Brooklyn Law School 2011 Cycle Forum

[subtle]

Uhhh..I withdrew over a month ago from Brooklyn - and they JUST sent me an e-mail upping my scholarship by $12,100 to $38,000/year. I never even tried to negotiate scholarship money with them, which is why this is so surprising. I guess this means they have extra money and they are still looking to fill up their class, I hope someone else here gets it!

This. I just got an email today upping my scholarship to 30,600 after I already withdrew.

[IH21]

Uhhh..I withdrew over a month ago from Brooklyn - and they JUST sent me an e-mail upping my scholarship by $12,100 to $38,000/year. I never even tried to negotiate scholarship money with them, which is why this is so surprising. I guess this means they have extra money and they are still looking to fill up their class, I hope someone else here gets it!

This. I just got an email today upping my scholarship to 30,600 after I already withdrew.

Happened to me to. I withdrew and a week later they offered me a $30+K scholly. Before withdrawing I asked to be considered for an increase in my scholarship offer (roughly $5K) and was told there was nothing they could do.

[IH21]

Uhhh..I withdrew over a month ago from Brooklyn - and they JUST sent me an e-mail upping my scholarship by $12,100 to $38,000/year. I never even tried to negotiate scholarship money with them, which is why this is so surprising. I guess this means they have extra money and they are still looking to fill up their class, I hope someone else here gets it!

This. I just got an email today upping my scholarship to 30,600 after I already withdrew.

Happened to me to. I withdrew and a week later they offered me a $30+K scholly. Before withdrawing I asked to be considered for an increase in my scholarship offer (roughly $5K) and was told there was nothing they could do.

Just officially withdrew again. Best of luck to anyone on the waitlist here.

[lsapplicant]

I was told that the cutoff this year for scholly is a 163 lsat. Is this why ppl have been getting increase schollys? Can anyone confirm?

[IH21]

I was told that the cutoff this year for scholly is a 163 lsat. Is this why ppl have been getting increase schollys? Can anyone confirm?

That's not true.

[jarofsoup]

Did everyone on the wait list get the email?

[jessi419]

Did everyone on the wait list get the email?

Which e-mail? I got an e-mail last week about consideration for their part-time evening program.

[jarofsoup]

Did everyone on the wait list get the email?

Which e-mail? I got an e-mail last week about consideration for their part-time evening program.

Yes I just got this one. Did they send you back a confirmation of any kind after you replied.

[jarofsoup]

Did everyone on the wait list get the email?

Which e-mail? I got an e-mail last week about consideration for their part-time evening program.

Yes I just got this one. Did they send you back a confirmation of any kind after you replied.

In off wait list to the part time program. Numbers are sub par for school so I am surprised.

[blacklawboss]

Did everyone on the wait list get the email?

Which e-mail? I got an e-mail last week about consideration for their part-time evening program.

Yes I just got this one. Did they send you back a confirmation of any kind after you replied.

In off wait list to the part time program. Numbers are sub par for school so I am surprised.

#'s pls

[jessi419]

In off wait list to the part time program. Numbers are sub par for school so I am surprised.

How did they let you know? E-mail?

[jarofsoup]

In off wait list to the part time program. Numbers are sub par for school so I am surprised.

How did they let you know? E-mail?

Sent an email asking if I was still interested and I said yes then sent a second email asking if I would take a spot.

[jarofsoup]

Why is there such a love hate relationship with Brooklyn on this website? Some people say it is a good school and others totally rip it apart. I have actually seen the same posters give multiple opinions on it.

[blsingindisguise]

I will give you my take on BLS:

Better than its ranking would suggest in several ways: strength of alumni network, reputation among people who aren't USNews obsessed (many assume it's ranked higher than Cardozo), strength of faculty, intelligence of students (avg LSAT is high for its rank), good for public interest. Also a few nice perks -- e.g. great location (AWESOME neighborhood close to a ridiculous amount of public transportation) and great student housing. BTW you might not get a good sense of the neighborhood approaching from the subway, but just to the west is Brooklyn Heights, just to the north is DUMBO and just to the south is Boerum Hill/Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens, and Fort Greene is not far either. Even the Fulton Mall area is getting nicer, with tons of new apartment buildings, and there's going to be a Shake Shack across from the school soon.

Problems: Slightly no-frills in certain ways (e.g. the internet is not great for a modern school), no connection to a university (although that's probably not relevant to 95% of students), and probably most importantly, it's somewhere in the middle of a very competitive NY pack -- NYU, Columbia and Fordham students are all getting priority for jobs over all but the best BLS students as well as students from top schools all over the country who want to work here. Even Cardozo places just slightly better. And then you have a handful of top kids from lower-ranked schools like St. John's and Hofstra competing too.

The school did have a few minor embarrassments in the last few years (a racy ad photo shoot in the library, a stupid plaque, a snafu with US News stats) but those were all under the former dean who is out. There's a search underway for a new dean and I think things will probably be better under new leadership.

People complain a lot about other things too, like the scholarship stipulation and the career services office, but my impression from talking to people at other schools is that it's pretty much the same everywhere for these things.

