Can you guys please give me your opinion, as admitted NYU and Harvard students, what do you think?

I am 25yrs of African origin (female), I was raised in the Carribean but lived in the UK for the past 17 yrs. I am UK law graduate, I have done my LPC (law school) and I am taking the NY Bar in February 2007 and I am presently working as a paralegal in the 3rd top US firm in London and I have about 3 yrs legal work experience too (I really want to apply to do an LLM 2008 but only applying to Harvard, Stanford, NYU and Columbia. Bad idea? or not? My grades are not amazing but I have quite a bit of work exprience, do you think I will be able to get in.
Are people at NYU and Harvard only exceptional students? or can average people like me get in, what do they forcus on for their entry requirments?

I think you have a pretty interesting profile and a good essay remarking your work experience could be regarded by the admissions office as a positive factor. Grades are important, but they are not everything. A well-balanced resume, coherent work experience and clear goals could possibly be regarded as a plus. Prepare a good application, get nice recommendation letters from people that could say something as detailed as possible about your characteristics as student/ professional, and do your best. At NYU, you find either people with remarkable grades and people with not-so-great grades but with interesting background/ work experience - so you certainly have a chance. Regarding your question about applying only to HLS, CLS, NYU and Stanford, I would say that it depends on your specialization, where you want to live/ work after the LLM, etc. There are a lot of great law schools here! Even in NY, life is not only CLS and NYU: Fordham has a good program on IP and International Trade, and Cornell is really good too... Maybe Jose has something else to say...

Thanks alot Ivan! you have been very helpful, I will look into other schools as you suggested.

Best wishes,

Other than making your goals and background clear and coherent in your personal statement, I have nothing to add. I wouldn't limit choices to the above, however, without a clear idea of goals. For example, Boston U is the only one I know of that has a Banking LLM. You might now think of looking for Boston U in the rankings, but Harvard Law borrows their mutual funds professor as a visiting professor.

any tips on the program on Trade Regulation?
Ive applied to NYU, columbia, penn, harv, cornell, umich

That's a bit specialized. You should go through the list of subjects offered in each law school and look at the professors teaching them to get an idea.

any tips on the program on Trade Regulation?
Ive applied to NYU, columbia, penn, harv, cornell, umich

yeah i know....i just missed the date for georgetown!!!
my parimary aim is columbia though, with bhagwati as a pre eminent professor in int'l trade law, and other renowned ones as well.
jose alvarez at NYU is also good. in addition, NYU offers a specialised LLM in int'l trade. as does UPenn.
yea i agree that HLS is not a great choice for int'l trade.

yea i agree that HLS is not a great choice for int'l trade.

I know a little about HLS, and I honestly don't think it's a no-brainer because you have to fit it with your personal plans and preferences.

Sure, firms look at Harvard, Yale and Stanford very highly, with NYU and Columbia very close behind as far as New York is concerned. Further, everyone in the world knows what Harvard is. If you're looking for a job, then the employer, particularly a firm, may very well care more about the brand name than the subjects on your transcript.

That said, I would consider taking HLS if I were accepted and had your plans because you can only have so many subjects, anyway. If you take just one trade-related subject per term, that may well be enough. You'd want to take another subject on basic American law, maybe Corporations. HLS is strong in other international commercial fields you might want exposure to, such as International Finance and Securities from a cross-border perspective. Finally, while you're in an academic environment, you might want to experience the more academic end of American law such as legal philosophy or comparative constitutional law classes, or the classes of famous professors such as Laurence Tribe (Constitutional Law) or Alan Dershowitz (a number of unique seminars).

Finally, I seriously doubt that "NYC is the only market" (bar concerns aside) considering this year's HLS 2L class seems to have more aiming for Washington DC where a lot of the regulatory work is done. As an intangible of HLS, imagine the advantage a few years down the line of having US JD friends from HLS working for the federal government and firms in your city. That's one way of thinking about the large class size.