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You should try to bump up at least one of your school options to a full ride, as long as you're comfortable building your career in that region of the country. You need to be particularly debt-conscious, because you have very slim chances at biglaw with all of these, and the alternative tracks in private practice won't pay you enough to cover too much debt.

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Play the schools against one another. "Hey, X. Y gave me $$, and you only gave me $. What gives?"

Right. I understand that part. But you said: bump one of those to a full ride, so I wanted to clarify. I don't understand how to bump any of the offers into a full ride offer without leverage from one single full ride offer.

You have more than two schools to work with. So you take school A to school B, school B to school C, C to D, D back to A or B, etc. 75k in savings should be enough to cover your living expenses, so even if you can get a little bit less than a full ride, you'll at least be financially solvent. Just make sure you have a realistic idea of what your salary will be.

Right, that makes sense. Thanks for the feedback.

What about UNC?

Ask Syracuse for more money.

Thanks--yeah I felt like Syracuse should have offered more. Low GPA, but my LSAT is way above their numbers.

An LSAT of 158 is worth just as much to Syracuse as your 164 because both numbers are well above their median LSAT & the 158 is probably more likely to attend due to fewer offers with money from much higher ranked law schools. Nevertheless, it won't ask to ask for more.

CanadianWolf wrote:An LSAT of 158 is worth just as much to Syracuse as your 164 because both numbers are well above their median LSAT & the 158 is probably more likely to attend due to fewer offers with money from much higher ranked law schools. Nevertheless, it won't ask to ask for more.

That reasoning makes absolutely no sense.

If the 158 is more likely to attend, then of course they'll offer more money to the 164, since they need to become a more attractive option. I'm at a total loss as to how you ended up thinking that would end up differently.

And the same applies for those below 25% in the sense that adcomms are free to experiment. Not relevant re: scholarship money, so sorry for the confusion. Talk to a few adcomms.

cavalier1138 wrote:

CanadianWolf wrote:An LSAT of 158 is worth just as much to Syracuse as your 164 because both numbers are well above their median LSAT & the 158 is probably more likely to attend due to fewer offers with money from much higher ranked law schools. Nevertheless, it won't ask to ask for more.

That reasoning makes absolutely no sense.

If the 158 is more likely to attend, then of course they'll offer more money to the 164, since they need to become a more attractive option. I'm at a total loss as to how you ended up thinking that would end up differently.

Yeah I also struggle to understand that reasoning. I'm sure that the 158 median is helped by at least a few >75% scores; if they continued to approach every score with a binary evaluation system of above or below, their median would inevitably fall over time--all else held consistent. Plus it doesn't cost any money to make an offer. There is the cost of the unknown, but that's it.

CanadianWolf wrote:And the same applies for those below 25%. Talk to a few adcomms.

The same what? People below 25% are going to be offered the same amount as those at and above median?

You're talking nonsense.

The goal is to raise their medians to raise the law school's US News rank. Over the past several years articles have appeared about what law schools do above & below their 25% & 75% range.

An applicant with a 164 to a school with a median LSAT of approximately 154 will benefit from admitting both or either higher LSAT scores (164 or 158). The applicant w/the 164, however, should have much better options for law school than the applicant with the 158. More likely that applicants with lower LSAT score will matriculate. Of course, revealed personal circumstances can change the likelihood of what each applicant is more likely to do.

If you still don't understand, then consider an extreme case. Suppose you had a 174 instead of a 164 versus an applicant with an LSAT score of 158. Unless personal circumstances dictate otherwise, a school with a law school median of 154 is wasting their time with the 174 candidate.

Surprisingly and contrary to my position above, I spoke with an older applicant almost 10 years ago who withdrew from Harvard's waitlist to attend a local state law school with a median in the 152-154 range even though unattached & free to move. He was a police officer who just loved where he lived & his LSAT was 174.

No. Below 25% LSAT score, several law school adcomms have stated that they felt free to experiment & admit, obviously, based on other factors. Much of this was discussed on this website several years ago when the Univ. of Illinois law school scandal was in the news.

CanadianWolf wrote:No. Below 25% LSAT score, several law school adcomms have stated that they felt free to experiment & admit, obviously, based on other factors. Much of this was discussed on this website several years ago when the Univ. of Illinois law school scandal was in the news.

But that has nothing to do with scholarship offers. It's also dealing with outlier situations, not the general trend for applicants. You're making this shit up, and it's borderline harmful advice.

Not making anything up. But, it's clear that you don't agree. Which is fine.