Top Law Schools

Hi Everyone,

First time posting. I wanted to know if anyone has experience with, or has heard of, students using their transfer applications as leverage on their current school to provide them with a stronger financial package. Here is an anecdotal scenario to consider: Lets say, student X, who is at UVA, is in the top 10 students of his class. Despite the strength of his current academic standing at UVA however, he is not receiving any scholarship assistance from UVA. Assume that this student has succesfully applied, as a transfer, to Stanford Law School. However, this student is happy at UVA and would rather not leave Charlottesville because he likes the east coast and the girls at UVA are cute. My thought is that it is in UVA's best interest to retain this talent despite the unanticipated cost to them but I am not aware of instances where students have succesfully leveraged their schools into some kind of scholarship after the initial admission/ scholarship decision. Does this happen? And if you know that much; what should one expect from this process? I would certainly appreciate any thoughts or insight.

Regards,

Smiggles

Nice try. We all know you're that guy at Boalt who wore a Harvard t-shirt on the first day of class.

i think this practice is largely unethical and is a good way of making enemies with students from your school who actually want to attend the school whose acceptance you are using as leverage. BUT, from what i know, some schools will play ball and others won't.

koalatriste wrote:i think this practice is largely unethical and is a good way of making enemies with students from your school who actually want to attend the school whose acceptance you are using as leverage. BUT, from what i know, some schools will play ball and others won't.

Why is it unethical? Is it also unethical to use an acceptance or scholarship to bargain for more money from a school during the regular admission cycle? To use a job offer as leverage for more compensation? If you get accepted somewhere as a transfer, but would rather stay at your own school if you had a full scholly AND the school would rather give you a full ride than lose you, why shouldn't you and the school enter into an agreement for that?

If a top 10 student has to use transfer apps as scholarship leverage to not pay sticker at the current school, something is not right. Even if the student did not have a great LSAT/GPA coming in, the school should recognize the student with a scholarship if that student subsequently earns top 10 grades. I don't know whether this happens in practice, but just my thought.

I wasn't really interested in the ethics of this possibility. I don't even think you can make strong argument that its unethical. In sports this is called free agency. In the job market this is called getting a better deal. In the housing market this is called "shopping the offer." These are all respected and common practices.Talent is worth protecting. Most of the time; that costs money.

All that aside, has anyone actually done this and earned money from their current school and what was that process like?

Best,

Smiggles

Deep Trench wrote:If a top 10 student has to use transfer apps as scholarship leverage to not pay sticker at the current school, something is not right. Even if the student did not have a great LSAT/GPA coming in, the school should recognize the student with a scholarship if that student subsequently earns top 10 grades. I don't know whether this happens in practice, but just my thought.

The world doesn't always work the way people feel it should. Schools don't always offer money to applicants with a great LSAT/GPA. It helps if that applicant can use another school's scholarship offer as leverage though. Sometimes schools don't offer money to 1L's who are paying sticker and end up at the top of the class. Why shouldn't the student try to use some sort of leverage to influence the school to change their mind?

Maybe someone who is more knowledgeable in transfers can correct me (I'm look at VW, our resident expert). But it seems like this shit doesn't fly at top schools. UVA isn't going to buy you away from Harvard because they don't need to. But some lower ranked schools will, because otherwise their entire top of the class will flee.

The entire top of UVA can't transfer, nor do they have much of a reason do. So they aren't going to pay you stay.

/

If I was among the top 10 students (not top 10% but top 10 students) at UVa I wouldn't worry about getting some $ knocked off tuition - I'd either go to Y or S or, if I liked Charlottesville, which it seems the student does - I'd focus on landing a prime clerkship and then really interesting LRAP qualifying PI or top firm job...

For the top 10 students in the class I'd think the school would really go to bat for you if you don't rub people the wrong way, which you risk doing by threatning to transfer if you don't get $. If somewhere you applied to transfer offered you $ you could write a letter saying "Look - I love it here, I'm exceling but I am worried about my debt and have this great offer if I transfer - can you help?" then I think that might look okay. But unless I'm mistaken you aren't likely to get offered serious $ as a transfer applicant (on the other hand SLS is need based so if you have need maybe you would get something from them you could take to UVa?).

Either way just pulling the "I got into a higher ranked school so I might leave if you don't pay me" card might work at lower tier schools where they deal with students transferring out in droves all the time - but really might rub the administration at a top school like UVa the wrong way. Something you don't want to do when you love it there and are having so much sucsess.

jtemp320 wrote:but really might rub the administration at a top school like UVa the wrong way. Something you don't want to do when you love it there and are having so much sucsess.

No offense, but my opinion is completely opposite of this. F*** the administration if they don't like me, this is a business - especially so with the administration. These are the same people who put us on waitlists that don't make decisions until well after other schools' scholarship offers run out - remember that process? Why do we need to build friendships with them? They aren't going to be writing us letters of recommendation.

From the "bad man" perspective (har har Holmes jokes) it seems fine to play hardball with the administration. As long as you aren't so disrespectful as to sully your name in general, i.e. with the professors who might recommend you, what's the harm?

About 90% of school's will not give you money to retain you as a blanket policy. Almost every T-1 School will not.

You can ask, but don't expect to actually get anything.

johnq wrote: Best,

Smiggles

This must be a flame.

vanwinkle wrote:You can ask, but don't expect to actually get anything.

TCR

I have actually heard of this happening before. TBH, I was under the impression that it was a common practice - a scholly offer at a competitor school for a bump up at your own. You could certainly make a strong financial argument.

I also don't fully understand why this practice is unethical. Doesn't this happen quite similarly during the 0L application cycle?

Cupidity wrote:About 90% of school's will not give you money to retain you as a blanket policy. Almost every T-1 School will not.

Where does this stat come from?

I all in. Business is business. If they can charge 50k a year, I can bargain.