Nixon's LSN lists CLS as his #1 (waitlisted) & NYU as his #2 (Accepted). Gotta protect that ego somehow. 
meh, I think I am more than fair to Columbia. I think it's more prestigious. But the differences in clerkship placement is utterly insignificant. for comparison, Chicago has more than twice the number of SCOTUS clerks as Columbia with half the class size. what it comes down to is NYU: 1-2/year CLS: 1-2/year Michigan: 1-2/year UVa:1-2/year Boalt:0-1/year...I mean there's no real difference here. there are plenty of good reasons for choosing CLS over NYU. But two of the ones he's listed aren't good reasons. My mission here is to fight the heaping mound of BS that pre-laws feed to each other on this site.
but if columbia sent twice as many students to supreme court clerkships as nyu over the last 5 years, how is that not more than a negligible difference?
what would you consider good reasons for choosing columbia over nyu?
frankly, i don't really know what i want to get out of law school, so i feel a bit lost and i end up reading a lot of rankings, but i know that's not how i actually want to make my decision. i haven't visited yet, so hopefully that will help... but i just wish i could spend a few months at one school, go back in time, spend a few months at another, and then choose. that'd be perfect.
i'm a she, for the record.
Actually, NYU sent more students to SCOTUS over the last 5 years than CLS: 7 to 5. Over the last 15 years, Columbia has more 32-16.
The point was that chicago sends 4 times as many students per capita to SCOTUS than CLS but this still amounts to like 3-4 per year. Big deal. It should be obvious that at that point it's more about the individuals than the schools. It's not a reasonable proxy for clerkships in general. CLS and NYU send the same percentage of their class into clerkships.
it would be fine to choose CLS over NYU because Columbia is more prestigious. that prestige doesn't really translate into jobs or anything but it's fine to want prestige for its own sake. just like it would be fine to pick NYU for the Village or for social reasons. I think that there's a real difference between the two in prestige--there isn't for clerkships/jobs or anything.