Top Law Schools

I had a 3.65 in college. What are the upper limits of potential merit scholarships at t14 schools? Supposing I pull off a 173-175, do I even have a chance at decent money? I'm 100% focused on public interest, specifically legal services, so I'm questioning the merit of taking on large loans at a t14 if I could get decent money at t25-t15 type school. I had previously thought LRAP/PSLF would be the way to go but it seems so risky to take on massive debt based on the assumption I could hold a consistent job for 10 years and those policies and programs would remain fully intact. The only interest I have in t14 is prestige and shots at clerkships because I think that would be rewarding. Thoughts?

3.65 isn't bad. Assuming you're not KJD and have good softs you can definitely get full scholarships at lower T14 and $$ at higher T14 with a 175

..pulling off a 175 is a BIG IF.. good luck

since you're looking at schools in the 25 + rankings i can provide myself as an anecdote: my gpa is 3.67 and i only scored a 167 on the LSAT. strong public interest leanings but i'm with you on the LRAP/PSLF. I have gotten initial merit scholarship offers of over 100,000 from 3 schools in the top 25, and 75,000 from one in the top 25. (i don't necessarily buy into this ranking cutoff but since you mentioned it as important, I'll use that paradigm). I also got generous offers from schools ranked in the 30's. Again, though, these were initial offers. I was able to negotiate one of my offers in the 30s to a full ride. another school in the 30s gave me instate tuition PLUS a scholarship, which leaves about $9,000 a year in a much cheaper COL area (haven't negotiated this one yet). I have gotten zero money offers so far from T14 lol.

I didn't apply to any PI based scholarships, btw (for example, WashU has one that is a full ride plus stipend, Emory has Woodruff scholars etc). I did consider it but I was worried that once I'm in law school, I'll find another kind of law I would rather practice and I didn't want to risk being in a situation where I HAD to practice public interest law for a certain amount of time, etc. These scholarships (and their stipulations, if any) are worth looking into though.

And finally, some schools (ones I can think of off the top of my head are Boston University and GW) offer full-ride scholarships to accepted ED students. I wouldn't recommend this option unless you're 100% sure you want to attend there, of course (although the full ride makes it less painful than your average ED I guess...). It sounds like something that, based on your preferences, wouldn't interest you, but if something changes between now and your cycle, you may want to look into them.

if you want any details you can PM me. Since I'm still in negotiation phase, I was hesitant to put any specific school names online here.

Good luck


Edit - I know i may not be a complete anecdote since my LSAT is lower than you're expecting... but you never know. and thought it might be helpful all the same. you'll do even BETTER if you get a higher LSAT than me, obviously.