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I wrote a letter to Dean Trujillo outlining my serious financial situation and requested some assistance,..I did this on the advice of the Fin Aid Director. Well,...I got a response this morning. Basically Dean Trujillo said UVA has received more seat deposits than expected and any adjustments would have to be made in May. He also said he'll keep my appeal and if they were under budget he will be back in touch with me.

My first reading told me this is basically a no. I don't know too many entities that find themselves "under budget" these days. But I wanted to hear the thoughts of anyone with knowledge of how need based aid is doled out at UVA and peer schools.

What is a "serious financial situation"? Most people have to pay for law school through loans. Whether you get the financial aid in scholarships or loans you get the same amount anyway, the only difference is how much you have to pay back when you graduate. Unless you can't qualify for enough federal loans to cover everything, I can't imagine a situation where "assistance" is actually necessary in the form of increased scholarship money.

Your assessment of "under budget" is probably right. It's not something I'd expect them to achieve.

Yeah its a big NO. Forget all the flowery writing. It's a NO! And they won't give you any more later either. That's a red herring to secure your deposit. Not to be negative, but that is what that kind of letter really means.

Actually, I would say that there are still people out there who have not deposited yet who have been offered scholarships--they are waiting for those people to say yes or no to know if they might need to throw more $$ at them to get them to come, or whether they can redistribute those scholarships to other students once the money is freed up. Probably not much hope, but there might be a little.

i got the same response. i think we are SOL but i would still delay depositing and fwd any leverage you can on, say, april 29th. good luck.

chrissytine22 wrote:Actually, I would say that there are still people out there who have not deposited yet who have been offered scholarships--they are waiting for those people to say yes or no to know if they might need to throw more $$ at them to get them to come, or whether they can redistribute those scholarships to other students once the money is freed up. Probably not much hope, but there might be a little.

This is true, but the thing is that the school intentionally offers more $$$ total than they actually have available to give, assuming a certain percentage will decline and go elsewhere anyway. Most law schools do this. This is why they need to come in "under budget" to offer anyone else anything; they've already offered out enough that even factoring in the typical percentage who decline, they still expect to have spent all their money already. What would need to happen is for more people to decline than they're already expecting to, and ITE people are going for the money more than they used to, so I wouldn't count on this too much.

vanwinkle wrote:

chrissytine22 wrote:Actually, I would say that there are still people out there who have not deposited yet who have been offered scholarships--they are waiting for those people to say yes or no to know if they might need to throw more $$ at them to get them to come, or whether they can redistribute those scholarships to other students once the money is freed up. Probably not much hope, but there might be a little.

This is true, but the thing is that the school intentionally offers more $$$ total than they actually have available to give, assuming a certain percentage will decline and go elsewhere anyway. Most law schools do this. This is why they need to come in "under budget" to offer anyone else anything; they've already offered out enough that even factoring in the typical percentage who decline, they still expect to have spent all their money already. What would need to happen is for more people to decline than they're already expecting to, and ITE people are going for the money more than they used to, so I wouldn't count on this too much.

except people can always go down a step for more $

IAFG wrote:except people can always go down a step for more $

Maybe those who are only getting a little $ from UVA will consider going to a lesser school for more $$$, but a lot of folks who are getting big $$$ from UVA are not going to even consider stepping down from there, there's no point, the tradeoff is too big for the small gain in additional $. And those are the people who are going to be draining the bulk of UVA's scholarship money, since they're the people who are having lots of $$$ thrown at them to sway them from going T6, and even just 2-3 of them enrolling more than usual can counteract a dozen people who get offered small $ but don't go. ITE more folks than used to going "I'll take T10 with $$$ over T6 at sticker" they're going to have a lot of their money spoken for.

vanwinkle wrote:

IAFG wrote:except people can always go down a step for more $

Maybe those who are only getting a little $ from UVA will consider going to a lesser school for more $$$, but a lot of folks who are getting big $$$ from UVA are not going to even consider stepping down from there, there's no point, the tradeoff is too big for the small gain in additional $. And those are the people who are going to be draining the bulk of UVA's scholarship money, since they're the people who are having lots of $$$ thrown at them to sway them from going T6, and even just 2-3 of them enrolling more than usual can counteract a dozen people who get offered small $ but don't go. ITE more folks than used to going "I'll take T10 with $$$ over T6 at sticker" they're going to have a lot of their money spoken for.

otoh i know of people who have $ at CCN and $$ at MVP, so there are as many options as ever and frankly i don't think ITE is significantly changing how people respond to the options they have. people still trade up for job security or down for debt aversion as much as ever.

Doesn't need based aid = loans at almost every law school in the country?

There are some folks, too, who are trying to decide whether to accept UVA's $$$ or move up a tier for less, too...

IAFG wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

IAFG wrote:except people can always go down a step for more $

Maybe those who are only getting a little $ from UVA will consider going to a lesser school for more $$$, but a lot of folks who are getting big $$$ from UVA are not going to even consider stepping down from there, there's no point, the tradeoff is too big for the small gain in additional $. And those are the people who are going to be draining the bulk of UVA's scholarship money, since they're the people who are having lots of $$$ thrown at them to sway them from going T6, and even just 2-3 of them enrolling more than usual can counteract a dozen people who get offered small $ but don't go. ITE more folks than used to going "I'll take T10 with $$$ over T6 at sticker" they're going to have a lot of their money spoken for.

otoh i know of people who have $ at CCN and $$ at MVP, so there are as many options as ever and frankly i don't think ITE is significantly changing how people respond to the options they have. people still trade up for job security or down for debt aversion as much as ever.

Whatever puts a smile on and gives you that fightin' chance...

thisguy456 wrote:

IAFG wrote: otoh i know of people who have $ at CCN and $$ at MVP, so there are as many options as ever and frankly i don't think ITE is significantly changing how people respond to the options they have. people still trade up for job security or down for debt aversion as much as ever.

Whatever puts a smile on and gives you that fightin' chance...

i meant it more in general, not UVA specifically. i think they are more comfortable this year due to ED, not because people are taking the UVA money over better schools

So, I sent in a scholarship match request a few weeks ago that was essentially denied ("check back in after the first deposit deadline"). This morning, I received a phone call from Dean Trujillo - he told me that they could increase my scholarship if I deferred my admission for a year.

What is this about???? He said he wanted to offer it up as an option if I was in a bind, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they maybe received a few more seat deposits than they were anticipating...?

somethingpretty wrote:So, I sent in a scholarship match request a few weeks ago that was essentially denied ("check back in after the first deposit deadline"). This morning, I received a phone call from Dean Trujillo - he told me that they could increase my scholarship if I deferred my admission for a year.

What is this about???? He said he wanted to offer it up as an option if I was in a bind, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they maybe received a few more seat deposits than they were anticipating...?

I wonder if this means that he is willing to up your offer with a deferral because they gave out too much money, or does it mean that they overenrolled and are trying to entice you to defer because they want to reduce the class size?

Stringer Bell wrote:

somethingpretty wrote:So, I sent in a scholarship match request a few weeks ago that was essentially denied ("check back in after the first deposit deadline"). This morning, I received a phone call from Dean Trujillo - he told me that they could increase my scholarship if I deferred my admission for a year.

What is this about???? He said he wanted to offer it up as an option if I was in a bind, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they maybe received a few more seat deposits than they were anticipating...?

I wonder if this means that he is willing to up your offer with a deferral because they gave out too much money, or does it mean that they overenrolled and are trying to entice you to defer because they want to reduce the class size?

My guess is that too many scholarship recipients enrolled, so they gave out too much money and too many seats for this year.