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Ask us again in early April. You don't want to broach the subject until you have all your offers in hand. Starting this process too quickly was one of the worst things I did in my cycle -- you have precious few opportunities to negotiate, and they mean a lot more around deposit time.

I think it varies from school to school, too. I know that UT isn't fond of a lot of back-and-forth trying to play them off of other schools. They want you to have all of your other offers in-hand before you ask them to adjust your scholarship.

I actually disagree with McAvoy's post (sorry buddy) and think early helped me out for some schools (which I did not end up attending).

This is why some of those fee waivers are awesome! To work up the ladder. Here's how you do it:

First, see if there is a formal process. Check the web site, call the school admissions dept., whatever it takes. I guarantee you it will not be in your favor to just generically email and then have them say "here is the way we do it." Don't email trying to negotiate until you know that's how they play.

After that, you just play schools off one another. For example, I initially received full tuition to W&L and $10,000/semester to Baylor. I emailed Baylor about how I feel the Christian values and moot court instilled will really help me excel as both an ethical and a practicing lawyer blah blah blah. However, the debt I incurred is too much in the current economy to make me consider attending, especially in light of W&L who is offering me full tuition. I would much prefer Baylor for X,Y,Z but it simply is not economically feasible. If the Baylor administration is willing to match this scholarship it would become a much more reasonable option for me.

Then they sent me back a full tuition.

What did I do? Turned around and played that on UH.

What did I do after getting bumped from UH? Well I would use it for SMU if I applied, but I used it to negotiate with higher ranked schools but talked about how they need to make it worth my while since I'm a Texas resident and the prospect of debt in a market absent ties makes me hesitant to attend a school, but I would much prefer them for X,Y,Z reasons.

You do this and work up the ladder, gradually. So I used this with UIUC, then Indiana, WUSTL, UMN, etc. getting offers increased. Now, I wasn't planning on attending these in place of Texas. Then, because I know Texas has a one time matching policy, once I felt I got the best offers from all of these schools I used it to apply to match Texas (which didn't happen, but whatevs).

In the end, asking early helped because there was scholarship money still available, they admitted me because I was a splitter, but they probably wanted my LSAT (also consider this, if you're a splitter play more on the schools that need to raise an LSAT median), they didn't know the full profile yet at that time so it helped me stand out.

However, waiting can be beneficial too if you are right around the medians.

I did all of my negotiating through e-mail. I emailed the financial aid departments unless there was a dean that I had communicated with personally. I think that they get the e-mail to the right person regardless of who you send it to.

be polite but persistent
don't take no for an answer
try every angle you can, the worst they can say is "no"
and when they say "no", wait a few days and try again

i was denied for named scholly, then denied for merit/need aid, then denied on appeal
kept contacting them anyways
at one point they basically stopped responding to my e-mails/calls
so i went in person instead
on my second in-person visit i got a near half-ride

Brut wrote:be polite but persistent
don't take no for an answer
try every angle you can, the worst they can say is "no"
and when they say "no", wait a few days and try again

i was denied for named scholly, then denied for merit/need aid, then denied on appeal
kept contacting them anyways
at one point they basically stopped responding to my e-mails/calls
so i went in person instead
on my second in-person visit i got a near half-ride

So you annoyed them until they gave you money to get you out of the office, eh?

basically lol
i applied ED and had no other schools on the table when i negotiated
not only that, i'm a splitter with a gpa well below their 25th

by the way, in no way should anyone take away from this story that they can ED and get money
it's rare and it probably won't work for you
you should not apply ED outside of NU and GW unless you have school paid in some other way (family, employer, military benis, etc)

very good info in this thread. Will definitely refer back to it

Brut wrote:basically lol
i applied ED and had no other schools on the table when i negotiated
not only that, i'm a splitter with a gpa well below their 25th

by the way, in no way should anyone take away from this story that they can ED and get money
it's rare and it probably won't work for you
you should not apply ED outside of NU and GW unless you have school paid in some other way (family, employer, military benis, etc)

WUSTL now has a full tuition early decision option.

oh snap really?
wonder what kind of numbers get it
i could see that as being an interesting option for super-splitters

Don't ED Texas unless you have other means of paying for it people, just an FYI.

Brut wrote:oh snap really?
wonder what kind of numbers get it
i could see that as being an interesting option for super-splitters

Yeah I don't think it's common knowledge yet. I went to fill out their application RD and saw the ED with full tuition offer once I opened the app. Kind of caught me off guard

Brut wrote:be polite but persistent
don't take no for an answer
try every angle you can, the worst they can say is "no"
and when they say "no", wait a few days and try again

i was denied for named scholly, then denied for merit/need aid, then denied on appeal
kept contacting them anyways
at one point they basically stopped responding to my e-mails/calls
so i went in person instead
on my second in-person visit i got a near half-ride

Wow, nice job dude

OP- search the forum for "negotiating scholarships works." This topic has been discussed over and over, definitely a great candidate for a forum search.

Brut wrote:be polite but persistent
don't take no for an answer
try every angle you can, the worst they can say is "no"
and when they say "no", wait a few days and try again

i was denied for named scholly, then denied for merit/need aid, then denied on appeal
kept contacting them anyways
at one point they basically stopped responding to my e-mails/calls
so i went in person instead
on my second in-person visit i got a near half-ride

This makes me really happy. Congrats, B.

ty

hope this is motivation for people in their RD applications

and people find this useful when they're negotiating with the schools they were accepted to RD

Yeah seriously persistence is key.

I was in a similar situation to Brut where I had no leverage, but for different reasons. I just kept asking for money, really played up my story, and basically said that if I can't get more money then I wouldn't be able to attend and that I will reapply in the future.

I focused on the adcomm that I interviewed with, so this is obviously school-dependent, but I think it helped. We also got a new law school dean that sent us all an email telling us to feel free to talk to her anytime, so we sent some nice emails back and forth about the school and the city and whatnot. With the last email she said she hoped to be able to meet me in the fall, and I basically ended my last email by saying that this was the school I wanted to be at, but I needed more money in order to make it feasible.

It was a 2-3 month process for me, but went from basically no money to about half-tuition.

Seriously it's all about persistence. Don't worry about bothering them. Once you're accepted, you're in, and if you attend it's not like you'll be in regular contact with the adcomms or anything (unless you have cool ones like mine that go to bar review). The worst thing that they can say is no. And it's ok if you make them say no a few times.

Brut wrote:ty

hope this is motivation for people in their RD applications

and people find this useful when they're negotiating with the schools they were accepted to RD

RD.