Post 1L scholarships are especially stupid Forum

[09042014]

Who cares if some loser wants to Xfer? Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let them leave.

And don't argue by saying they earned it more than regular scholarships. Those are pretty stupid too.

[njdevils2626]

I don't understand this point of view. Regardless of who "earned it more" or any useless arguments of that sort, shouldn't we support any form of increased aid that reduces the burden of loans? We all complain about how awful it is to pay back our loans, and now you're arguing that increased aid is "stupid"? This seems completely ridiculous to me. It's something that does happen that can only benefit students, what's the problem here?

[09042014]

I don't understand this point of view. Regardless of who "earned it more" or any useless arguments of that sort, shouldn't we support any form of increased aid that reduces the burden of loans? We all complain about how awful it is to pay back our loans, and now you're arguing that increased aid is "stupid"? This seems completely ridiculous to me. It's something that does happen that can only benefit students, what's the problem here?

It's narrowly tailored to only a few people. I'd definitely support tuition being lowered. But only lowering high GPA losers who have no friends and want to leave? Shitty. Those scholarships are being funded off the backs of the below median people who are paying sticker. And if you are going to pick a portion of the class who need a break with their debt, it's not the people who will get high paying jobs. As much as biglaw + debt sucks, no biglaw + debt is way worse.

It's like reverse robbin hooding the class. Steal from the poor and giving to the rich.

[bk1]

Gotta protect your employment stats.

[bailey8078]

Except that many of the people who do poorly 1L are the people who had big scholarships and so had no reason to work hard. Giving scholarships to people who had no scholarship for 1L seems appropriate.

[09042014]

Gotta protect your employment stats.

At schools that don't rank, it's not much of a loss. When almost everyone is getting biglaw missing a few is no big deal.

Anyway, it just changes who the top 10% is. Their loss is someone else's gain.

[09042014]

Except that many of the people who do poorly 1L are the people who had big scholarships and so had no reason to work hard. Giving scholarships to people who had no scholarship for 1L seems appropriate.

No it doesn't seem appropriate. They don't need it. Better to just lower everyones tuition.

I don't think buying someone's numbers for USNEWS is worth it either, but that's another argument.

[bk1]

At schools that don't rank, it's not much of a loss. When almost everyone is getting biglaw missing a few is no big deal.

Anyway, it just changes who the top 10% is. Their loss is someone else's gain.

It's not a huge detriment for biglaw for T14s, but then again throwing ~50k at someone isn't that big of a deal to them either. It's likely a larger impact on clerkship percentages but I could be wrong on that.

I get that it's only a marginal improvement to (or retention of) their stats, but it's not like it's costing the school more than a marginal amount of $ (to the school) either.

[09042014]

At schools that don't rank, it's not much of a loss. When almost everyone is getting biglaw missing a few is no big deal.

Anyway, it just changes who the top 10% is. Their loss is someone else's gain.

It's not a huge detriment for biglaw for T14s, but then again throwing ~50k at someone isn't that big of a deal to them either. It's likely a larger impact on clerkship percentages but I could be wrong on that.

I get that it's only a marginal improvement to (or retention of) their stats, but it's not like it's costing the school more than a marginal amount of $ (to the school) either.

One issue is that once this strategy leaks, it won't be just a few, it'll be everyone who can transfer.

[njdevils2626]

I don't understand this point of view. Regardless of who "earned it more" or any useless arguments of that sort, shouldn't we support any form of increased aid that reduces the burden of loans? We all complain about how awful it is to pay back our loans, and now you're arguing that increased aid is "stupid"? This seems completely ridiculous to me. It's something that does happen that can only benefit students, what's the problem here?

It's narrowly tailored to only a few people. I'd definitely support tuition being lowered. But only lowering high GPA losers who have no friends and want to leave? Shitty. Those scholarships are being funded off the backs of the below median people who are paying sticker. And if you are going to pick a portion of the class who need a break with their debt, it's not the people who will get high paying jobs. As much as biglaw + debt sucks, no biglaw + debt is way worse.

It's like reverse robbin hooding the class. Steal from the poor and giving to the rich.

Alright, I can definitely see your point of view better now that it has been more full fleshed-out, however it seems to me the amount of money given in scholarships post-1L would hardly make a dent if used to lower tuition across the board. That said, I definitely support lowering tuition in and of itself, I just feel like it would have to be a more substantial revenue pool than that used for retention of would-be transfers

[DoveBodyWash]

Don't most schools make up the lost revenue (and then some) caused by increasing scholarships with their incoming transfer class though? I agree that increasing scholarships for the ones that threaten to transfer is somewhat unfair as a matter of principle, but i dont' think it really has any real effect on the bottom line

[bk1]

One issue is that once this strategy leaks, it won't be just a few, it'll be everyone who can transfer.

Maybe. But that assumes that a not insignificant amount of people don't already want to transfer because they are prestige whores.

[09042014]

One issue is that once this strategy leaks, it won't be just a few, it'll be everyone who can transfer.

Maybe. But that assumes that a not insignificant amount of people don't already want to transfer because they are prestige whores.

They don't. Transfering when you are at the top of your class at a t14 is a stupid choice. Coif at Northwestern is way more prestgiisou than harvard or Yale.

[bk1]

They don't. Transfering when you are at the top of your class at a t14 is a stupid choice. Coif at Northwestern is way more prestgiisou than harvard or Yale.

I don't disagree that it's dumb, I just think people still do but that's just a hunch.

[09042014]

They don't. Transfering when you are at the top of your class at a t14 is a stupid choice. Coif at Northwestern is way more prestgiisou than harvard or Yale.

I don't disagree that it's dumb, I just think people still do but that's just a hunch.

