Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013) Forum

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TripTrip

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by TripTrip » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:25 pm

Rlabo wrote:This is a pretty unfair wager just because the medians of most law schools will probably drop this year if only because of the drop in applications, especially ones with strong LSAT scores.
Predicting Gtown will drop from 169 to 167 is a bit of a major prediction, outside of the standard "all schools will drop" CW.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by BigZuck » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:28 pm

Rlabo wrote:
BigZuck wrote:
danielr wrote:
BigZuck wrote:Lol @ Georgetown this cycle. When all this started I assumed the Dean of Admissions would get fired for this epic botch job but its become so bad I wonder if the Dean of the law school himself will get fired. I'm sure their median will drop at least a point but probably two. Would not at all surprise me if UCLA moves into that 14th spot and stays there considering how aggressively generous they have been this cycle.
This is ridiculous. You act as if every single law school applicant were on TLS, and they are all dissatisfied with the way their scholarships panned out. Georgetown's process of awarding merit aid may not have been the best, but I doubt anyone would get fired over it.

Do tell us, what else do you see in your crystal ball???
Georgetown won't have any problem filling a class. I just don't think the numbers will be all that close to last year's. The Dean already said publically that he thought the median will be a "169 or 168" but that was before this disaster so I think it will probably be even worse.

How about a friendly wager: I predict their median will drop to a 167 or below. Anything 168 and above, you win. Winner chooses the other's avatar for a year. Deal?
This is a pretty unfair wager just because the medians of most law schools will probably drop this year if only because of the drop in applications, especially ones with strong LSAT scores. It seems like you see their merit aid strategy as a complete blotch as it discouraged top candidates (lets assume 175+)? The absence of these wouldn't drive down GULC's medians if they replace them and a number of their below 25th applicants with scores closer to their medians and essentially tighten the margin. The biggest problem is that GULC's size most probably limits their ability to do this to some degree.

Regardless of all of this you wouldn't be able to attribute a drop in medians with the scholarship strategy. It would be weak correlation at best. I know you didn't directly say that scholarship would be the reason why medians may drop slightly, but everything said so far pointed to that.
I think it was dropping to a 168 regardless because they refuse to shrink a monstrous class size (at least according to the Dean who says they need the revenue) and the drop in applications/high scorers. They already dropped a point last year but I figured they would drop a point again this year.

I think the scholarship stuff will cause them to drop that second point. They have been getting a lot of bad press (namely this thread and Campos) and considering how generous Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, UCLA, USC, and UT have been I don't know where Georgetown is going to get enough high scores to maintain even a 168.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by danielr » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:29 pm

BigZuck wrote:
danielr wrote:
BigZuck wrote:Lol @ Georgetown this cycle. When all this started I assumed the Dean of Admissions would get fired for this epic botch job but its become so bad I wonder if the Dean of the law school himself will get fired. I'm sure their median will drop at least a point but probably two. Would not at all surprise me if UCLA moves into that 14th spot and stays there considering how aggressively generous they have been this cycle.
This is ridiculous. You act as if every single law school applicant were on TLS, and they are all dissatisfied with the way their scholarships panned out. Georgetown's process of awarding merit aid may not have been the best, but I doubt anyone would get fired over it.

Do tell us, what else do you see in your crystal ball???
Georgetown won't have any problem filling a class. I just don't think the numbers will be all that close to last year's. The Dean already said publically that he thought the median will be a "169 or 168" but that was before this disaster so I think it will probably be even worse.

How about a friendly wager: I predict their median will drop to a 167 or below. Anything 168 and above, you win. Winner chooses the other's avatar for a year. Deal?
I'll take the bet, if for no other reason than I like that you proposed a "friendly wager" in response to my sarcastic asshole post.

I guess now I'll have to keep my account active for another year or more. I'll say right now: if I win, my dog is going to be your avatar.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by BigZuck » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:36 pm

danielr wrote:
BigZuck wrote:
danielr wrote:
BigZuck wrote:Lol @ Georgetown this cycle. When all this started I assumed the Dean of Admissions would get fired for this epic botch job but its become so bad I wonder if the Dean of the law school himself will get fired. I'm sure their median will drop at least a point but probably two. Would not at all surprise me if UCLA moves into that 14th spot and stays there considering how aggressively generous they have been this cycle.
This is ridiculous. You act as if every single law school applicant were on TLS, and they are all dissatisfied with the way their scholarships panned out. Georgetown's process of awarding merit aid may not have been the best, but I doubt anyone would get fired over it.

