Hi! I recently made a more generalized post about this question but have narrowed my likely focus down to these two for prelaw! I was wondering which one is better for prelaw. I’ve been seeing a lot of posts saying that they are relatively similar for placement, but I looked at some statistics that show there are generally a lot more Columbia students accepted by the top few law schools (Yale/Harvard) compared to Duke students.
COLUMBIA PROS:
I LOVE NYC
Historically great placement into the top law schools
I heard some descriptions of the community as more artsy and I’m a musician
GREAT internship opportunities, and NYC makes it especially easy for them to be done during the school year
CONS:
I keep hearing about the poor social and perhaps slightly toxic/cutthroat atmosphere which scares me a little bit (a poor social atmosphere at my original school is why I transferred)
Columbia’s administration seems to offer very little in the way of support for any kind of pre-professional advising or opportunities
The damage to it’s campus life/prestige in recent years by protests and dishonest reporting to US news
Its class sizes for economics (my major) are quite large and I’m not sure how possible it is to get letters of recommendation for law school in such a (supposedly) competitive environment
DUKE PROS:
AMAZING campus, food.
Heard that they have a really strong community - it seems a lot of people love Duke and I love being around passionate people
Has an agreement with its own law school that those with above a 3.9 GPA and 170 LSAT are automatically admitted (which is also a T14, although slightly behind the traditional T6 law schools)
The administration is relatively helpful for finding programs and supporting its students (it seems at least from the outside)
CONS:
Less opportunities for internships during the school year
Heard some firms only hire from ivy league??? (not sure how true/many this is)
I’m more of a musician than a sports guy so I’m afraid I might not fit in with the general culture
Slightly worse placement than Columbia into the best law schools
It’s not in the city, and I would say I’m more of a city type of guy. However, I do still really love Duke’s campus and would probably prefer it to Columbia’s, it’s just that it doesn’t have access to such a bustling center like NYC
Please help me decide , I’ve been really just stuck on which one to go to.
Thank you so much guys!!! (Also I’d totally be open to reasons to why I might consider Dartmouth, I know it has its pros like a small, intimate community that makes for strong bonds with professors, kind of like the LAC type of vibe. However, it seems to be less well-regarded than Duke or Columbia and the strong-frat culture is a little bit of a test for me (I’m 90 percent sure I’m not a frat type of guy, but I could be wrong!))
I didn’t know about the Duke law school automatic admission option. That’s a new wrinkle. It’s a highly respected law school and their alum will open a few doors, especially if you have any notions of staying in North Carolina.
Or it’s just the type of students Columbia admits.
Students are engaged in different ways. Some people want to be surrounded by activists/protests and others would rather have a different campus culture.
Every law student in America takes virtually the same curriculum, regardless of what they took as undergrads. Taking a course on the Supreme Court as an undergrad won’t replace your mandatory Constitutional Law class as a law student. Law school adcom’s don’t care if you’re “prelaw”, or a music major, or studied anthropology. So you need to change your perspective.
You will or will not get into a top law school based on your LSAT score and GPA, and some marginally relevant “other things”. Did you or your family have recurring interactions with the judicial system or law enforcement? (parent incarcerated, unlawfully evicted from your home and spent time in foster care?) This can/may tip the scales for you. But having taken a seminar on “Patent law and intellectual property” as an undergrad will not move the needle AT ALL.
So pick the college that has the other elements you need and want for your education. All of these are fine, depending on what you are looking for in terms of social life, climate, etc.
Some of your pros and cons are really slicing the bologna VERY thin. Right now you have no idea if you will be a competitive candidate for a top law school, you may decide there are other things you are interested in studying and ditch law school entirely. So figure out what you are looking for RIGHT NOW and be confident that the rest of your life will unfold regardless of which decision you make.
The frat thing is really a differentiator (though not all “frats” are same, FWIW)…I don’t think reputation is even close to be meaningfully different in general sense and certainly has no bearing on a legal career. Of note, I am one on this board who thinks reputation of schools actually matters more than most people do, but it definitely doesn’t in this case between Duke, Dartmouth, Columbia.
I agree with everything that’s already been posted in this thread. There is no prelaw major, what matters is your gpa + LSAT, and the name of your undergraduate college doesn’t matter. Case in point would be Jack Smith, the Trump prosecutor with a renowned career, who went to Harvard Law from SUNY Oneonta.
Since your intended major is Economics, I’d look at which college offers the most opportunities in Economics. Just speaking for what I would prefer, that would be Duke. First of all, Duke offers both a B.A. and a B.S. in Economics as well as a B.S. with a concentration in Financial Economics. The difference is that the B.A. program is less math heavy; the major can be completed with as little as a single math course. Fir someone who is pursuing this major primarily as prep for law school, this might be the way to go. However, when you get to college and actually start taking courses, you might fall in love with Economics and change your goals, so it’s good to have the other options available.
The other reason why I like Duke is that they have a certificate program (equivalent to a minor) called Philosophy, Politics, & Economics. This is a highly valued concentration for law school. Fewer than 100 colleges offer it as a major or a minor. Neither Columbia nor Dartmouth offer it. Originated at Oxford a century ago and brought to this country by Harvard half a century later, it brings together the key elements of the disciplines and kinds of thinking that law school will emphasize. It’s a rare opportunity and I’d take advantage of it. But that’s just me. Reflect on your own interests and get into the weeds a little bit on what the programs that each of these colleges offer. That’s where you’ll find what will enrich your experience there.
