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Hello TLS users,

I wanted your advice in negotiating my financial aid offers from law schools. I've read many posts (on this forum and others) on what to put in the letter, who to address it to, etc. What I'm most interested in is your input on which offers to leverage against which schools.

Here are my admissions and offers (all numbers are total, not annual, unless otherwise noted):
Emory University - $99,000
George Washington University - $75,000
University of Alabama - $75,000 if I stay out of state, otherwise $25,000 the first year and $16,500 off the in-state tuition for years 2 and 3
College of William and Mary - $36,000 off the in-state tuition rate

William and Mary is probably my number one choice, expenses notwithstanding. Beyond that I don't have a super strong preference, but loosely it's GW>Emory>Alabama.

My question to you all is, if you were in my position, which schools would you negotiate with in which order, and using which other offers? Emory and Alabama stand out as the best offers (looking at the actual cost of attendance), but which of the two is stronger (considering Alabama will be cheaper but Emory is higher ranked)? Is it effective at all to negotiate with GW using Alabama's offer (even though they are similarly ranked they are in fairly distant regions and probably don't usually compete for student pool)? Is it viable/worthwhile to send the offers from two (or more) other schools when negotiating with a third?

Emory's offer came in recently and throws a (good) wrench into things, but before that I was thinking my best bet is to send 1. Alabama's original offer to GW, 2. GW's (hopefully increased) offer to Alabama, 3. Alabama's (hopefully increased) offer to William and Mary. Is that a good (or the best) plan? How does Emory's offer change things?

There are a lot of variables in this situation which make it relatively unique. Thanks in advance to anyone and everyone who offers their advice and assistance.

Regards,
ClassOf2019

EDIT 2/3/16 @ 4:43 - Fixed a typo

Why don't you send all of the other offers to the lowest school, send all of the other offers (once that school responds) to the next lowest school, send all of the other offers (once that school responds) to the second choice, then send all of your, essentially final, offers to your first choice? It's not rocket science. You just want your strongest set of offers to be for your final school, then you can play the loop-de-loop again.

lymenheimer wrote:Why don't you send all of the other offers to the lowest school, send all of the other offers (once that school responds) to the next lowest school, send all of the other offers (once that school responds) to the second choice, then send all of your, essentially final, offers to your first choice? It's not rocket science. You just want your strongest set of offers to be for your final school, then you can play the loop-de-loop again.

Do people typically sent all of their offers (or at least all of their good ones) when trying to negotiate? My understanding is that it's much more typical to send a single other schools offer as an "I'd like to come to your school but this other school is making that choice difficult" kind of thing. I'm not sure it's quite as effective to say, "I'd like to come to your school but all of these other schools are making that choice difficult." That's part of why I came here looking for advice.

ClassOf2019 wrote: Do people typically sent all of their offers (or at least all of their good ones) when trying to negotiate? My understanding is that it's much more typical to send a single other schools offer as an "I'd like to come to your school but this other school is making that choice difficult" kind of thing. I'm not sure it's quite as effective to say, "I'd like to come to your school but all of these other schools are making that choice difficult." That's part of why I came here looking for advice.

idk if anybody's really tried both to be able to compare the two. Either way, it's not an exact science. There's not a list of "peer schools" that each school recognizes. Just go with whomever is ranked closest, working towards your final choice.