Do tell us, what else do you see in your crystal ball???
Georgetown won't have any problem filling a class. I just don't think the numbers will be all that close to last year's. The Dean already said publically that he thought the median will be a "169 or 168" but that was before this disaster so I think it will probably be even worse.

How about a friendly wager: I predict their median will drop to a 167 or below. Anything 168 and above, you win. Winner chooses the other's avatar for a year. Deal?
I'll take the bet, if for no other reason than I like that you proposed a "friendly wager" in response to my sarcastic asshole post.

I guess now I'll have to keep my account active for another year or more. I'll say right now: if I win, my dog is going to be your avatar.
Deal. And if I win your avatar will be a picture of my dog. Warning: he is a Chihuahua/Dachshund mix. A Weinerwawa if you will.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by Rlabo » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:40 pm

BigZuck wrote:
Rlabo wrote:
BigZuck wrote: Georgetown won't have any problem filling a class. I just don't think the numbers will be all that close to last year's. The Dean already said publically that he thought the median will be a "169 or 168" but that was before this disaster so I think it will probably be even worse.

How about a friendly wager: I predict their median will drop to a 167 or below. Anything 168 and above, you win. Winner chooses the other's avatar for a year. Deal?
This is a pretty unfair wager just because the medians of most law schools will probably drop this year if only because of the drop in applications, especially ones with strong LSAT scores. It seems like you see their merit aid strategy as a complete blotch as it discouraged top candidates (lets assume 175+)? The absence of these wouldn't drive down GULC's medians if they replace them and a number of their below 25th applicants with scores closer to their medians and essentially tighten the margin. The biggest problem is that GULC's size most probably limits their ability to do this to some degree.

Regardless of all of this you wouldn't be able to attribute a drop in medians with the scholarship strategy. It would be weak correlation at best. I know you didn't directly say that scholarship would be the reason why medians may drop slightly, but everything said so far pointed to that.
I think it was dropping to a 168 regardless because they refuse to shrink a monstrous class size (at least according to the Dean who says they need the revenue) and the drop in applications/high scorers. They already dropped a point last year but I figured they would drop a point again this year.

I think the scholarship stuff will cause them to drop that second point. They have been getting a lot of bad press (namely this thread and Campos) and considering how generous Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, UCLA, USC, and UT have been I don't know where Georgetown is going to get enough high scores to maintain even a 168.
I still think that for every pissed off 174+, there's an eager 168-169 ready to take their place as they see GULC as a more national or even just more east coast school than ut ucla usc, or they wanna be in dc for PI, or they actually got the scholly that the 174 didn't get, and they a good number of them didn't get into nu cornell or duke.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by whosonfirst » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:42 pm

Rlabo wrote:This is a pretty unfair wager just because the medians of most law schools will probably drop this year if only because of the drop in applications, especially ones with strong LSAT scores. It seems like you see their merit aid strategy as a complete blotch as it discouraged top candidates (lets assume 175+)? The absence of these wouldn't drive down GULC's medians if they replace them and a number of their below 25th applicants with scores closer to their medians and essentially tighten the margin. The biggest problem is that GULC's size most probably limits their ability to do this to some degree.

Regardless of all of this you wouldn't be able to attribute a drop in medians with the scholarship strategy. It would be weak correlation at best. I know you didn't directly say that scholarship would be the reason why medians may drop slightly, but everything said so far pointed to that.
The way GT is handling scholarships, I'm not worried about them missing out on top students (175+ as you defined them). Most schools outside of HYS can only afford a handful of those kids anyway; typically the admin comm strategy is to admit as close to the median as possible. However, all the kids that are median this year (168/9) are getting significant schollys like ~1/3 or more the cost of school from the lower T-14 and 2/3 to full rides from T15-T-18 because of the low app #s (and every school seeing this cycle as their chance to gain in next year's rankings). Since GT isn't matching those schollys, it either has to have a lot of 175+ to balance out all the <167s they'll have to accept if they want to maintain their median at 168/9 or it has to take a lot of 167s and below. Since 175+ kids cost too much, the only way to fill out its whole class is to take a lot of 167s and below. If GT does drop, it won't be because of a drop in apps. GT has always had one of the highest, if not the highest, number of applications of all the T-14 so although its apps might drop percentage wise, they still had a lot more options than other schools.

You're right though that if they decreased class size they wouldn't have to worry about this. Not only would they have more scholly money to match other schools, they also wouldn't have to dip so far below their median to fill out their class. But because they have to pay for the roof over their heads, they won't be doing this anytime soon.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by BigZuck » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:45 pm

Rlabo wrote:
BigZuck wrote:
Rlabo wrote:
BigZuck wrote: Georgetown won't have any problem filling a class. I just don't think the numbers will be all that close to last year's. The Dean already said publically that he thought the median will be a "169 or 168" but that was before this disaster so I think it will probably be even worse.

