NU($) v Duke($) v TX($$) v WUSTL($$$) Forum

[239840]

Further, it is entirely appropriate to withdraw from Duke and Northwestern now and also recontact them in a month post-withdrawal to see whether they have any more funding available. It is no problem for them to reinstate your admission in mid to late May when their class has firmed up and they have greater clarity regarding what they can offer you..

Is this a common/acceptable practice? I withdrew from BC after a failed scholarship negotiation roughly a month ago. They're well known for not negotiating. However, if I could somehow get them to offer something that would make it affordable for me to go there, I'd definitely reconsider. But then again, I really can't see them being open to what you suggest here. My guess is that most schools wouldn't respond well to the strategy you suggested.

[plurilingue]

Further, it is entirely appropriate to withdraw from Duke and Northwestern now and also recontact them in a month post-withdrawal to see whether they have any more funding available. It is no problem for them to reinstate your admission in mid to late May when their class has firmed up and they have greater clarity regarding what they can offer you..

Is this a common/acceptable practice? I withdrew from BC after a failed scholarship negotiation roughly a month ago. They're well known for not negotiating. However, if I could somehow get them to offer something that would make it affordable for me to go there, I'd definitely reconsider. But then again, I really can't see them being open to what you suggest here. My guess is that most schools wouldn't respond well to the strategy you suggested.

So long as you haven’t deposited at the school where you are seeking to negotiate, and haven’t deposited elsewhere, I don’t see the harm in doing this. In other words, what is not allowed is renegotiating a commitment or violating your ethical obligation to the school where you have deposited after affirming that you withdrew your admissions elsewhere. Schools are also not supposed to poach a committed depositor by offering more money at the last minute unless the depositor was waitlisted in the first place. Right now, OP is a free agent; this is why I emphasize not committing to UVA or any other school until the school is for sure, 100% maxed out.

You need a law school seat, and they need an LSAT score. There is no unethical action here.

[Sackboy]

I would continue to ride each and every waitlist and use the LOCI to convert Penn and Michigan into admissions offers, ideally expressing your excitement about those schools and the hope of a substantial scholarship. My expectation is that you will ultimately get admitted to Columbia, admitted to NYU with some money, and get DCN up to $150k. I think MVP with up to $110k is also possible. Law school is absurdly expensive and right now you have only about a year of tuition. This cycle is going to be unpredictable until August.

For now, send your $75k offer at UVA to Northwestern and Duke along with your notice of withdrawal. Clearly express your need for as much funding as possible and that such need is the reason why you are withdrawing. I cannot overemphasize now important it is to be extremely polite about everything, and to express much you appreciate the offers and would love to attend if you could make the finances work a bit better. It is appropriate to indicate that if they were to offer you $125k or some other number, then you would be able to commit immediately. Further, it is entirely appropriate to withdraw from Duke and Northwestern now and also recontact them in a month post-withdrawal to see whether they have any more funding available. It is no problem for them to reinstate your admission in mid to late May when their class has firmed up and they have greater clarity regarding what they can offer you.

OP, there is no rational world in which you get up to $150k from DCN or $110k from VP. In some wild world, it could be possible to get $110k at Michigan, but that's not a realistic "expectation."

As much as coronavirus will disrupt peoples' lives and give them some incentive to stay home/take care of loved ones, there is a massive section of the workforce, a good chunk of which probably applied to law school this cycle, that would really love a three year sabbatical from the economy and are much more likely to matriculate.

Economically, if its going to take massive amounts of money to fill seats at the point in which it becomes uneconomical, a law school is much more likely to take austerity measures and let its class remain smaller for the year. Endowment values have likely significantly dropped in the near-term due to the financial markets melting down, which means the schools' funding is going to be in a significantly worse situation.

As for the suggested negotiation tactics, they probably won't work, and they are generally in bad taste, but feel free to go for them if you want. Sending a school "Yo, I got $75k from UVA and am going to withdraw from you guys unless you hand me another $75k" is more likely to get you in the words of modern philosopher Ariana Grande "Thank you, next" than a positive outcome. LOL at withdrawing and asking for reinstatement with another $65k from Duke. Have fun with that conversation. "You know, if you could basically pay all of my tuition for me, so you essentially get nothing from me, I'd be really happy to matriculate, because I know that will really help your financial situation. Oh, also, you'd need to reinstate my admission, because I initially withdrew from your school to go elsewhere "

[plurilingue]

I strongly disagree with the post above.

OP, there is no rational world in which you get up to $150k from DCN or $110k from VP. In some wild world, it could be possible to get $110k at Michigan, but that's not a realistic "expectation."

As much as coronavirus will disrupt peoples' lives and give them some incentive to stay home/take care of loved ones, there is a massive section of the workforce, a good chunk of which probably applied to law school this cycle, that would really love a three year sabbatical from the economy and are much more likely to matriculate.

This is an illogical statement. The spread of the virus occurred so late in the admissions cycle, it cannot materially affect demand for law school seats in a positive way for this fall's matriculation. You are correct that Michigan was the MVP that I was thinking of when giving that figure, and I already addressed that point in my above post by providing a caveat that my method requires OP not have any real preference between schools.

Economically, if its going to take massive amounts of money to fill seats at the point in which it becomes uneconomical, a law school is much more likely to take austerity measures and let its class remain smaller for the year. Endowment values have likely significantly dropped in the near-term due to the financial markets melting down, which means the schools' funding is going to be in a significantly worse situation.

