Can anyone offer some scholarship negotiation advice? Forum

[93urei]

Hi everyone,

I have been accepted at 5 schools in the same general geographic region, as follows:

School A - (T25) - 50% Scholarship
School B - (T30's) - Scholarship Pending
School C - (T30's) - 80% Scholarship
School D - (~mid T40's) - 90% Scholarship
School E - (~T50) - Full Ride

I would like to negotiate School D up to a full ride, but I'm wondering what my strategy should be. Is it better to negotiate now rather than later in the cycle? Should I wait for my pending scholarship at School B to come in before I start negotiating? (That could take another month.) Should I mention all of my scholarships to School D, or just the full ride?


All thoughts are appreciated.

[CanadianWolf]

Why should School D increase their offer of a 90% scholarship to you to 100% ?

How do your numbers (LSAT & uGPA) compare to the medians at school D ?

Tough to offer advice without more information since your scholarships appear to be reasonable relative to each other.

Your stronger move may to be ask School C to offer you a 100% scholarship (from 80%) because you have two higher scholarship offers and need to minimize COA. This logic also applies to negotiating with School B.

If you are truly willing to commit to school D if offered a 100% scholarship, then why not ask School A--a top 25 law school--for a better offer.

[JamezPhoenix]

What wolf said, try to raise School C to 100%, then turn around and use that to raise School A to 75+% and go to School A

[93urei]

Why should School D increase their offer of a 90% scholarship to you to 100% ?

How do your numbers (LSAT & uGPA) compare to the medians at school D ?

Tough to offer advice without more information since your scholarships appear to be reasonable relative to each other.

Your stronger move may to be ask School C to offer you a 100% scholarship (from 80%) because you have two higher scholarship offers and need to minimize COA. This logic also applies to negotiating with School B.

If you are truly willing to commit to school D if offered a 100% scholarship, then why not ask School A--a top 25 law school--for a better offer.

I had not considered negotiating with School C first. Thanks for the idea. My LSAT is above 75th percentile at all of these schools. Surprisingly, my GPA is about median at all of them. GPA's don't seem to fluctuate very much, I guess.

I intend to ask all of these schools for better offers eventually, I'm just not sure which order I should approach them in. Does timing matter? Are scholarships harder or easier to negotiate when seat deposit deadlines get closer?

[CanadianWolf]

My suggestion is to negotiate now since schools have limited funds for merit scholarship awards. Expect competition for any available funds.

As to whether one gains negotiating leverage as the seat deposit deadline nears, I do not know. Seems like a reasonable thought, but a bit of a risky approach.