Top Law Schools

Hi all,

Haven't seen this posted about, but I'm looking for advice on how to best go about getting Berkeley to give me a decent scholarship. I have admission to H and a super small financial aid award. I also received $105k from M. Does anyone know if a small need-based offer from HYS leads to a greater result than a peer school's substantive offer? Thanks

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/admissions ... holarship/

Read the FAQs in this link.

I should add that H's financial aid is done year by year, and Berkeley's matching app requires listing the 2nd and 3rd year amounts. Should I just assume the same amount in subsequent years?

AshburtonGrove wrote:I should add that H's financial aid is done year by year, and Berkeley's matching app requires listing the 2nd and 3rd year amounts. Should I just assume the same amount in subsequent years?

Depends, is H's amount based off of your parents income? Will you age out of their income being factored in? Is it off of your own current assets? If so, is it expected that you'll spread those assets over three years?

Single-Malt-Liquor wrote:

AshburtonGrove wrote:I should add that H's financial aid is done year by year, and Berkeley's matching app requires listing the 2nd and 3rd year amounts. Should I just assume the same amount in subsequent years?

Depends, is H's amount based off of your parents income? Will you age out of their income being factored in? Is it off of your own current assets? If so, is it expected that you'll spread those assets over three years?

It's based off of both mine and my parents assets. I'll still be below the required age by my third year, so my parents' income will always be considered though it's likely their income will change in the coming years.

Gonna bump this to see if anyone has any guidance before I pull the trigger on this.

AshburtonGrove wrote:Gonna bump this to see if anyone has any guidance before I pull the trigger on this.

Is your age going to result in a % reduction in how your parent's assets are going to be considered? I think this is like ages 25-28 (25-75% - with 29 being 100% reduction or 0% consideration) but I'm not positive.

Nonconsecutive wrote:

AshburtonGrove wrote:Gonna bump this to see if anyone has any guidance before I pull the trigger on this.

Is your age going to result in a % reduction in how your parent's assets are going to be considered? I think this is like ages 25-28 (25-75% - with 29 being 100% reduction or 0% consideration) but I'm not positive.

No I don't believe anything will change as a result of my age

Then you can probably calculate that it might remain somewhat consistent, but there are a lot of variables here - too many to really get anything close to hard numbers. You mention your parental income will change, that might be a factor depending on assets, again, might.

If you want to be safe and conservative, take whatever they gave you this year and use it for 1L, then reduce it by 5k for 2L, and 10k for 3L.

That might end up being arse-backwards, but it's the safer estimate.

Nonconsecutive wrote:Then you can probably calculate that it might remain somewhat consistent, but there are a lot of variables here - too many to really get anything close to hard numbers. You mention your parental income will change, that might be a factor depending on assets, again, might.

If you want to be safe and conservative, take whatever they gave you this year and use it for 1L, then reduce it by 5k for 2L, and 10k for 3L.

That might end up being arse-backwards, but it's the safer estimate.

Why would he do that if he wants them to match the offer? If it's honest to just multiply the award by three he's better off doing that. Now, is that better than using the Michigan award idk, but it seems like if he's going to submit H's award and there isn't any likely reason it will decline he should just multiply it by three and make a note that it's an estimate

I agree that you should just multiply the award by three and tell them that you assume no change in financial situation (that's what I did while negotiating), but if you'd like to actually know what it might look like each year for decision purposes, just call financial aid. When I was deciding they were great about sitting down with me and recalculating my award based on each of several financial scenarios for 2L and 3L, so I had pretty decent guestimates when I was figuring it out.

KiltedKicker wrote:

Nonconsecutive wrote:Then you can probably calculate that it might remain somewhat consistent, but there are a lot of variables here - too many to really get anything close to hard numbers. You mention your parental income will change, that might be a factor depending on assets, again, might.

If you want to be safe and conservative, take whatever they gave you this year and use it for 1L, then reduce it by 5k for 2L, and 10k for 3L.

That might end up being arse-backwards, but it's the safer estimate.

Why would he do that if he wants them to match the offer? If it's honest to just multiply the award by three he's better off doing that. Now, is that better than using the Michigan award idk, but it seems like if he's going to submit H's award and there isn't any likely reason it will decline he should just multiply it by three and make a note that it's an estimate

If Berkeley just takes you at your word, then yeah, no reason for the reduction - I had just presumed they would want documentation from the other institution, and in that instance, assuming a reduction due to summer income is a safer bet.