How about a friendly wager: I predict their median will drop to a 167 or below. Anything 168 and above, you win. Winner chooses the other's avatar for a year. Deal?
This is a pretty unfair wager just because the medians of most law schools will probably drop this year if only because of the drop in applications, especially ones with strong LSAT scores. It seems like you see their merit aid strategy as a complete blotch as it discouraged top candidates (lets assume 175+)? The absence of these wouldn't drive down GULC's medians if they replace them and a number of their below 25th applicants with scores closer to their medians and essentially tighten the margin. The biggest problem is that GULC's size most probably limits their ability to do this to some degree.

Regardless of all of this you wouldn't be able to attribute a drop in medians with the scholarship strategy. It would be weak correlation at best. I know you didn't directly say that scholarship would be the reason why medians may drop slightly, but everything said so far pointed to that.
I think it was dropping to a 168 regardless because they refuse to shrink a monstrous class size (at least according to the Dean who says they need the revenue) and the drop in applications/high scorers. They already dropped a point last year but I figured they would drop a point again this year.

I think the scholarship stuff will cause them to drop that second point. They have been getting a lot of bad press (namely this thread and Campos) and considering how generous Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, UCLA, USC, and UT have been I don't know where Georgetown is going to get enough high scores to maintain even a 168.
I still think that for every pissed off 174+, there's an eager 168-169 ready to take their place as they see GULC as a more national or even just more east coast school than ut ucla usc, or they wanna be in dc for PI, or they actually got the scholly that the 174 didn't get, and they a good number of them didn't get into nu cornell or duke.
Maybe. I know at least one 169 who got 60K-90K at each of DNC and 100K+ at UCLA/UT/USC and zero at Georgetown and he said F that. But maybe that was atypical.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by Rlabo » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:54 pm

BigZuck wrote:
Rlabo wrote:
BigZuck wrote:
Rlabo wrote: This is a pretty unfair wager just because the medians of most law schools will probably drop this year if only because of the drop in applications, especially ones with strong LSAT scores. It seems like you see their merit aid strategy as a complete blotch as it discouraged top candidates (lets assume 175+)? The absence of these wouldn't drive down GULC's medians if they replace them and a number of their below 25th applicants with scores closer to their medians and essentially tighten the margin. The biggest problem is that GULC's size most probably limits their ability to do this to some degree.

Regardless of all of this you wouldn't be able to attribute a drop in medians with the scholarship strategy. It would be weak correlation at best. I know you didn't directly say that scholarship would be the reason why medians may drop slightly, but everything said so far pointed to that.
I think it was dropping to a 168 regardless because they refuse to shrink a monstrous class size (at least according to the Dean who says they need the revenue) and the drop in applications/high scorers. They already dropped a point last year but I figured they would drop a point again this year.

I think the scholarship stuff will cause them to drop that second point. They have been getting a lot of bad press (namely this thread and Campos) and considering how generous Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, UCLA, USC, and UT have been I don't know where Georgetown is going to get enough high scores to maintain even a 168.
I still think that for every pissed off 174+, there's an eager 168-169 ready to take their place as they see GULC as a more national or even just more east coast school than ut ucla usc, or they wanna be in dc for PI, or they actually got the scholly that the 174 didn't get, and they a good number of them didn't get into nu cornell or duke.
Maybe. I know at least one 169 who got 60K-90K at each of DNC and 100K+ at UCLA/UT/USC and zero at Georgetown and he said F that. But maybe that was atypical.
You know two as I'm in a similar boat and if i don't get some money from GULC I probably wont be attending. That aside though, we know where the scholarship money hasn't gone yet (top applicants as was said are to expensive), but I'm more curious to whom it has gone too. Are they giving less scholarship to more people? Are they just giving less scholarship altogether? So yes there are two anecdotes here that make GULC look foolish, but not knowing the answer to those questions is more important as it could either save or tank the medians.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by nowhammies » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:32 am

Even though I don't think anecdotal evidence should count for much in this discussion, I will say that I have a 169 and I received 100k+ from GULC this cycle.

Also, there may have been a lot of people on here that had higher numbers and didn't initially (or ever, I guess) get schollies, but that doesn't mean that all higher-numbered applicants were lowballed like that. I just think there is too much uncertain data and information about this cycle for anyone to make credible predictions right now. GULC may or may not have alienated people with high numbers. All we know is that a bunch of TLSers got all pissy during the initial round of merit funding. Now we're supposed to believe that GULC lowballed every high-numbered candidate?