I agree with some of this statement. Many top law schools may choose to admit more transfer students than first-year students if they cannot maintain quality.

As for the suggested negotiation tactics, they probably won't work, and they are generally in bad taste, but feel free to go for them if you want. Sending a school "Yo, I got $75k from UVA and am going to withdraw from you guys unless you hand me another $75k" is more likely to get you in the words of modern philosopher Ariana Grande "Thank you, next" than a positive outcome. LOL at withdrawing and asking for reinstatement with another $65k from Duke. Have fun with that conversation. "You know, if you could basically pay all of my tuition for me, so you essentially get nothing from me, I'd be really happy to matriculate, because I know that will really help your financial situation. Oh, also, you'd need to reinstate my admission, because I initially withdrew from your school to go elsewhere "

A few points:

(1) The foregoing reads out my repeated statements about politeness in negotiation. A letter sending along the scholarship along the lines of the following would likely be well received: "I am really grateful for your review of my application and the admissions offer from [e.g., Duke]. I was really looking forward to [X], [Y], and [Z]. [Be enthusiastic here, since you have to really convince them that you see yourself at this school.] However, my ability to attend any specific law school is constrained by my finances. Right now, the best offer I have is a $75,000 scholarship from the [University of Virginia Law School]. I continue to look for greater funding than this level all the while keeping in mind [career goals, but implicitly suggesting that they are more attainable from the higher-ranked school]. If [Duke] were able to offer a scholarship of $125,000, I would be able to commit right away." If they don't agree, then you can withdraw in a like manner emphasizing how much you really want to attend but for the scholarship issue. This will open the door for an approach in mid-May when final funding figures are available. (Note: I did get reinstatement at Northwestern with a near-full tuition scholarship this way, but went to another law school anyway.)

(2) As a supplement to the above, OP, it is important to remember that the law school's primary concern in giving you a scholarship letter is that you will shop it around. If you can truly commit to matriculating with a certain funding level, then you should make that known. It will make the law school much more likely to give it to you. My mentee used language just short of this last cycle and got a full-tuition scholarship from Northwestern. He went to Columbia with almost no scholarship anyway.

(3) It is patently false that the law school is getting "essentially nothing" from the matriculant. OP has a 174 LSAT -- something that many people, including myself, were unable to get in exam. That test score is in the top ~0.75% of test takers in any administration, and around the top 1.5% of applicants. In other words, there are only about 700 applicants with that test score in any given admissions cycle. Now subtract from that number those applicants with inadmissible GPAs (i.e., below 3.3 for T6, and below 3.0 for T14), extremely high GPAs destined for the upper half (and certainly upper quarter) of matriculants at HYS + Columbia (all the while not forgetting NYU and Chicago), and so on, and you have "essentially nothing" left for MVP/DCN to fight over. These LSAT scores are absolutely vital for the law schools to maintain their selectivity and prestige. It is rather OP with considerable leverage in this situation, especially with a GPA at or above the 25th for a fair number of these schools.

(4) Regarding "bad taste," I invite all readers to compare my post(s) with the foregoing and decide for themselves which comes off in "bad taste."

[Sackboy]

At the end of the day, this gets back to the idea that there is no rational world where OP gets $150k from DCN or $110k from MVP. Playing the waitlist game is fine and sending polite reconsideration requests is good. Simultaneously sending a scholarship offer and an "or I'll withdraw" or being even more insane and withdrawing and then asking for a fatter scholarship than you were originally given + reinstatement is not fine or good.

Not really interested in further engaging on the merits of law school demand or any other topic, because your reading comprehension and ability to properly recall your own positions creates far more work it's worth.

[239840]

I think the reality is that your value as an applicant only goes so far. Schools still only have so much money to give out to applicants. You can sit and try to negotiate forever, but at the end of the day, they're only going to offer you so much. That's why I think for a lot of people the schools that treated them really well from the beginning and offered them a good scholarship before any negotiations even took place tend to be the ones they want to attend. Who doesn't want to feel wanted? But at the end of the day, it's a very competitive process with a lot of "deserving-seeming" applicants, and so the value of a JD from a given school for you personally has to be a big driving factor even if the debt you end up having to take on ends up being suboptimal.

[JS623]

Awesome advice, thank you!!!

Texas declined to increase their offer. At this point, weighing Texas cost against Duke employment. I think its possible Texas's 70% in-state applicant requirement really skews hiring placement (and maybe actually lessens competition for out-of-state markets?) Deposit is due tomorrow; I think I will deposit while still negotiating with Duke.

For all the opacity over how self-selection affects employment stats, it would be really helpful if schools could survey student preferences before OCI and report the percent that are hired in their preferred market.

I am honestly shocked that Texas did not increase their offer. I was able to negotiate up to a 95% scholarship with a 3.8 and 170. It has been a couple of years though. Regardless, I don't know that Texas is the right choice of these. It really is a question of your debt I suppose, but as a 3L, I've seen many of my peers struggle to place outside of NY/TX/CA. Those that were able to do so seem to be in the top 25% at least. This is anecdotal, however, and I have not looked at our out of state placement data recently. Overall, I would say to only pick TX if you'd be okay ending up in TX.