Are Law Schools Getting Desperate? Forum

[AntipodeanPhil]

I found this at the tail-end of a post on Paul Campos' website:

What's happening with law school admissions waiting lists suggests how soft the market is getting. In the past week I've corresponded with a 0L who as of two weeks ago had only gotten into Touro (unranked), Hofstra (#89), and St. John's (#79). She was then admitted off the waitlist at Cardozo (#56) and, much more significantly, offered a $30,000 per year discount on tuition in the bargain. A few days after that she was admitted to George Washington (#20), and shortly afterwards GW offered her a more than 50% discount off the (increasingly fictional) official tuition price. Cardozo reacted by raising its offer to $43,000 per year, i.e., more than 80% off sticker. A glance at sites like TLS reveals that even schools like Chicago are offering significant tuition discounts (20%) to people who they just offered off their wait lists this week.

Source: http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot. ... s-one.html

Is this happening? How many people here have stories like this one?

[StarLightSpectre]

I found this at the tail-end of a post on Paul Campos' website:

What's happening with law school admissions waiting lists suggests how soft the market is getting. In the past week I've corresponded with a 0L who as of two weeks ago had only gotten into Touro (unranked), Hofstra (#89), and St. John's (#79). She was then admitted off the waitlist at Cardozo (#56) and, much more significantly, offered a $30,000 per year discount on tuition in the bargain. A few days after that she was admitted to George Washington (#20), and shortly afterwards GW offered her a more than 50% discount off the (increasingly fictional) official tuition price. Cardozo reacted by raising its offer to $43,000 per year, i.e., more than 80% off sticker. A glance at sites like TLS reveals that even schools like Chicago are offering significant tuition discounts (20%) to people who they just offered off their wait lists this week.

Source: http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot. ... s-one.html

Is this happening? How many people here have stories like this one?

Bump for epic cycle!

[Wily]

I found this at the tail-end of a post on Paul Campos' website:

What's happening with law school admissions waiting lists suggests how soft the market is getting. In the past week I've corresponded with a 0L who as of two weeks ago had only gotten into Touro (unranked), Hofstra (#89), and St. John's (#79). She was then admitted off the waitlist at Cardozo (#56) and, much more significantly, offered a $30,000 per year discount on tuition in the bargain. A few days after that she was admitted to George Washington (#20), and shortly afterwards GW offered her a more than 50% discount off the (increasingly fictional) official tuition price. Cardozo reacted by raising its offer to $43,000 per year, i.e., more than 80% off sticker. A glance at sites like TLS reveals that even schools like Chicago are offering significant tuition discounts (20%) to people who they just offered off their wait lists this week.

Source: http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot. ... s-one.html

Is this happening? How many people here have stories like this one?

LOL. I'm famous!

Only correction is "he" not "she" And I was admitted normally at 'Dozo, not off the waitlist, although it did take a long time.

[zozin]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

[Mr. Pancakes]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=170835

[JDizzle2015]

As a mild-splitter, I marginally outperformed my cycle as far as acceptances goes but haven't received any surprising financial aid offers... IUB only offered me 30k and I would have (more or less) been a lock for the 120k last cycle. I think it just depends on the specific law school/applicant.

Also, "Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal."

[flcath]

I'll address the actual point of the post.

I think that the USNews metric for "number of dollars spent per student" probably has something to do with the (bizarre) custom of having tuition be $40K, and the average student getting a $20K scholarship, instead of just saying that tuition is $20K.

[R86]

[AntipodeanPhil]

I'm pretty sure that the 40k pricetag is necessary, even if the average cost is 20k, so that the bottom quarter of the class (sticker) pays enough to subsidize the top quarter of the class ($$$) without the school losing out on anything.

I don't think it has anything to do with the dollars spent per head.

I think it is a combination of both factors.

What I was wondering was whether there have been other people recently in the situation Campos describes. Anecdotal evidence ceases being anecdotal when the sample size gets large enough.

[minnbills]

My cycle went a little worse than what I expected, particularly regarding scholarships.

[JustE]

My cycle went a little worse than what I expected, particularly regarding scholarships.

Mine was much better than expected, but unpredictable URM cycles are unpredictable.

