Top Law Schools

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have you thought about contacting vandy to negotiate for more money based on your new score?

If you are waitlisted at T14's then the decision is obvious. send them your updated LSAT score and you will get in, and then you'll be able to work where you want.

swimmer33 wrote:have you thought about contacting vandy to negotiate for more money based on your new score?

Excellent idea. I'll give it a shot but I heard they do not negotiate aid. Might as well try though.

First, tell Vandy about your new score and your intentions, and see if they can cough up any more cash for you. Do this now.

Are you on any waitlists?

Second, if you don't have anything else lined that's interesting for next year, you probably won't end up doing much interesting next year. You think the market's bad for top law school grads, try finding a job with a BA!

A wasted year of your life is nothing to be proud of, even if you could end up getting into a T10 (you probably still wouldn't get CCN next year). I'd bite the bullet and go to Vandy next year anyway. It's currently a little on the pricey side, but a year of wasted life would not be cool. This could also very much hurt your chances at OCI.

If you can't get a big chunk more $ from Vandy or off the waitlist at a T14, I would reapply. You want NYC (which Vandy is good at but not as good as T14's), you want biglaw (same reason as before), and the money from Vandy isn't that much cheaper than sticker.

Regionality wrote:If you are waitlisted at T14's then the decision is obvious. send them your updated LSAT score and you will get in, and then you'll be able to work where you want.

This is being overly optimistic. A lot of T14's are pretty close to finalizing their class and there is a high likelihood that OP won't get in this cycle even after updating.

duckmoney wrote:First, tell Vandy about your new score and your intentions, and see if they can cough up any more cash for you. Do this now.

Are you on any waitlists?

Second, if you don't have anything else lined that's interesting for next year, you probably won't end up doing much interesting next year. You think the market's bad for top law school grads, try finding a job with a BA!

A wasted year of your life is nothing to be proud of, even if you could end up getting into a T10 (you probably still wouldn't get CCN next year). I'd bite the bullet and go to Vandy next year anyway. It's currently a little on the pricey side, but a year of wasted life would not be cool. This could also very much hurt your chances at OCI.

Main waitlists I am looking at are Michigan and Cornell. Cornell is simply in a great location to target NYC and Michigan is just awesome for anywhere. I am concerned about what to do next year if I decide to reapply, but I think I should be able to find something interesting to some degree... maybe...

And I think bk is right in that getting off a T14 waitlist at this point is very very slim. Still worth a LOCI though.

thelawyler wrote:I am concerned about what to do next year if I decide to reapply, but I think I should be able to find something interesting to some degree... maybe...

This is basically it. The job market stinks donkey balls, but if you can/want to ride it out... that 173 will force a bunch of new schools to look at you. I'd personally take a shot at the T14 next year, but Vandy is nothing to spit at.

I'm basically in the same boat, $29,000 total at Vandy right now and got a 172 (2nd score, 169 first). I was 100% ready to go to Nashville because I thought I did worse (expected a 167).

How much should I expect from Vandy to go there? In other words, what's the going scholarship for a 172/3.3?

Also, I have stronger CA big law hopes than NY.

I was WL at UCLA

Edit: I was thinking about starting a non-profit in the year off if I reapply, anybody got any ideas?

Difficult decision, right? What type of nonprofit you thinking of?

thelawyler wrote:Difficult decision, right? What type of nonprofit you thinking of?

Honestly, I have almost no idea. Like I said, was set to go to Vanderbilt a few hours ago. 172 flipped me on my head.

.

trudat15 wrote:I would reapply if I were you. 21k is not that much money, and you should have a significantly better cycle next year with your 173 and an earlier app this time around.
FWIW, I'm almost a numbers twin, with two lsat scores, applied decently early (mid/late Oct), and had some success (though I ED'd somewhere, so most of my cycle is unknown).

That's encouraging. Yeah, I applied this past cycle with my 169 in mid-January... from my research it looks like an early application changes the ball game significantly. Do you mind sharing which range of schools you got into / what your cycle looked like?

thelawyler wrote:

trudat15 wrote:I would reapply if I were you. 21k is not that much money, and you should have a significantly better cycle next year with your 173 and an earlier app this time around.
FWIW, I'm almost a numbers twin, with two lsat scores, applied decently early (mid/late Oct), and had some success (though I ED'd somewhere, so most of my cycle is unknown).