And by the way, "bad press" cannot consist of TLS and the Campos blog. I mean, seriously, TLS doesn't mean shit outside of itself. Bad press would be actual media outlets running negative stories about Georgetown's admissions process. I'm not saying the Campos blog isn't an actual media outlet; it is in some respects. But it doesn't really reach anybody not connected to the law school admissions process in an intimate way.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by Rlabo » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:07 am

nowhammies wrote:Even though I don't think anecdotal evidence should count for much in this discussion, I will say that I have a 169 and I received 100k+ from GULC this cycle.

Also, there may have been a lot of people on here that had higher numbers and didn't initially (or ever, I guess) get schollies, but that doesn't mean that all higher-numbered applicants were lowballed like that. I just think there is too much uncertain data and information about this cycle for anyone to make credible predictions right now. GULC may or may not have alienated people with high numbers. All we know is that a bunch of TLSers got all pissy during the initial round of merit funding. Now we're supposed to believe that GULC lowballed every high-numbered candidate?

And by the way, "bad press" cannot consist of TLS and the Campos blog. I mean, seriously, TLS doesn't mean shit outside of itself. Bad press would be actual media outlets running negative stories about Georgetown's admissions process. I'm not saying the Campos blog isn't an actual media outlet; it is in some respects. But it doesn't really reach anybody not connected to the law school admissions process in an intimate way.
Agreed :!:

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by TripTrip » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:16 am

nowhammies wrote:Also, there may have been a lot of people on here that had higher numbers and didn't initially (or ever, I guess) get schollies, but that doesn't mean that all higher-numbered applicants were lowballed like that. I just think there is too much uncertain data and information about this cycle for anyone to make credible predictions right now.
LSN data historically includes 20% of all Georgetown admits. One in five people who get in share info. I think that's a pretty significant data point.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by RetakeFrenzy » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:37 am

This thread suddenly got so interesting :wink:

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by jym_dawg » Wed Apr 10, 2013 7:56 am

nowhammies wrote:Even though I don't think anecdotal evidence should count for much in this discussion, I will say that I have a 169 and I received 100k+ from GULC this cycle.

Also, there may have been a lot of people on here that had higher numbers and didn't initially (or ever, I guess) get schollies, but that doesn't mean that all higher-numbered applicants were lowballed like that. I just think there is too much uncertain data and information about this cycle for anyone to make credible predictions right now. GULC may or may not have alienated people with high numbers. All we know is that a bunch of TLSers got all pissy during the initial round of merit funding. Now we're supposed to believe that GULC lowballed every high-numbered candidate?

And by the way, "bad press" cannot consist of TLS and the Campos blog. I mean, seriously, TLS doesn't mean shit outside of itself. Bad press would be actual media outlets running negative stories about Georgetown's admissions process. I'm not saying the Campos blog isn't an actual media outlet; it is in some respects. But it doesn't really reach anybody not connected to the law school admissions process in an intimate way.
You could make a pretty strong argument that GULC has in fact low-balled almost every high number candidate (by which I mean people people at or above both medians). We've already seen in this thread more than a few people who were above both 75ths getting no-offered (some getting strung along for multiple rounds). If you look at LSN, which is admittedly an incomplete data set but still the best info we have, GULC has awarded only a fraction of the scholarships that peer schools have. Of the scholarships we can see on LSN, almost all of them can be considered low-ball offers (by which I mean these applicants have significantly more money from peer or even higher ranked schools). GULC historically has a reputation for stinginess and I think they've taken it to a whole nutha level this year. I would be surprised if this trend changes as the cycle progresses.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by danielr » Wed Apr 10, 2013 9:28 am

jym_dawg wrote:
nowhammies wrote:Even though I don't think anecdotal evidence should count for much in this discussion, I will say that I have a 169 and I received 100k+ from GULC this cycle.

Also, there may have been a lot of people on here that had higher numbers and didn't initially (or ever, I guess) get schollies, but that doesn't mean that all higher-numbered applicants were lowballed like that. I just think there is too much uncertain data and information about this cycle for anyone to make credible predictions right now. GULC may or may not have alienated people with high numbers. All we know is that a bunch of TLSers got all pissy during the initial round of merit funding. Now we're supposed to believe that GULC lowballed every high-numbered candidate?