I would expect there to be quite a few highly competitive students at pretty much any highly ranked university. If half the class were among the top 2 or 3 students in their high school, this is pretty much just going to happen.
As one example I still remember once during my freshman year of university (at a top 10 university) I missed what the homework assignment was in my physics class, so asked a “friend” who was in the same class. His response was “I am not going to tell you because you are competition and I want to do better than you in the class”. Fortunately two other friends (without quotes this time) heard this and told me what the assignment was.
This actually might concern me a bit.
You should be careful what you wish for. As an example, I had a friend who like me graduated from MIT with a degree in mathematics. Unlike me he went on to get a law degree from Harvard, and then got a job at a prestigious law firm in New York city. He lasted literally one week. He discovered that he hated it. It was a very competitive and toxic and cutthroat atmosphere. He had the good fortunate of having graduated law school with no debt, and was able to go back to school to get a master’s degree in a different but somewhat related field and ended up on a career track that he liked and that was good for him. However, “big city competitive and stressful law firm” turned out to be the wrong the career track for him. It would have been wrong for me also.
Placement into a top law school will depend upon you and what you do far more than where you do it.
Statistics about placement of graduates from any particular university are very highly skewed by the type of student who attends each particular university. As an example, if you look at students who get accepted to Harvard or MIT out of high school, they are likely on average (not in every case) to end up doing well in life one way or another regardless of whether they actually attend Harvard or MIT. This is just because of the type of students who get accepted to these schools. Of course students who get accepted to Columbia and Duke also tend to be the type of students who are likely to do well in life regardless of whether they go to Columbia or Duke or somewhere else.
I know quite a few lawyers. They attended a wide variety of universities. They graduated university with a good GPA and did well on the LSAT. Due to the particular type of lawyers that I know, most of them got their bachelor’s degree in engineering or mathematics or computer science. However, you can attend almost any university and major in almost anything and go on to law school.
I do not think that there is a bad choice here (and this would include Dartmouth and Amherst if these are still options). I think that you should go to whichever school provides an environment where you will be comfortable and happy.
@DadTwoGirls, I love your story about the guy who lasted one week at the big law firm. It reminds me of Andrew Yang’s story of his experience. When he was on the campaign trail during his run for president 5 years ago, Andrew, himself an Ivy League alum, compared his time at a big NYC law firm compared his experience to a pie eating contest for which the reward for winning is more pie! Haha. Long hours, little reward, followed by longer hours, and still little reward.
yeah, sure, but where else can a 24/25 year old with absolutely zero skills make $215k, plus $20k bonus, on their first ever job? (not saying many kids did not work in HS or college, just that it is not necessary to score a job in Big Law particularly in Manhattan.)
OP: as others have said, it’s nearly all about LSAT & undergrad GPA. Internships are barely a factor.
Well, my GD is making that money in Manhattan doing data analytics for a med tech firm right out of college - and she didn’t have to incur the cost or time commitment of law school.
The point is that the 80-100 hour a week slog isn’t for everyone. It wasn’t for Andrew Yang.
If I understand OP’s situation correctly, he/she has been offered admission to at least Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, and Amherst as a transfer student from an LAC with a weak economics department and an uncomfortable social environment. OP is concerned about which option offers the best law school placements.
All 4 options place many students into elite law schools each year. All 4 options have strong econ departments. The issue, therefore, seems to be which option(s) offer a different social environment than OP’s current LAC. This is unnecessarily challenging to do without knowing more about OP’s current school or the school’s name. (I can guess which school OP currently attends based on some information shared in OP’s earlier thread. But why do we need to guess ? This is a potentially life altering decision in my view.)
What we do know is that neither Columbia nor Duke is an LAC, therefore, the social scene at either school should be quite different than that at OP’s current LAC. And maybe this already understood by OP and the reason that OP has narrowed his/her options to these two universities.
Between Columbia and Duke, the choice should be easy as either one wants to attend school in NYC or one doesn’t.
You say you LOVE NYC but I wonder what that means. Visiting NYC for a show or a concert is not the same as living in NYC on a day-to-day basis. Do you mind going weeks without recognizing a single face in a crowd? Are you a light sleeper? Do you mind concrete and heavy traffic everywhere you look? I ask because your profile doesn’t shout NYC to me. I once replied to a mother on this site that her daughter would love Barnard because no one would care, if she came home late with glitter on her face - and got a very surprising retort! So, be careful what you wish for.
I’ve never extensively lived in the city before, but the city gives me a feeling of liberation that other places don’t seem to. I think the longest period I’ve stayed in NYC was 4 days and I really liked it because it feels like you have an entire concrete jungle to explore. Strangely enough, I find traffic to be a little charming because it adds a feeling of liveliness to the city (I’m not a big fan of places that appear desolate and empty). I would say almost surely, that I would love the city. I’m really just afraid I would trade away my social life to do so (although my “vibe” seems to fit with Columbia more than the sport-heavy Duke one based on my current knowledge).
Your post-graduation success will be dependent on what YOU accomplish during college rather than which one of these absolutely outstanding universities you decide to attend.
As a transfer, I would look into Columbia’s extensive core to be sure you can complete all required courses and graduate on time.
, I’ve been really just stuck on which one to go to.