[Wily]

I'm pretty sure that the 40k pricetag is necessary, even if the average cost is 20k, so that the bottom quarter of the class (sticker) pays enough to subsidize the top quarter of the class ($$$) without the school losing out on anything.

I don't think it has anything to do with the dollars spent per head.

I think it is a combination of both factors.

What I was wondering was whether there have been other people recently in the situation Campos describes. Anecdotal evidence ceases being anecdotal when the sample size gets large enough.

I was the person Prof. Campos described, and I felt my cycle was going worse than expected until the last two weeks. In the last two weeks, I got into Cardozo (normally, not off the waitlist as he posted), negotiated its scholarship upward from $8000 to $42000, and got off the WL at GW. I think my acceptances were due to a combination of my splitter numbers and the fact that law schools ARE getting more desperate. I guess I feel lucky to be benefiting from the lower quality in applicants in general this year.

[crumpetsandtea]

My cycle went better than expected with regards to $, but about as I expected (but on the upper end of my expectations) w/r/t admissions.

[Mr. Pancakes]

I'm not sure that it's just lower quality applicants but maybe just less applicants.

Edit. Less usually does equal lower quality

[dowu]

Tag for Paul Campos contribution to this thread.

[Curious1]

Meh his posts are getting less and less on topic and more and more nitpicky. Plus that vicious attack on Dean Z was totally uncalled for (and wrong) and he didn't even apologize.

I just read the comments for lols now.

[mathrev]

I don't know if I am in the wrong here, but it seems like Harvard has been letting in lesser qualified applicants in comparison to prior years. Having followed the posts in the Harvard thread, I just get that feeling....

[Curious1]

I don't know if I am in the wrong here, but it seems like Harvard has been letting in lesser qualified applicants in comparison to prior years. Having followed the posts in the Harvard thread, I just get that feeling....

Those are some fighting words...

Lesser qualified according to what? What sample size? Compared to which years?

[msblaw89]

According to LSN, Duke has taken 11 off the WL so far as compared to between 2-5 in previous cycles. I don't know how representative LSN is..and whether the increased knowledge of LSN would therefore increase the amount of people who make profiles overall. At least for my cycle, I got into every school I should have gotten into to ( according to LSP) but have yet to get into a reach school ( Duke, UPenn WL) and was rejected at schools I thought I would get a WL (Michigan). I hope in the next could of weeks I can come back and say I got into a reach!

[boredatwork]

I'm not so sure.

I'm pretty sure that the 40k pricetag is necessary, even if the average cost is 20k, so that the bottom quarter of the class (sticker) pays enough to subsidize the top quarter of the class ($$$) without the school losing out on anything.

I don't think it has anything to do with the dollars spent per head.

I could be way off, though.

LUC gives almost their entire class at least $12000, so for all intents and purposes their tuition is -12000

[mathrev]

They aren't fighting words...I qualified it a lot. Regardless, just seeing how a few 3.6-3.7 GPA kids got in without a 177-180 lsat might suggest that HLS is reaching deeper in the pool. I don't recall that happening last cycle. Again, I could be wrong.

[Paul Campos]

Kindly wonderful Dean Z wrote this at a time when she knew full well that Michigan had just hired 17% of its 2010 class into short-term low-paid "fellowships":

http://www.law.umich.edu/connection/a2z ... aspx?ID=48

[Curious1]

Kindly wonderful Dean Z wrote this at a time when she knew full well that Michigan had just hired 17% of its 2010 class into short-term low-paid "fellowships":

http://www.law.umich.edu/connection/a2z ... aspx?ID=48

You are an idiot.

[Paul Campos]

Kindly wonderful Dean Z wrote this at a time when she knew full well that Michigan had just hired 17% of its 2010 class into short-term low-paid "fellowships":

http://www.law.umich.edu/connection/a2z ... aspx?ID=48

You are an idiot.

People who enjoy being lied to while paying $200K for the privilege are the life blood of contemporary legal education.

[Curious1]

Kindly wonderful Dean Z wrote this at a time when she knew full well that Michigan had just hired 17% of its 2010 class into short-term low-paid "fellowships":

http://www.law.umich.edu/connection/a2z ... aspx?ID=48

You are an idiot.

People who enjoy being lied to while paying $200K for the privilege are the life blood of contemporary legal education.

In what wild fantasy was she lying in this post?