Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan Forum

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Lido997

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Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by Lido997 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 3:28 pm

These are my options:

Vandy (95K)
UT (45K)
UCLA (Sticker)
Michigan (Sticker)

I haven't heard anything from UCLA or Michigan's finacial aid departments yet but I am not realistically expecting them to give me an offer (3.5 GPA and 170 LSAT). That said, I have yet to try and negotiate any money from people yet (holding out another week with the hope of getting $ from one of them) so hopefully I can bump up these numbers a bit, but I'm not expecting too big of change. I am a CA native and hope to end up here (SF or LA) so that definitely gives UCLA a bump. Any advice would be much appreciated.

rfar1815

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by rfar1815 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 4:25 pm

I was in the same position as you: Vandy ($95k), UT ($45k) and UCLA (sticker), though my Texas residency makes UT much less expensive for me. I sent UCLA an email with my UT offer attached and within the day they offered me $75k. Pretty huge considering they didn't offer me anything at first. Vandy hadn't announced their scholarships yet, so I didn't send their offer.

Point is:
Go for it. UCLA seems to be very open to negotiation, especially when offers from peer schools are mentioned.

Lido997

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by Lido997 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 5:32 pm

rfar1815 wrote:I was in the same position as you: Vandy ($95k), UT ($45k) and UCLA (sticker), though my Texas residency makes UT much less expensive for me. I sent UCLA an email with my UT offer attached and within the day they offered me $75k. Pretty huge considering they didn't offer me anything at first. Vandy hadn't announced their scholarships yet, so I didn't send their offer.

Point is:
Go for it. UCLA seems to be very open to negotiation, especially when offers from peer schools are mentioned.

Ok, thanks for the advice, thats very helpful. Did you play do the whole playing coy and asking about aid thing first or did you open with the Texas Scholarship offer?

rfar1815

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by rfar1815 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:09 pm

I called and asked if they had made scholarship decisions, they recommended I notify them of my offers. So I started my email with that. Said admissions had recommended that I notify them of offers from peer schools, and went on to explain my offers/attach letters.

BTW, I sent them another an email today asking for them to reconsider my scholarship offer. I attached my UT and Vandy offers, and included a nice cost comparison chart showing how much each school would cost me per year (UCLA was a good 10k over UT and nearly 13k over Vandy). They upped my offer to $90k :D

Good luck!

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BruceWayne

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by BruceWayne » Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:19 pm

Is UCLA that full of themselves or are they just hard up on cash? Unfortunately you really should go there in terms of your goals/options--but that financial burden is just insane for UCLA.

I hate to say this, but if you MUST choose one of these EXACT options--then I actually believe Michigan is the easy choice. Vandy, correct me if I'm wrong, is so expensive that 95K is still going to leave you in at least 100K debt? But the name will do you little to nothing in LA unless you get sky high grades. UCLA at sticker is just unreasonable although they are really what you want. Texas is cheap but is basically like Vandy for where you want to work. Michigan's name will carry to LA. But by carry all I mean is that if you get median or higher grades you should be able to get a big firm job. But if you don't you will be in a lot of trouble. But then if you don't get borderline law review grades at Vandy or UT you will be in just as much trouble. You also have an OK shot at getting a NY big law job from there if Cali doesn't work out. Bottom line, all of your current option are VERY high risk.
Last edited by BruceWayne on Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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peeonyou

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by peeonyou » Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:23 pm

Vandy.

Lido997

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by Lido997 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:27 pm

BruceWayne wrote:Is UCLA that full of themselves or are they just hard up on cash? Unfortunately you really should go there in terms of your goals/options--but that financial burden is just insane for UCLA.

I hate to say this, but if you MUST choose one of these EXACT options--then I actually believe Michigan is the easy choice. Vandy, correct me if I'm wrong, is so expensive that 95K is still going to leave you in at least 100K debt? But the name will do you little to nothing in LA unless you get sky high grades. UCLA at sticker is just unreasonable although they are really what you want. Texas is cheap but is basically like Vandy for where you want to work. Michigan's name will carry to LA. But by carry all I mean is that if you get median or higher grades you should be able to get a big firm job. But if you don't you will be in a lot of trouble. But then if you don't get borderline law review grades at Vandy or UT you will be in just as much trouble. You also have an OK shot at getting a NY big law job from there if Cali doesn't work out. Bottom line, all of your current option are VERY high risk.

Thanks for the thoughtful response Bruce. This was exactly what I was worried about with Vandy although it is no more expensive than the other 3 schools. All of their tuitions would sit around 47-51K range. Going off their websites estimates the ACoA (Adjusted Cost of Attendance) would be 40K and change whereas Texas is at 50K, UCLA 67K, and Michigan 69K. I'm getting the sense, though, that attempting to haggle UCLA into a scholarship is probably my best bet. Hopefully I will have has much luck as rfar1815 did.

Lido997

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by Lido997 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:27 pm

rfar1815 wrote:I called and asked if they had made scholarship decisions, they recommended I notify them of my offers. So I started my email with that. Said admissions had recommended that I notify them of offers from peer schools, and went on to explain my offers/attach letters.

BTW, I sent them another an email today asking for them to reconsider my scholarship offer. I attached my UT and Vandy offers, and included a nice cost comparison chart showing how much each school would cost me per year (UCLA was a good 10k over UT and nearly 13k over Vandy). They upped my offer to $90k :D

Good luck!
Thanks for the info! I sent them an email inquiring about aid so hopefully things will go as well for me as they did for you.

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Redamon1

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by Redamon1 » Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:48 am

My negotiating tactic would be NOT to disclose your offers to UCLA until they have made theirs. Why show your hand now? You can always negotiate for more money if UCLA comes in below your other offers. But for all you know they might come out higher than you think, and revealing your hand early allows them to only match-rather than exceed-those other offers of yours.

rfar1815

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Re: Vandy vs. UT vs. UCLA vs. Michigan

Post by rfar1815 » Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:42 pm

Redamon1 wrote:My negotiating tactic would be NOT to disclose your offers to UCLA until they have made theirs. Why show your hand now? You can always negotiate for more money if UCLA comes in below your other offers. But for all you know they might come out higher than you think, and revealing your hand early allows them to only match-rather than exceed-those other offers of yours.
Pretty sure UCLA makes their offers with admittance, or at least that is the trend I saw in their thread. Although I agree you have to play stategically- I was able to increase my offer by 15k when I notified them of my Vanderbilt offer. If I had shown all of my offers at once I would not have had any new bargaining tools.

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