Softs & Scholarships Forum

[singapore_sling]

I'm curious as to what people think about how softs affect top scholarship chances. When it comes to 2/3 or full tuition scholarships awards, are softs much more important than raw numbers? Also, are schools like UT less willing to give people applying from in state large scholarships because they figure those students will stay in state anyways?

[manbearwig]

I'm curious as to what people think about how softs affect top scholarship chances. When it comes to 2/3 or full tuition scholarships awards, are softs much more important than raw numbers? Also, are schools like UT less willing to give people applying from in state large scholarships because they figure those students will stay in state anyways?

I got a full tuition scholarship to a school I'd get instate tuition at. I also didn't have any outstanding softs.

[ggocat]

When it comes to 2/3 or full tuition scholarships awards, are softs much more important than raw numbers?

No.

[20160810]

I'm actually going to go the other way here and say that softs are CRUCIAL for the big scholarships. Reason being, everyone under consideration is going to have similar (and similarly impressive) numbers. The committee is going to want to give that money to someone they really feel deserves it, and that's where softs come into play.

In my case, my (pretty good) soft factors didn't really impact my admissions cycle appreciably (though I did get fee waivers everywhere, and I got a lot of T14 WLs for what little that's worth), but they did have an impact on my scholarship situation.

[GordonCole]

It can go either way. For example, I got a full tuition scholarship at my state U law school where I would be in-state. However, my GPA is above their 75th percentile and my LSAT is 15 points above their 75th percentile. In that case they're not going to begrudge me for my lack of fulbright scholarship.

On the other hand, the Hamilton at Columbia and similar scholarships at top schools are a whole other kettle of fish. For those scholarships having the numbers is not enough and soft factors matter.

[jman77]

I think softs do play a significant role in determining scholarship money. I have a 167 LSAT and no LSAC GPA (3.87 from a non-US school, so this would have counted as a soft and not a hard GPA number for admissions purposes). I have pretty solid WE. Got the following schollies: $105K from Illinois (above median LSAT), $117K from WUSTL (at median LSAT) and $30K from UCLA (below median LSAT).

Based on my numbers alone, I should not have gotten the kind of money those schools offered.