Question about scholarship stips and negotiation. Forum

[garrettnicole92]

Feel free to yell at me if this is in the wrong spot, or link me to a post that answers my question that I may have overlooked.

I have a great scholarship offer to LSU with a 2.75 minimum GPA stip. I'm thinking about trying to negotiate down the GPA requirement. I'm above the LSAT/GPA medians and I have not-quite-as-good no-stip offers from FSU, Arkansas and South Carolina.

I guess what I'm trying to ask without sounding like a moron is...
1. Are GPA requirements easier to maintain than class ranking requirements? I'm assuming that they are, but I could be assuming wrong.
2. Are the offers from FSU/SC/Ark something that I could use as a negotiating tool? FSU is obviously better ranked, and so is Arkansas, but the scholarship offers aren't nearly as good.
3. Is it even worth it to try and negotiate?

Thanks guys.

[sublime]

..

[garrettnicole92]

From their website:

A cumulative GPA of 2.75 for students in the most recent LSU Law class to complete the first year (the Class of 2015, which entered in Fall 2012) was equivalent to a class rank of 142 out of 199, or the top 71.4% of the class. In other words, using this benchmark, only those students in approximately the bottom 28.6% of the class by rank would not retain their full initial scholarship awards.

According to the Wikipedia page I found linked on here somewhere, median GPA is a 2.6.

If you don't meet the 2.75 requirement at the end of the spring semester, you're scholarship is reduced by 50%. Apparently if you bring your GPA back up to 2.75, your scholarship is increased back to the original amount.

[midwest17]

From their website:

A cumulative GPA of 2.75 for students in the most recent LSU Law class to complete the first year (the Class of 2015, which entered in Fall 2012) was equivalent to a class rank of 142 out of 199, or the top 71.4% of the class. In other words, using this benchmark, only those students in approximately the bottom 28.6% of the class by rank would not retain their full initial scholarship awards.

According to the Wikipedia page I found linked on here somewhere, median GPA is a 2.6.

If you don't meet the 2.75 requirement at the end of the spring semester, you're scholarship is reduced by 50%. Apparently if you bring your GPA back up to 2.75, your scholarship is increased back to the original amount.

2.75 = top 71.4% and median = 2.6 are incompatible facts. Figure out which is true.

[Cellar-door]

Ok, wikipedia uses this from 2009-10
http://www.law.lsu.edu/globals/sitelibr ... 092010.pdf

1L classes curved to a 2.6 median
2L and 3L classes curved to a 2.8 median.

However it looks like they changed the curves after that:
http://www.law.lsu.edu/index.cfm?geaux= ... ntrankings
the more recent 1L classes have looked more like 2.75 is somewhere in the bottom 25-30% range.

[cinephile]

I'm more than a little concerned that the median grade is so low, irrespective of the scholarship offer. I suppose if this is Louisiana and that's definitively the only place on this entire planet that you want to work, that might be okay since employers are familiar with the grades. But elsewhere? I mean, even if you had your class rank next to your GPA, it is so low. How can they justify handicapping their students when every other school has a much higher curve?

And, it is ALWAYS worth trying to negotiate. They won't withdraw the scholarship offer just because you asked to drop the stips. I hope it works out!