And by the way, "bad press" cannot consist of TLS and the Campos blog. I mean, seriously, TLS doesn't mean shit outside of itself. Bad press would be actual media outlets running negative stories about Georgetown's admissions process. I'm not saying the Campos blog isn't an actual media outlet; it is in some respects. But it doesn't really reach anybody not connected to the law school admissions process in an intimate way.
You could make a pretty strong argument that GULC has in fact low-balled almost every high number candidate (by which I mean people people at or above both medians). We've already seen in this thread more than a few people who were above both 75ths getting no-offered (some getting strung along for multiple rounds). If you look at LSN, which is admittedly an incomplete data set but still the best info we have, GULC has awarded only a fraction of the scholarships that peer schools have. Of the scholarships we can see on LSN, almost all of them can be considered low-ball offers (by which I mean these applicants have significantly more money from peer or even higher ranked schools). GULC historically has a reputation for stinginess and I think they've taken it to a whole nutha level this year. I would be surprised if this trend changes as the cycle progresses.
Well if a strong argument could be made, why doesn't someone go ahead and make it? The statistics on LSN are, as you say, incomplete and furthermore they are self-reported. LSN profiles often are deliberately not reported accurately, so as to provide for anonymity. Add to that the fact that many profiles are inactive, not updated, or possibly even fictional and the primary data source for arguments about "high-numbered candidates" is completely undermined. LSN is not a reliable source of information, period.

Also, even if we grant that LSN has profiles of 20% of all Georgetown admits, we're still talking only 20% of nearly 7,500 applications (this cycle--in previous years it was closer to 12,000), and the percentage of high-number applicants on LSN and within the total applicant pool is unknown. Furthermore, this cycle is weird as hell. I'm not saying we have to disregard past experience, but we can't forget how whacky things have been across the board at many top schools. Who's to say that Georgetown's scholarship strategy won't end up being actually successful, for purposes of maintaining their medians, at least?

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by jym_dawg » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:00 am

danielr wrote: Well if a strong argument could be made, why doesn't someone go ahead and do it?
Probably because people have better things to do with their time...
danielr wrote:The statistics on LSN are, as you say, incomplete and furthermore they are self-reported. LSN profiles often are deliberately not reported accurately, so as to provide for anonymity. Add to that the fact that many profiles are inactive, not updated, or possibly even fictional and the primary data source for arguments about "high-numbered candidates" is completely undermined. LSN is not a reliable source of information, period.
All of these criticisms are legitimate but they don't support the conclusion that we cannot rely on LSN at all. And again, we're just looking at broad trends on LSN here. This isn't a scientific study that will be subjected to peer review.
danielr wrote:Also, even if we grant that LSN has profiles of 20% of all Georgetown admits, we're still talking only 20% of nearly 7,500 applications, and the percentage of high-number applicants on LSN and within the total applicant pool is totally unknown.
It's not totally unknown. See Regulus' posts on the relationship between LSN and the total applicant pool. And 20% of 7,500 applicants (1500) is a large enough sample size to draw conclusions here. You're correct there is some self-selection bias here, but if anything that helps our cause because we're interested in top applicants, who are more likely to be on TLS and LSN.
danielr wrote:Furthermore, this cycle is weird as hell. I'm not saying we have to disregard past experience, but we can't forget how whacky things have been across the board at many top schools.
People throw this claim out often but how do you support that? Sure, some people are slightly overperforming, but others are slightly underperforming. Some particular schools are doing things differently this year but in terms of performance this cycle seems pretty similar to past ones, maybe a little better.

Just sayin'.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by TripTrip » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:06 am

danielr wrote:The statistics on LSN are, as you say, incomplete and furthermore they are self-reported. LSN profiles often are deliberately not reported accurately, so as to provide for anonymity. Add to that the fact that many profiles are inactive, not updated, or possibly even fictional and the primary data source for arguments about "high-numbered candidates" is completely undermined. LSN is not a reliable source of information, period.
I disagree with this. If we're looking for evidence that candidates with competitive LSAT scores and high GPAs are choosing other law schools over Georgetown based on scholarship funding, LSN is a great reference even if the numbers are occasionally fudged.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by chemdem » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:24 am

I don't know. But I wasn't even accepted with a 169 and 3.8x. I'm not sure who they are targeting. I wouldn't go for full tuition, but I'm thinking they hope they'll pluck some desperate people off the wait list with decent numbers who have given up hope in May. I can't see that working. I would rather take nice scholarship from a school in 20 or 30s than pay full at gtown. Cost of living in dc is probably expensive as well. Probably Penn and up is worth paying full for...