Generally I don't think BLS is worth full tuition, but with a decent scholarship it's not a bad place, as long as you go in hungry and ready to fight on both the grade front and the networking/job front.

[tjs86]

Generally I don't think BLS law school outside the T-whatever is worth full tuition, but with a decent scholarship it's not a bad place, as long as you go in hungry and ready to fight on both the grade front and the networking/job front.

I think that about sums up the pre-law-school advice I've been given. I've made peace with it.

[jarofsoup]

Generally I don't think BLS law school outside the T-whatever is worth full tuition, but with a decent scholarship it's not a bad place, as long as you go in hungry and ready to fight on both the grade front and the networking/job front.

I think that about sums up the pre-law-school advice I've been given. I've made peace with it.

At the moment I am considering going to BLS over the other schools that I have gotten into(McGeorge and Seattle U). It just seems to me that the class size is very large and this makes it so there are much more graduates who get in the lower 25% and dont find work. But from looking at law firm web pages in NYC and NALP the top 10-15% do get great legal jobs in NYC.

[rocon7383]

they bumped tuition up to 48k from 46.6k. These schools amaze me.

[afc1910]

they bumped tuition up to 48k from 46.6k. These schools amaze me.

tuition increases about 3-10% each year. it's ridiculous, but it's pretty standard. i was taking this increase into consideration when evaluating my scholarship offer. named full tuition from any school is always the golden ticket, because then you don't need to worry about increases in tuition. alas, BLS does not give out named full scholarships.

[champ33]

I'm filling out the housing application at the moment. Other than Feil hall does anyone know which buildings are good, bad, horrible? Some of the other buildings are substantially cheaper than Feil.

[blsingindisguise]

I'm filling out the housing application at the moment. Other than Feil hall does anyone know which buildings are good, bad, horrible? Some of the other buildings are substantially cheaper than Feil.

The other buildings are certainly all in nice locations and aesthetically pleasing. Some of the apartments in the Joralemon St. building are kind of cruddy on the inside -- office-style drop ceilings and the like, although OTOH it's the closest building to the school, which is convenient. Clinton St. has kind of bad internet because it relies on beamed wireless only. Otherwise can't say, although I recommend finding out which buildings have wire internet connections since the wireless is occasionally spotty.

[rocon7383]

Has anyone had success removing stipulations from their scholarship offer?

[observationalist]

they bumped tuition up to 48k from 46.6k. These schools amaze me.

tuition increases about 3-10% each year. it's ridiculous, but it's pretty standard. i was taking this increase into consideration when evaluating my scholarship offer. named full tuition from any school is always the golden ticket, because then you don't need to worry about increases in tuition. alas, BLS does not give out named full scholarships.

I don't think we're going to see the tuition increases continuing for much longer... they have depended on a market that has a high level of information asymmetry, where the people applying to schools have very little access to real employment data. Once schools need to disclose what their graduates do for work, it will be more facially obvious that the value of a program is not worth three years of lost earnings in addition to, in BLS's case, a minimum of around $210,000 in debt. The standard bumps in tuition over the last fifteen years are standard but they need to be reversed to get us back to something that more accurately reflects the opportunities from each program.

Looking at BLS's very best placement year on record (2009), just 27% of the class actually made $70K or more. This is significantly different than how the school presented those numbers. A very large percentage (12.8%) were unemployed and still seeking for a job (any job, not just legal ones). Those of you who are considering attending need to contact the school and ask for complete employer lists for the Class of 2010.

Absent the lists, you should be discounting the '09 data by at least half to account for the significant market decline in hiring. This would mean assuming that you have around a 14% chance of making $70K or more, a 26% chance of being unemployed (whether in a legal or non-legal job), and a less than 50% chance in finding a job in which your JD will be required. Keep in mind that without knowing what those graduates are doing, you have no reason to assume that a JD-required job is something you would necessarily find appealing.

The reason Brooklyn is still increasing tuition is because the market (you guys) haven't yet been able to see exactly what the job market looks like for Brooklyn grads, and the reason for that is that they don't want to tell you. We haven't yet seen any of the major structural changes that will need to happen to adjust tuitions down, but there's no reason to expect that those reforms aren't on the horizon. In the meantime, it is a real challenge to justify full tuition for many ABA-approved law schools unless you will not be relying on student loans and can either afford the sticker price or have someone in your family who can.

For those of you with new scholly offers, try conditioning your acceptance on seeing a full list of where the Class of 2010 went. See what they say: they have the data available, so a decision not to provide you with it should (in my mind) be a pretty good indication that they are trying to hide it until after you're enrolled. G'luck.

Edit: link to the 2009 data I was referencing: --LinkRemoved--

[jarofsoup]

Any one going part time? I will be going part time how are you going to occupy the rest of the time.

[jjlaw]

Can someone PM me about the Student Account Summary for tuition and loans? I have questions about the COA break down.

[jarofsoup]

I need a pm also. Can some one give me the break down on the student housing. What is the quality of the brownstones?