Full Ride at Northwestern as Leverage Forum

[frankjones]

How far will a full ride at Northwestern go towards convincing Columbia, Berkeley and NYU to give money? Any insights would be much appreciated.

[Z3RO]

I don't know, but I would take a full ride at Northwestern with a mile-wide grin.

[jks289]

Who knows what the actual outcome would be, but it is obviously worth taking it to financial aid office. Just write a politely worded email, letting them know their school is your first choice, but you need to make difficult financial decisions and would they please reconsider your financial aid in light of the full ride. If they say no.... Go to Northwestern.

[jakeoooh]

In a thread I saw a few days ago, someone mentioned that Northwestern's offers are usually not matched by other members of the T14 because Northwestern is notorious for buying students with big money offers. Berkeley, for instance, specifically leaves Northwestern out of it's scholarship-matching-program, and the rumor is that they're not alone in doing so.

It's possible that a full-ride might be able to get you a partial scholarship at one of those other schools, but given how well Northwestern places I'd be loathe to choose NYU, Columbia, or Berkeley without a substantial money offer. If your end-game is big-law, I think that Northwestern with a full-ride is probably better than half-tuition at one of these other schools (though obviously this changes for clerkship/academia), especially ITE.

[Kiersten1985]

Who knows what the actual outcome would be, but it is obviously worth taking it to financial aid office. Just write a politely worded email, letting them know their school is your first choice, but you need to make difficult financial decisions and would they please reconsider your financial aid in light of the full ride. If they say no.... Go to Northwestern.

I would be careful telling every school they're your number one choice if they're not. You can say they're one of your top choices but that you have to consider financial aid offers.

[Dominusfiki]

anyone else? has anyone actually tried negotiating with this scholly to any t-14s? results?

[frankjones]

I am not particularly interested in biglaw...I'm more interested in international public interest work. Or public interest work in general.