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by MacB » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:27 am

Just throwing this out there... I was originally made a merit aid alternate in the first round of schollies and got a phone call from someone in the admissions office two weeks ago to "touch base" about the merit aid scholarship process and find out "where Georgetown fits into my thinking" for the third time. During the call, the person explicitly told me that most GULC students attend not because they have received the most competitive financial aid offer but because they want to be in DC and at GULC, that GULC students have "skin in the game" (a Buffett reference, humorous when applied to students recklessly taking on massive debt to attend a law school w/ questionable job stats), and she explicitly told me that GULC tries to get the most good students for the least amount of money which generally leads to smaller scholarships than other schools can offer. The point of the phone call was basically to prep me for a low offer. This generally left a bad taste in my mouth, made me feel as though I don't individually matter to Gtown, and that they are just trying to steal my numbers and run. This is just one in a long string of dumb things that Gtown has done regarding merit aid in the last two months, and we on TLS have been so frustrated and turned off by it, it's not unreasonable to assume plenty of the lost masses of non-TLS 0Ls have been as well.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by BigZuck » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:45 am

MacB wrote:Just throwing this out there... I was originally made a merit aid alternate in the first round of schollies and got a phone call from someone in the admissions office two weeks ago to "touch base" about the merit aid scholarship process and find out "where Georgetown fits into my thinking" for the third time. During the call, the person explicitly told me that most GULC students attend not because they have received the most competitive financial aid offer but because they want to be in DC and at GULC, that GULC students have "skin in the game" (a Buffett reference, humorous when applied to students recklessly taking on massive debt to attend a law school w/ questionable job stats), and she explicitly told me that GULC tries to get the most good students for the least amount of money which generally leads to smaller scholarships than other schools can offer. The point of the phone call was basically to prep me for a low offer. This generally left a bad taste in my mouth, made me feel as though I don't individually matter to Gtown, and that they are just trying to steal my numbers and run. This is just one in a long string of dumb things that Gtown has done regarding merit aid in the last two months, and we on TLS have been so frustrated and turned off by it, it's not unreasonable to assume plenty of the lost masses of non-TLS 0Ls have been as well.
Lulz. It's like they are deliberately trying to do this as awkwardly bumbling as possible

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by Big Dog » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:58 am

During the call, the person explicitly told me that most GULC students attend not because they have received the most competitive financial aid offer but because they want to be in DC and at GULC, that GULC students have "skin in the game" (a Buffett reference, humorous when applied to students recklessly taking on massive debt to attend a law school w/ questionable job stats), and she explicitly told me that GULC tries to get the most good students for the least amount of money which generally leads to smaller scholarships than other schools can offer. The point of the phone call was basically to prep me for a low offer. This generally left a bad taste in my mouth...
Huh? Why? (As in 'Why do you think that they should compete', when they don't think that they should?)

All of the top big city eastern schools practice this, including NYU, Fordham, Columbia, Chicago, Boston College, George Washington..... It's called enrollment management, and just makes smart business sense. They practice enrollment management because they have something to offer than it not available in Ann Arbor, or Durham, or Ithaca....

btw: enrollment management is quite popular on the undergrad level, as well. Both Georgetown and NYU are well known to be extremely stingy with need-based undergrad aid. And why should they spend a lot on scholarships when they don't have to? (There are literally thousands of full pay students available.)

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by BigZuck » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:00 am

Big Dog wrote:
During the call, the person explicitly told me that most GULC students attend not because they have received the most competitive financial aid offer but because they want to be in DC and at GULC, that GULC students have "skin in the game" (a Buffett reference, humorous when applied to students recklessly taking on massive debt to attend a law school w/ questionable job stats), and she explicitly told me that GULC tries to get the most good students for the least amount of money which generally leads to smaller scholarships than other schools can offer. The point of the phone call was basically to prep me for a low offer. This generally left a bad taste in my mouth...
Huh? Why? (As in 'Why do you think that they should compete', when they don't think that they should?)

All of the top big city eastern schools practice this, including NYU, Fordham, Columbia, Chicago, Boston College, George Washington..... It's called enrollment management, and just makes smart business sense. They practice enrollment management because they have something to offer than it not available in Ann Arbor, or Durham, or Ithaca....

btw: enrollment management is quite popular on the undergrad level, as well. Both Georgetown and NYU are well known to be extremely stingy with need-based undergrad aid. And why should they spend a lot on scholarships when they don't have to? (There are literally thousands of full pay students available.)
Of course there are thousands who will line up to attend at sticker. But what numbers will they have?