That's encouraging. Yeah, I applied this past cycle with my 169 in mid-January... from my research it looks like an early application changes the ball game significantly. Do you mind sharing which range of schools you got into / what your cycle looked like?

PMd you

reapply next year, I'm sure cornell or Penn will take ya

Your big plan is to "start a non-profit", with no idea of what type of non-profit and seemingly no experience or specific area of expertise/interest? Just to pass the time until law school next year? OK.

it will take over a year just to register a non-profit. I'm sure you could get a decent T14 next year w/ an early app, but you may have to ED and probably won't get any scholly money. So, I guess decide if the wait is worth going to a better but still extremely expensive school.

I wish I had your opportunities. Vandy is a great school. Go there. The scholarship is just icing.

I don't know why ppl are talking about non-profits because that wasn't me but somebody else who replied in this thread. haha.

sharklasers wrote:I wish I had your opportunities. Vandy is a great school. Go there. The scholarship is just icing.

The OP has a shiny new LSAT score which would up his scholly money at Vandy (and a ton of other places) if he reapplied. Wait a year. It goes without saying that a 173 will immensely improve your opportunities.

HeavenWood wrote:

sharklasers wrote:I wish I had your opportunities. Vandy is a great school. Go there. The scholarship is just icing.

The OP has a shiny new LSAT score which would up his scholly money at Vandy (and a ton of other places) if he reapplied. Wait a year. It goes without saying that a 173 will immensely improve your opportunities.

In a year he'll be a year more dead than he is now. Why turn law school into a four year venture?

sharklasers wrote:

HeavenWood wrote:

sharklasers wrote:I wish I had your opportunities. Vandy is a great school. Go there. The scholarship is just icing.

The OP has a shiny new LSAT score which would up his scholly money at Vandy (and a ton of other places) if he reapplied. Wait a year. It goes without saying that a 173 will immensely improve your opportunities.

In a year he'll be a year more dead than he is now. Why turn law school into a four year venture?

You trolling brah?

HeavenWood wrote:

sharklasers wrote:

HeavenWood wrote:

sharklasers wrote:I wish I had your opportunities. Vandy is a great school. Go there. The scholarship is just icing.

The OP has a shiny new LSAT score which would up his scholly money at Vandy (and a ton of other places) if he reapplied. Wait a year. It goes without saying that a 173 will immensely improve your opportunities.

In a year he'll be a year more dead than he is now. Why turn law school into a four year venture?

You trolling brah?

Often, but semi-serious here. How much extra money does he need to get to make burning a year of his life wise?

sharklasers wrote:Often, but semi-serious here. How much extra money does he need to get to make burning a year of his life wise?

From Vandy? If they gave him an extra 15k+/year I'd say it is worth it. Assuming he stays afloat this year and isn't going negative in $ by taking a year off.

Otherwise, because of the bimodal salary distribution it's hard to talk in terms of pure $ when rating waiting a year versus getting into a school that places a chunk better.

bk187 wrote:

sharklasers wrote:Often, but semi-serious here. How much extra money does he need to get to make burning a year of his life wise?

From Vandy? If they gave him an extra 15k+/year I'd say it is worth it. Assuming he stays afloat this year and isn't going negative in $ by taking a year off.

Otherwise, because of the bimodal salary distribution it's hard to talk in terms of pure $ when rating waiting a year versus getting into a school that places a chunk better.

So, first, you're saying he should wait a year for $45k over three years, not taking tuition hikes into account. That doesn't make sense, given what he'll make if he doesn't flame out and totally just fail overall, which he very well could, but we're assuming he won't for the sake of argument, and if he's going to fail (make < median) at Vandy he'll probably fail wherever he goes anyhow. In short, he would make or reasonably should make that extra $45k in the extra year of work he'd get by starting now, especially if you deduct the COL and tuition hikes he'll dodge by starting now.

And then, second, you're talking about the bimodal salary distribution and trying to speculate about how a higher LSAT might get him up in the rankings enough to land a biglaw job versus a shitty or medium law (aka "unicorn law") job. There's a slightly higher % chance of making the money from a higher school, but the number of contingencies make this seem like an unsound reason to me. Basically, he'd have to do so much better at the hypothetical new school than he would've at Vandy to make it worth delaying a year. And let's face it, it's not like he's getting into Yale next year.