How much can I bargain for? Forum

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pianolesspianist

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How much can I bargain for?

Post by pianolesspianist » Wed Apr 08, 2020 4:40 am

Hey everyone

I'm in the fortunate position of being able to choose from a number of top schools, and with the first deposit deadline swiftly approaching, I'd appreciate some insight regarding merit scholarships.

I have a 173 LSAT (no retakes - and please don't tell me to retake, even if that's the wisest decision), and a 3.7 GPA (though I'm told this is irrelevant since i got my BA overseas and my LSAC evaluation just says "superior" - if anyone knows for sure, please do tell!)
Non-Traditional
Non-URM
Interesting/compelling softs

How much $$ do you think I can get AFTER negotiations at the following schools:

UofC
CLS
Cornell
GULC
GW
Northwestern
NYU
WUSTL

Anecdotal info is also super welcome!

Thanks!!

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cavalier1138

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Re: How much can I bargain for?

Post by cavalier1138 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:44 am

How much money you can get after negotiations is going to be entirely dependent on your current scholarship offers. Your initial offer is affected by your numbers/softs, but any negotiations are going to be based on leveraging offers against each other.

The only real advice I can give is that you can throw out GW and probably WashU from your negotiation pool. Those scholarships aren't going to provide leverage at any of the T13.

pianolesspianist

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Re: How much can I bargain for?

Post by pianolesspianist » Wed Apr 08, 2020 11:36 am

cavalier1138 wrote:How much money you can get after negotiations is going to be entirely dependent on your current scholarship offers. Your initial offer is affected by your numbers/softs, but any negotiations are going to be based on leveraging offers against each other.

The only real advice I can give is that you can throw out GW and probably WashU from your negotiation pool. Those scholarships aren't going to provide leverage at any of the T13.

Thanks!

I was under the impression that a GW scholarship could be used to leverage GULC (and that WUSTL, in turn, could be used to leverage GW). Is that not the case?

Also, even if you can't predict how much i can expect to receive post-negotiations, i'd also appreciate input regarding how much i can expect initially based on the stats listed in the OP

Thanks again

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cavalier1138

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Re: How much can I bargain for?

Post by cavalier1138 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 11:51 am

pianolesspianist wrote:
cavalier1138 wrote:How much money you can get after negotiations is going to be entirely dependent on your current scholarship offers. Your initial offer is affected by your numbers/softs, but any negotiations are going to be based on leveraging offers against each other.

The only real advice I can give is that you can throw out GW and probably WashU from your negotiation pool. Those scholarships aren't going to provide leverage at any of the T13.

Thanks!

I was under the impression that a GW scholarship could be used to leverage GULC (and that WUSTL, in turn, could be used to leverage GW). Is that not the case?

Also, even if you can't predict how much i can expect to receive post-negotiations, i'd also appreciate input regarding how much i can expect initially based on the stats listed in the OP

Thanks again
I'd be extremely surprised if Georgetown will negotiate based on a GW scholarship. If anything, WashU might be useful as leverage for Georgetown, but probably not (WashU is known for giving out full rides like candy for high LSATs). More importantly, you have much bigger fish than WashU or GW, and I wouldn't be considering those schools at this stage.

As to your likely initial offers from these schools, it's hard to guess with an international grade rating and the timing of your process. Usually, you should have already received your offers, but I'm assuming you applied late in the cycle. That can affect scholarships.

That said, a 173/Superior should make you competitive for scholarships at CCN. If even one of those schools bites, you can use it to leverage everyone.

pianolesspianist

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Posts: 42
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Re: How much can I bargain for?

Post by pianolesspianist » Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:45 pm

cavalier1138 wrote:
pianolesspianist wrote:
cavalier1138 wrote:How much money you can get after negotiations is going to be entirely dependent on your current scholarship offers. Your initial offer is affected by your numbers/softs, but any negotiations are going to be based on leveraging offers against each other.

The only real advice I can give is that you can throw out GW and probably WashU from your negotiation pool. Those scholarships aren't going to provide leverage at any of the T13.

Thanks!

I was under the impression that a GW scholarship could be used to leverage GULC (and that WUSTL, in turn, could be used to leverage GW). Is that not the case?

Also, even if you can't predict how much i can expect to receive post-negotiations, i'd also appreciate input regarding how much i can expect initially based on the stats listed in the OP

Thanks again
I'd be extremely surprised if Georgetown will negotiate based on a GW scholarship. If anything, WashU might be useful as leverage for Georgetown, but probably not (WashU is known for giving out full rides like candy for high LSATs). More importantly, you have much bigger fish than WashU or GW, and I wouldn't be considering those schools at this stage.

As to your likely initial offers from these schools, it's hard to guess with an international grade rating and the timing of your process. Usually, you should have already received your offers, but I'm assuming you applied late in the cycle. That can affect scholarships.

That said, a 173/Superior should make you competitive for scholarships at CCN. If even one of those schools bites, you can use it to leverage everyone.

Thanks again for the insights.

I actually applied to the majority of schools listed back in Oct/Nov. I was accepted with merit offers to GULC (90k), GW (105k) and Cornell (60k). Waitlisted at Northwestern's JD/LLM program and and UofChicago. Just recently got accepted to CLS, with no offer as of yet.

In terms of the "bigger fish," I'm very debt-averse and would seriously consider GULC at low cost vs CLS at close to sticker (feel free to convince me not to though - i'm open, just very debt averse).

I'm told this has been a very slow cycle so im guessing this might make law schools a bit more cautious with their initial funding, but I would love if someone more experienced/knowledgable than I could weigh in.

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