Hence, why I will win the bet

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by danielr » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:03 am

jym_dawg wrote:
danielr wrote: Well if a strong argument could be made, why doesn't someone go ahead and do it?
Probably because people have better things to do with their time...
danielr wrote:The statistics on LSN are, as you say, incomplete and furthermore they are self-reported. LSN profiles often are deliberately not reported accurately, so as to provide for anonymity. Add to that the fact that many profiles are inactive, not updated, or possibly even fictional and the primary data source for arguments about "high-numbered candidates" is completely undermined. LSN is not a reliable source of information, period.
All of these criticisms are legitimate but they don't support the conclusion that we cannot rely on LSN at all. And again, we're just looking at broad trends on LSN here. This isn't a scientific study that will be subjected to peer review.
danielr wrote:Also, even if we grant that LSN has profiles of 20% of all Georgetown admits, we're still talking only 20% of nearly 7,500 applications, and the percentage of high-number applicants on LSN and within the total applicant pool is totally unknown.
It's not totally unknown. See Regulus' posts on the relationship between LSN and the total applicant pool. And 20% of 7,500 applicants (1500) is a large enough sample size to draw conclusions here. You're correct there is some self-selection bias here, but if anything that helps our cause because we're interested in top applicants, who are more likely to be on TLS and LSN.
danielr wrote:Furthermore, this cycle is weird as hell. I'm not saying we have to disregard past experience, but we can't forget how whacky things have been across the board at many top schools.
People throw this claim out often but how do you support that? Sure, some people are slightly overperforming, but others are slightly underperforming. Some particular schools are doing things differently this year but in terms of performance this cycle seems pretty similar to past ones, maybe a little better.

Just sayin'.
OK. 1) Considering that you cut my post into four separate quotes, and that we have all spent a considerable amount of time on here discussing this, I'm going to go ahead and say that it's false that no one has made a strong argument on this issue because "people have better things to do with their time." Your activity on this question (and mine too, admittedly) easily disproves the point.

2) Nobody said our arguments had to have the statistical validity of a peer-reviewed scientific study, but if our arguments are to stand the things we support them with do need some strength. Law School Numbers may indicate broad trends, but that is not enough to support what many have said in this thread, namely that Georgetown is shooting itself in the foot by "lowballing" high-numbered candidates. There is just not enough reliable data there to support that conclusion!

3) Your premise that "top applicants" are more likely to be on TLS and LSN misses the point--you don't know the proportion of high-scoring applicants within that 20%, and you don't know how many top applicants are not posting their information on TLS and LSN. We have no knowledge of the whole here, only a small sample size with an undetermined relation to the entire sample.

4) If my comment about this cycle being weird is unsupported, then most of the assumptions you have made in your arguments are equally unsupported. I think this cycle is weird, and different; I wasn't intending on providing very much support there--I only wanted to indicate that there is much more uncertainty here than we are so far granting. Applications have not been down in recent years in such high percentages as they are this year. That alone makes this cycle weird, and I think most anecdotal evidence will bear me out here.

With that, I think I've said my peace on this issue. I don't dispute the fact that Georgetown is not as generous with scholarships as other schools, even peers. But I also don't think that just because TLSers (or LSNers) are dissatisfied with the results of the scholarship awards that means top applicants in general are. There are too many fallacies and issues with the data to make any such conclusions.
Last edited by danielr on Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by curious66 » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:04 am

BigZuck wrote:
MacB wrote:Just throwing this out there... I was originally made a merit aid alternate in the first round of schollies and got a phone call from someone in the admissions office two weeks ago to "touch base" about the merit aid scholarship process and find out "where Georgetown fits into my thinking" for the third time. During the call, the person explicitly told me that most GULC students attend not because they have received the most competitive financial aid offer but because they want to be in DC and at GULC, that GULC students have "skin in the game" (a Buffett reference, humorous when applied to students recklessly taking on massive debt to attend a law school w/ questionable job stats), and she explicitly told me that GULC tries to get the most good students for the least amount of money which generally leads to smaller scholarships than other schools can offer. The point of the phone call was basically to prep me for a low offer. This generally left a bad taste in my mouth, made me feel as though I don't individually matter to Gtown, and that they are just trying to steal my numbers and run. This is just one in a long string of dumb things that Gtown has done regarding merit aid in the last two months, and we on TLS have been so frustrated and turned off by it, it's not unreasonable to assume plenty of the lost masses of non-TLS 0Ls have been as well.
Lulz. It's like they are deliberately trying to do this as awkwardly bumbling as possible
+1. What a turn off.

