Get the inside scoop on jobs and careers with Vault career guides. Columbia Law School Buzz Book is your complete resource to jobs, careers, interviews and recruiting.
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Columbia Law School Buzz Book Get the inside scoop on jobs and careers with Vault career guides. Columbia Law School Buzz Book is your complete resource to jobs, careers, interviews and recruiting. |
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Columbia Law School Buzz Book Welcome to the first edition of Vault's Columbia Law School Buzz Book. In this new and unique guide, we publish extended excerpts and sample admissions essays from surveys of students and alumni from Columbia Law to bring you the inside scoop on its law program. The survey comments cover the following areas:
The guide is intended to serve as a complement to other references to law schools currently available that utilize school-reported data. Unlike those guides, Vault's Buzz Books (which also include the Law School Buzz Book, Business School Buzz Book and College Buzz Book) are composed almost entirely of information provided directly to Vault from students and alumni.
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Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2003-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: July 2004
The admissions process for Columbia Law School is similar to that of other top schools--heavy emphasis is placed on your LSAT score, coupled with a combination of your undergraduate school, grades, extracurricular activities, strong references and strong essays. My advice to anyone trying to get into a top law school is study long and hard for the LSAT. It can be your ticket in!
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2003-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: June 2004
As with any law school, you have to take the LSAT, register your undergrad grades with LSAC, get two letters of recommendation and write a two-page essay. CLS is very selective, so the most important thing is going to be your LSAT. Hopefully, you can get a score in the top percentile. No interview is given, so try to make your essay/risumi the place for interesting tidbits about your life. Otherwise, it's just numbers, LSAT and GPA. Good luck.
Academics: Students Speak
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 9/2002-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: October 2003
Classes are amazing. The professors are intelligent, clear, organized, knowledgeable and all-around good people. The material is stimulating and most everyone is prepared. Classmates are engaged in the environment, making the classroom a good place to debates. Workload is high--but what do you expect from an Ivy League school? You really get to learn the material like the back of you hand. Popular classes are, most of the time, closed but some professors open more spots and during the add/drop period, your waitlist number will slowly decrease and you might get into the class.
All together, I couldn't be happier with the quality of academics here at Columbia.
Employment Prospects: Students Speak
Status: Alumnus/a, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2000-5/2003
Survey Submitted: April 2004
Career prospects are excellent, with nearly all graduates having a job offer upon graduation. All the elite firms recruit heavily at Columbia. Applicants are not pre-screened by the firms beforehand, as they are at many other law schools, and therefore even B students can interview at Wachtell.
Career Services does all it can to ensure that its students interview successfully and are placed in jobs before graduation.
For students interested in public interest law, there is a whole division at the law school dedicated to public interest jobs. A certain number of living stipends are provided to students who take public interest jobs during their 1L or 2L summers.
Quality of Life: Students Speak
Status: Current student, full-time JD/MBA
Dates of Enrollment: 9/2003-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: February 2006
Living in New York is awesome. There are a million and one things to do; and when you're at one of the premier institutions in the city, you have tons of interesting speakers passing through the doors. It's impossible to keep up with everything. Law school is law school, and I think the quality of life is about the same as it is everywhere. Of course, that is a personal choice. Everyone gets jobs and the curve is pretty soft, so technically there is still time to have fun if someone wants to have it (and isn't wedded to the Skadden Internship).
The law school guarantees housing, which is a pretty big deal.
Social Life: Students Speak
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 9/2002-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: October 2003
The university's social life is alive and well and for the diversity that the university caters to, the number of activities reflects the various students. The Morningside Heights area has some pretty good restaurants and some great bars. Every Thursday night here at Columbia is Bar Review, which is where all students can gather in a crowded bar somewhere on the Upper West Side and discuss class, professors and tough legal issues. They might also try and relax for once in their lives.
Status: Alumnus/a, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2001-5/2004
Survey Submitted: March 2006
Surprisingly, this isn't a school full of nerds. People are very cool; they love to socialize, go out, have fun and enjoy the city. There is a social committee that organizes law school activities, including a Thursday night Bar Review hosted by the Student Senate. Every week we have it at a different bar, either on the Upper West Side, in the neighborhood or elsewhere. It is the weekly social event of the law school where everyone mixes and mingles. There are also plenty of parties at people's apartments.
