Negotiating UVA offer with Duke's Forum

[ham]

So far I have been offered 60k to UVA and 114k to Duke. Have not heard about scholarships from my other schools yet. Do you think the 114k is enough to get UVA to budge a little higher? And when is the best time to negotiate this? Also, would either of these offers hold sway with NYU? Thanks!

[BanjoCalhoun]

It's very possible you could leverage Duke's offer to get more from UVA and then leverage UVA's final offer to get some aid from NYU. The negotiation order will depend on which school is your top choice, because you should wait to negotiate with them until you can come to them with the best offers you could get from the others.

It is best to wait until you have gotten all the initial offers you're going to get, and I think the conventional wisdom is that admissions offices have a better picture of how much money they have available for offers in April when people have started accepting or declining their scholarships, and are therefore more willing to discuss it then.

This is useful:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 22&t=79373

[BigZuck]

I'm kind of doubting UVA will budge but that is a sizeable difference so maybe. "T10" schools tend to believe their own T10 BS.

[jasper09]

Pro tip from the UVA open house financial aid session: when UVA gives a scholarship offer, it's fully funded, whereas some schools apparently just charge you less tuition (not really sure how it works, but that's what was said). The lady from the Fin Aid office literally said that, as of right now, "the checkbook's empty" so they won't negotiate or budge until people begin declining offers and freeing up money that's currently earmarked for other admitted students. That said, she did say that if you would like to be considered for a higher award, to email Dean Richard. I think you'll probably have to wait a bit (closer to when seat deposits are due) to get an affirmative response, but there's a chance you might get more money once people decide to go elsewhere.