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by BigZuck » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:16 am

danielr wrote:
jym_dawg wrote:
danielr wrote: Well if a strong argument could be made, why doesn't someone go ahead and do it?
Probably because people have better things to do with their time...
danielr wrote:The statistics on LSN are, as you say, incomplete and furthermore they are self-reported. LSN profiles often are deliberately not reported accurately, so as to provide for anonymity. Add to that the fact that many profiles are inactive, not updated, or possibly even fictional and the primary data source for arguments about "high-numbered candidates" is completely undermined. LSN is not a reliable source of information, period.
All of these criticisms are legitimate but they don't support the conclusion that we cannot rely on LSN at all. And again, we're just looking at broad trends on LSN here. This isn't a scientific study that will be subjected to peer review.
danielr wrote:Also, even if we grant that LSN has profiles of 20% of all Georgetown admits, we're still talking only 20% of nearly 7,500 applications, and the percentage of high-number applicants on LSN and within the total applicant pool is totally unknown.
It's not totally unknown. See Regulus' posts on the relationship between LSN and the total applicant pool. And 20% of 7,500 applicants (1500) is a large enough sample size to draw conclusions here. You're correct there is some self-selection bias here, but if anything that helps our cause because we're interested in top applicants, who are more likely to be on TLS and LSN.
danielr wrote:Furthermore, this cycle is weird as hell. I'm not saying we have to disregard past experience, but we can't forget how whacky things have been across the board at many top schools.
People throw this claim out often but how do you support that? Sure, some people are slightly overperforming, but others are slightly underperforming. Some particular schools are doing things differently this year but in terms of performance this cycle seems pretty similar to past ones, maybe a little better.

Just sayin'.
OK. 1) Considering that you cut my post into four separate quotes, and that we have all spent a considerable amount of time on here discussing this, I'm going to go ahead and say that it's false that no one has made a strong argument on this issue because "people have better things to do with their time." Your activity on this question (and mine too, admittedly) easily disproves the point.

2) Nobody said our arguments had to have the statistical validity of a peer-reviewed scientific study, but if our arguments are to stand the things we support them with do need some strength. Law School Numbers may indicate broad trends, but that is not enough to support what many have said in this thread, namely that Georgetown is shooting itself in the foot by "lowballing" high-numbered candidates. There is just not enough reliable data there to support that conclusion!

3) You're premise that "top applicants" are more likely to be on TLS and LSN misses the point--you don't know the proportion of high-scoring applicants within that 20%, and you don't know how many top applicants are not posting their information on TLS and LSN. We have no knowledge of the whole here, only a small sample size with an undetermined relation to the entire sample.

4) If my comment about this cycle being weird is unsupported, then most of the assumptions you have made in your arguments are equally unsupported. I think this cycle is weird, and different; I wasn't intending on providing very much support there--I only wanted to indicate that there is much more uncertainty here than we are so far granting. Applications have not been down in recent years in such high percentages as they are this year. That alone makes this cycle weird, and I think most anecdotal evidence will bear me out here.

With that, I think I've said my peace on this issue. I don't dispute the fact that Georgetown is not as generous with scholarships as other schools, even peers. But I also don't think that just because TLSers (or LSNers) are dissatisfied with the results of the scholarship awards that means top applicants in general are. There are too many fallacies and issues with the data to make any such conclusions.
*Your*

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Re: Georgetown c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013)

Post by MacB » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43 am

Big Dog wrote:
During the call, the person explicitly told me that most GULC students attend not because they have received the most competitive financial aid offer but because they want to be in DC and at GULC, that GULC students have "skin in the game" (a Buffett reference, humorous when applied to students recklessly taking on massive debt to attend a law school w/ questionable job stats), and she explicitly told me that GULC tries to get the most good students for the least amount of money which generally leads to smaller scholarships than other schools can offer. The point of the phone call was basically to prep me for a low offer. This generally left a bad taste in my mouth...
Huh? Why? (As in 'Why do you think that they should compete', when they don't think that they should?)

All of the top big city eastern schools practice this, including NYU, Fordham, Columbia, Chicago, Boston College, George Washington..... It's called enrollment management, and just makes smart business sense. They practice enrollment management because they have something to offer than it not available in Ann Arbor, or Durham, or Ithaca....

btw: enrollment management is quite popular on the undergrad level, as well. Both Georgetown and NYU are well known to be extremely stingy with need-based undergrad aid. And why should they spend a lot on scholarships when they don't have to? (There are literally thousands of full pay students available.)
...I don't understand what your argument is here. That my experience with Gtown shouldn't have left a bad taste in my mouth? This was a personal account and that was my personal reaction. Having received multiple six figure offers from peer and substantially better schools, I don't think Georgetown has to compete, they do have to compete, at least for me.

As far as what they offer that other schools don't... if a view of the capitol is worth more to someone else than an actual chance of getting anywhere near it professionally, that is their issue and not mine. That's the last I'll say on the matter.

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