000 currently)
- NYU takes a higher percentage of your income, but it doesn't start counting your income as take-able until a higher dollar amount (eg: Columbia says 15% of income greater than $25k and less than $40k, and 34.5% of income above $40k, whereas NYU says 40% of income up to $20k greater than the base, so 40% of income greater than $44k and $64k, and 50% of income for the last elligible $10k, since the cap is $30k above base).
- If you compare the two for an income of $70k, then they are almost the same, but you can see that they are sort of tricky to compare.
In terms of what they are offering ME, NYU offered $30k (or $25k if I summer at a firm), whereas Columbia offered me $35k PLUS that $25k scholarship for alums (that I could theoretically win each year, but I think is unlikely), which means max. from NYU is $30k and min. from Columbia is $60k.
I know that, in the grand scheme of things (ie: having like $200k in debt), $30k difference isn't big, but it is still $30k, and I feel like the fact that Columbia has doubled NYU's offer (even if doubling something small still leaves you with something just slightly less small) feels significant.
I emailed NYU and told them I wanted to go, but Columbia doubled their offer. Let's see what they say!
XO
VC