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I'm in the process of trying to decide between Penn and Michigan. Michigan recently offered me a Dean's Scholarship which I'd like to send to Penn to try to get merit aid. Based on LSN, it doesn't look like those with my numbers typically get money from Penn so I'm really counting on offers from peer schools to give me a boost.

When do you guys think I should send them this info?

I feel like if I send it now, I may lose my only bargaining chip but if I wait until they send out offers and I get nothing, I may be in a worse position of trying to negotiate from nothing or too much money may have already been allocated to others. What do you think?

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absolutazn87 wrote:I'm in the process of trying to decide between Penn and Michigan. Michigan recently offered me a Dean's Scholarship which I'd like to send to Penn to try to get merit aid. Based on LSN, it doesn't look like those with my numbers typically get money from Penn so I'm really counting on offers from peer schools to give me a boost.

When do you guys think I should send them this info?

I feel like if I send it now, I may lose my only bargaining chip but if I wait until they send out offers and I get nothing, I may be in a worse position of trying to negotiate from nothing or too much money may have already been allocated to others. What do you think?

I have no insight to offer but I am most likely going to umich. I have your same numbers minus .1 gpa and got 54k. It is frustrating to me that .1 gpa may have cost me 13.5k. That makes me feel like an idiot for not studying more in undergrad. Anyways this is off topic. Please resume the thread.

I would send now.

I'm not sure if Penn has started giving out any scholarship info, but pre-empting it would definitely take away some of your bargaining power. Sooner would definitely be better than later, but I would be inclined to think that pre-empting could cut into your aid. For example, if you were to even get $10k from Penn, I feel like the Michigan scholarship could go a long way and get you up to maybe 30 or 40k. If you send it in now, they could very well make a lower offer (20-25k) and you wouldn't have anything left to negotiate it. Of course, my hunch isn't grounded in anything, and I have nothing to back up those numbers except what I would do if I was the scholarship committee (which I'm obviously not). You may also be absolutely right that you'll get $0 to start anyway, which does change things. So that's just my $.02.

I have no idea if this is good/bad advice, but someone said that another good time to bargain is just after the first seat deposit is due (presuming you can afford to lay it down at two places). People who got offered money may have passed up their seat, and so they have that money to offer you at that point. I don't know, but I'm curious about this...

looking at LSN, Penn seems kind of stingy with money =/ I did see someone on there got 27k with 173/3.64 last year, but that seems to be a fluke of sorts (maybe need based aid?). I wonder if they'll be up for matching my $72k UVA scholly..

sarahlawg wrote:I have no idea if this is good/bad advice, but someone said that another good time to bargain is just after the first seat deposit is due (presuming you can afford to lay it down at two places). People who got offered money may have passed up their seat, and so they have that money to offer you at that point. I don't know, but I'm curious about this...

looking at LSN, Penn seems kind of stingy with money =/ I did see someone on there got 27k with 173/3.64 last year, but that seems to be a fluke of sorts (maybe need based aid?). I wonder if they'll be up for matching my $72k UVA scholly..

Yeah, on LSN it does seem like Penn has been stingy. Though anecdotally, I've heard of someone at Penn's median LSAT and 25% GPA that was offered merit aid, so there is hope!

I don't know if that advice is very good. I'm not sure if telling schools that you've already deposited at, that you've deposited elsewhere as well and still might not attend without more $$ is very endearing or likely to produce good results. But I dunno.

i just want to bump this thread for more responses

I would guess that other T14 schools take Michigan's offers with a grain of salt, since they know that Michigan has very formulaic aid offers. I would doubt that Penn routinely matches Michigan offers given the data on LSN.

Bumping to see if anyone else has any successful past experience with this, and I am specifically interested wrt Michigan/Penn as well.

Go ahead and do it. Even if they give you a lower than what-you-want offer and know about your Michigan offer, it's still a bargaining chip. There's no reason not to keep negotiating, but doing it now would help you get at least something before their scholly pool dries up.