Top Law Schools

Hey All,

As I eagerly await my LSAT results, I am completing applications and getting everything ready to submit. The only problem is, I'm not sure to how many schools I should apply. My main reason is about scholarship negotiation.

First, I don't really understand the concept. I call to let the AdComm of X school know (after acceptance, of course) that Y school (that is comparably ranked) has given me more money, but I really want to go to X school and my decision will be based on financial aid?

Second, I'd appreciate opinions on where else to apply.

Here are the places I definitely plan to apply: Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, UPenn, Northwestern, Duke, Michigan, GULC

I was PT'ing for the October LSAT averaging 174 with a high of 178 and diagnostic 171, and I felt great walking out of the exam (gimme my 175 right now!!), but I'll be a splitter with a 3.6 GPA.

I'm not really concerned about you all telling me my chances of admission at these places, however. What I really want to know is this (in a more general sense): would Georgetown see a scholarship from Vanderbilt and up their offer? And then could I take that GULC scholarship to Duke and get an increased scholarship there? How far down the line could I go, if at all? and will I have time to do it even?

YarivHagger wrote:Hey All,

As I eagerly await my LSAT results, I am completing applications and getting everything ready to submit. The only problem is, I'm not sure to how many schools I should apply. My main reason is about scholarship negotiation.

First, I don't really understand the concept. I call to let the AdComm of X school know (after acceptance, of course) that Y school (that is comparably ranked) has given me more money, but I really want to go to X school and my decision will be based on financial aid?

Second, I'd appreciate opinions on where else to apply.

Here are the places I definitely plan to apply: Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, UPenn, Northwestern, Duke, Michigan, GULC

I was PT'ing for the October LSAT averaging 174 with a high of 178 and diagnostic 171, and I felt great walking out of the exam (gimme my 175 right now!!), but I'll be a splitter with a 3.6 GPA.

I'm not really concerned about you all telling me my chances of admission at these places, however. What I really want to know is this (in a more general sense): would Georgetown see a scholarship from Vanderbilt and up their offer? And then could I take that GULC scholarship to Duke and get an increased scholarship there? How far down the line could I go, if at all? and will I have time to do it even?

It's really tough to negotiate "up the latter" in my experience. The only schools I got to budge were Georgetown, Cornell, Duke, and Penn. The first three were because of higher offers from better ranked schools. The last was due to an end of cycle, I would like more because I can't decide between two schools, and it was only like a 3k boost (lol, but hey, it won't be Monopoly money someday, right?).

dsn32 wrote:
The first three were because of higher offers from better ranked schools.

I hadn't considered that. Do you think that's more often the case? that you negotiate a higher award from Northwestern because UChicago and NU both gave you 50k?

dsn32 wrote:It's really tough to negotiate "up the latter" in my experience.

Tell me about your experience with negotiating "down the former."

Danger Zone wrote:

dsn32 wrote:It's really tough to negotiate "up the latter" in my experience.

Tell me about your experience with negotiating "down the former."

ImNoScar wrote:

Danger Zone wrote:

dsn32 wrote:It's really tough to negotiate "up the latter" in my experience.

Tell me about your experience with negotiating "down the former."

Ugh, you got me. Well done.

YarivHagger wrote:

dsn32 wrote:
The first three were because of higher offers from better ranked schools.

I hadn't considered that. Do you think that's more often the case? that you negotiate a higher award from Northwestern because UChicago and NU both gave you 50k?

And yes, I definitely think this is more often the case. I also think each school has a ceiling as to what they'll give someone with your numbers in a given cycle. Some schools will just flat out tell you that they aren't coming close to another offer.

Apply to UVA, NYU and Cornell too. Not sure why you'd leave them out. And yes, once you get in some places and get some money you send emails to the other schools letting them know about how much you'd love to attend but cost is such a big consideration. NYU even had a nice little online app to put in all the info.