Very few transfer compared to who can transfer.

This is part of my reasoning for not rewarding those who try.

Also you may be increasing the number of transfers over the longterm.

[bk1]

Very few transfer compared to who can transfer.

This is part of my reasoning for not rewarding those who try.

Also you may be increasing the number of transfers over the longterm.

It's not like Y/S take that many transfers (20ish total?). H does, but H is just a glorified GULC.

My point was more that the the number of people who could transfer wouldn't dramatically increase if a bunch of people started doing it. For example, now people in the top 10% or w/e can transfer because there aren't a ton of people looking to do it. If a ton of people started looking, there would still be a very small amount of acceptances given out. You'd have to have some sort of trickle down effect where people at the top were given schollies to stay and then the acceptances trickled down to the lower ranks if you wanted to say that the number of overall acceptances would go up. But I'm not sure the transfer market can actually play out like that (like it does in regular admissions) based on the short deadlines, differing acceptance dates, and the relatively short time frame it has to all occur within (after grades but before OCI signup deadlines).

[UnicornHunter]

Extension of this thread: every scholarship program is stupid (and I know you kind of already said that.) Pre-law school scholies, post 1L scholies, post-law school scholies (LRAP/school funded jobs.) Schools throw millions of dollars around gaming the rankings, helping their PI people fund their interests, helping people take slightly less out in student loans than their equally broke peers with richer parent and it's all a joke. Every single one of those programs means some students are paying more (i.e. taking on more non-dischargeable debt) to subsidize the education of their peers in the classroom.

You make another good point. Everybody in the top 10% should try to transfer up, even if they don't actually intend on leaving. Why don't more people do this?

[09042014]

Extension of this thread: every scholarship program is stupid (and I know you kind of already said that.) Pre-law school scholies, post 1L scholies, post-law school scholies (LRAP/school funded jobs.) Schools throw millions of dollars around gaming the rankings, helping their PI people fund their interests, helping people take slightly less out in student loans than their equally broke peers with richer parent and it's all a joke. Every single one of those programs means some students are paying more (i.e. taking on more non-dischargeable debt) to subsidize the education of their peers in the classroom.

You make another good point. Everybody in the top 10% should try to transfer up, even if they don't actually intend on leaving. Why don't more people do this?

Most good schools don't give post 1L scholarships. Northwestern did it once, but I dont thnk has done it since.

[jbagelboy]

Yea - do any T14s even do this?

[zozin]

Bro, NU xfers can fill Wrigley Field and they're all paying sticker for 2 years. What's the big deal about using like 5% of this influx of money to retain some smart people, even though they're prestige whores?

[09042014]

Bro, NU xfers can fill Wrigley Field and they're all paying sticker for 2 years. What's the big deal about using like 5% of this influx of money to retain some smart people, even though they're prestige whores?

Could be used for better stuff. Hell you have the solution, just let in some more xfers.

"Oh you wanna transfer? We've got 2 kids from Iowa willing to fight to the death for your sport. Hit the road aspie"

[zozin]

Bro, NU xfers can fill Wrigley Field and they're all paying sticker for 2 years. What's the big deal about using like 5% of this influx of money to retain some smart people, even though they're prestige whores?

Could be used for better stuff. Hell you have the solution, just let in some more xfers.

"Oh you wanna transfer? We've got 2 kids from Iowa willing to fight to the death for your sport. Hit the road aspie"

What better stuff? New chairs in the library? Fuck that. Aspie 3.8 GPA 1Ls who want to bounce to HYS probably do more to help NU's status (via clerkships, biglaw, academia) than two aspie Iowa kids.

[09042014]

Bro, NU xfers can fill Wrigley Field and they're all paying sticker for 2 years. What's the big deal about using like 5% of this influx of money to retain some smart people, even though they're prestige whores?

Could be used for better stuff. Hell you have the solution, just let in some more xfers.

"Oh you wanna transfer? We've got 2 kids from Iowa willing to fight to the death for your sport. Hit the road aspie"

What better stuff? New chairs in the library? Fuck that. Aspie 3.8 GPA 1Ls who want to bounce to HYS probably do more to help NU's status (via clerkships, biglaw, academia) than two aspie Iowa kids.

lol at helping the status. Nobody missed the people who transferred out my year. If anything it helped our status. What is two years tuition? 110k? That's like 400 a student. You really wanna pay 400 bucks so some dillweed doesn't transfer to U of C? Lol. Fuck that.

Iowa transfers are best transfers.

[zozin]

lol at helping the status. Nobody missed the people who transferred out my year. If anything it helped our status. What is two years tuition? 110k? That's like 400 a student. You really wanna pay 400 bucks so some dillweed doesn't transfer to U of C? Lol. Fuck that.

Iowa transfers are best transfers.

What are you talking about? NU has like a 4:1 in/out ratio. Forty transfers @55K each is like $2.2M. Surely they could spend like $30K/year for the 10 prestige whores not to leave, and the school would still be up $1.9M. Maybe even less if middling GPA transfers are leaving for peer schools.

[09042014]

lol at helping the status. Nobody missed the people who transferred out my year. If anything it helped our status. What is two years tuition? 110k? That's like 400 a student. You really wanna pay 400 bucks so some dillweed doesn't transfer to U of C? Lol. Fuck that.

Iowa transfers are best transfers.

What are you talking about? NU has like a 4:1 in/out ratio. Forty transfers @55K each is like $2.2M. Surely they could spend like $30K/year for the 10 prestige whores not to leave, and the school would still be up $1.9M. Maybe even less if middling GPA transfers are leaving for peer schools.

I don't see why the two should be connected at all. The question is should EACH one cost me 400 dollars. And to that I say fuck no.