Berkeley/NYU($) v UCLA/UCI($$) v NAH Forum

[peasonearth]

COA (after taking scholarships into account):
Berkeley $234k
NYU $257k
UCLA $175k
UCI $135k

Would be financing entirely through loans.
I'm waitlisted at Chicago, Columbia, Penn, and Michigan. In at Duke but haven't heard about $.

Location: I currently live in the Bay Area, I'm from San Diego, and want to work in either of those areas (but would consider LA too).

Career goals: I have worked at DOJ and it was my goal to work in federal government until Nov, now I'm considering state/local. My experience is in civil litigation/regulation and I don't think I would want to practice criminal law.

3.7/173 (took it twice)
I am older (late 20s) and doubting if law school is worth it at this point given my options and my somewhat narrow career goals and my debt aversion (seems like some govt positions would not be covered by LRAP)
I will not retake the LSAT or reapply - it's now or never for me.

[Mullens]

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty shocked how bad your options are given your numbers and experience. Did you apply super late?

I think and hope you'll end up with a better option than these by the end of the cycle.

[snowball17]

Have you tried negotiating at all?? Tuition + COL at one one the UCs should cost around $225,000, so you got less than $50,000 in scholly from UCLA and less than $100,000 from UCI? That seems super low given your stats!

[Rigo]

Yeah I'm confused as well at how crappy your outcomes are.
What are we missing here OP? Late apps?

[floatie]

You need to negotiate before making your decision. Your numbers and experience should be netting you a lot more money from these schools. Either you're leaving something out in your OP, or there was something wrong in your app (LORs, maybe?)

[tinyvessels]

I'm really surprised at your lack of scholarship offers based on your numbers. You should be getting way more money from these schools. Did you turn in your apps late, or do you have cf issues?

Also did you apply to any other lower ranked schools in Cali for safeties or as a scholarship negotiation tool? You could have potentially gotten a full ride from schools like USD at least.

[peasonearth]

OP here - yeah, I'm disappointed.

I applied in October. My LORs were good (I read them), no cf issues. I also applied to USC, but the offer was comparatively worse than UCLA/UCI.

I used a COA calculator, but the raw scholarship amounts were:
NYU 60k
Berkeley 30k
UCLA 80k
UCI 120k

Any advice for how to negotiate? Thanks!

[dabigchina]

what would you be doing if you didn't go to law school?

Cal would be the no brainer here if you had to go, but you don't.

[UVA2B]

OP here - yeah, I'm disappointed.

I applied in October. My LORs were good (I read them), no cf issues. I also applied to USC, but the offer was comparatively worse than UCLA/UCI.

I used a COA calculator, but the raw scholarship amounts were:
NYU 60k
Berkeley 30k
UCLA 80k
UCI 120k

Any advice for how to negotiate? Thanks!

That's a really unfortunate negotiating quiver. None of your offers will likely push any of the others to increase. Your best bet is NYU to get UCLA to increase their aid IMO. If UCLA responds, maybe get UCI to bump. Then make this marginally regrettable choice. Your options aren't professionally bad, but financially...ugh.

[rpupkin]

That's a really unfortunate negotiating quiver. None of your offers will likely push any of the others to increase. Your best bet is NYU to get UCLA to increase their aid IMO. If UCLA responds, maybe get UCI to bump. Then make this marginally regrettable choice. Your options aren't professionally bad, but financially...ugh.

I don't know. OP's two preferred markets are SF and SD. UCLA doesn't place particularly well in SF, and UCI is even worse. As for San Diego, it's a tiny market—even T14 students have hit-or-miss outcomes there.

OP: I think you should consider reapplying next cycle with the hope of getting decent money from a T14.

[Rigo]

I'm kind of at a loss here since you applied in October and seem like an otherwise standard applicant.
Try getting Berkeley to match NYU. It'd still be too expensive imo but every increase helps.

[UVA2B]

That's a really unfortunate negotiating quiver. None of your offers will likely push any of the others to increase. Your best bet is NYU to get UCLA to increase their aid IMO. If UCLA responds, maybe get UCI to bump. Then make this marginally regrettable choice. Your options aren't professionally bad, but financially...ugh.

I don't know. OP's two preferred markets are SF and SD. UCLA doesn't place particularly well in SF, and UCI is even worse. As for San Diego, it's a tiny market—even T14 students have hit-or-miss outcomes there.

OP: I think you should consider reapplying next cycle with the hope of getting decent money from a T14.

Agreed. I just wanted to give some negotiating strategy that could up the tuition discount for now. But in the end, the goals here should likely preclude the OP from attending this cycle and applying again while making sure every part of their app is perfect.

No harm in trying to help now, knowing ultimately more help/advice will be likely later. It's more than likely the OP should wait out a year, but maximizing the decision this year before deciding that is understandable.

[Rigo]

Did you not shoot an app to Harvard and Stanford?

[peasonearth]

OP here - yes, I did apply to Harvard and Stanford (haven't heard anything)

Thank you all for the input. At this point I might try to do some negotiating, but if nothing changes significantly, I'm not going to go.