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I've heard a lot of mixed things about "negotiating" scholarships, a lot of it conflicting, and I just wanted to get some straight explanations on how it actually works. I'm curious about the process, but that seems to be mostly straightforward. What I really want to know is - how often does it really work? From my understanding, most schools will (usually) only budge a little bit - if school B has offered you a slightly better package than A, and they are comparable schools, then A might be willing to throw in a couple thousand more to win you over. That is, at least, the impression I've gotten of how it generally is.

I'd like to thank you ahead of time and, since it seems to be so common at TLS, let me start with these statements: "T14 or nothing", "anything outside of T14 is TTT", "this thread is dumb, no one cares", "don't go to law school", etc.

It's actually very school dependant, many play ball with tens of thousands, others have hard rules against bargaining. I once helped an applicant negotiate 80k up by bouncing offers off each other, it does happen.

I only had a couple of schools move their offer up, but the ones that did (T30 range) moved up a lot. and I'm a splitter. I can only imagine what I could have done with a higher gpa to dangle in front of adcomms. It's always worth it to try.

Got a significant bump at a school that had told me and numerous other applicants that they "don't negotiate." I think it's well-worth it to keep trying. I didn't get my final bump until I tried to withdraw my application. I do think the days of negotiating scholarships are coming to an end though with LSAT takers increasing and such.

I had success explaining that school-X is my first choice for these reasons, but that I can't go because of the cost, given the fact that I have a better offer at bitter-pill-2nd-choice-X.

Thanks for the responses - I'll definitely give it a shot.

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Just explain in excruciating detail how awesome of an applicant you are, and they'll be begging to increase their offers

I got no response to negotiating requests (despite what I thought were quite unbalanced offers between peer schools) except for the one school I ended up attending, which I actually got to go up small amounts 3 times (Penn for the record) although the last time was a last minute threat to leave them for a waitlist-school.

Hand wrote:Just explain in excruciating detail how awesome of an applicant you are, and they'll be begging to increase their offers

Oh good! This was what I was planning on!

Auxilio wrote:I got no response to negotiating requests (despite what I thought were quite unbalanced offers between peer schools) except for the one school I ended up attending, which I actually got to go up small amounts 3 times (Penn for the record) although the last time was a last minute threat to leave them for a waitlist-school.

Just Penn? hmmm. Interesting. Kind of unfortunate that only one bit, but thanks for sharing. Is there anything in particular that you think led you to have that kind of response? Did you only contact a handful about negotiating? Just curious for more info if you don't mind sharing it.

Troianii wrote:

Auxilio wrote:I got no response to negotiating requests (despite what I thought were quite unbalanced offers between peer schools) except for the one school I ended up attending, which I actually got to go up small amounts 3 times (Penn for the record) although the last time was a last minute threat to leave them for a waitlist-school.

Just Penn? hmmm. Interesting. Kind of unfortunate that only one bit, but thanks for sharing. Is there anything in particular that you think led you to have that kind of response? Did you only contact a handful about negotiating? Just curious for more info if you don't mind sharing it.

NYU, Chicago, and Columbia turned down negotiating requests, they were the only ones to accept me (except H from WL). I think a big part of Penn was because I had been in contact with them a bit more, and was emailing the financial aid guy directly from pretty early on. They were the only school I had much extra contact with.

The local private TTTT only bumped my scholly up like 7.5k/yr after seeing my offer from a regional T1. Hope my data point helps you decipher the rankings relationship. Lemme know if you come up with a formula.

Aren't you yellow ribbon?

I had one match my best offer (and it was a higher ranked school), but when I tried to use that higher ranked matched offer to the other school, they wouldn't budge.

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pleadthafif wrote:

lymenheimer wrote:The local private TTTT only bumped my scholly up like 7.5k/yr after seeing my offer from a regional T1. Hope my data point helps you decipher the rankings relationship. Lemme know if you come up with a formula.

I think it's possible they didn't view you as a serious candidate since you could obviously get competitive offers from much better schools.

That could be it. I would think they would want me though. I mean, they sent a sweet zip-binder-folio thing in my acceptance package and I got chatted up pretty well and since I was local I assumed that indicated my seriousness. I was thinking of applying this cycle with my improved numbers just to see if I could cop more money (if they actually had more to give), but I'm not gonna waste the $30, not even for the chance at another padfolio.

Clearly wrote:Aren't you yellow ribbon?

GI Bill covers about 20k in tuition.

http://www.military.com/education/2015/ ... -2015.html

It covers "$21,084.89". For veterans recently discharged, there is a recent federal law which requires public schools to take the GI Bill for full sticker. There is additionally the yellow ribbon program, a program in which the VA offers to put up an additional matching amount (so the VA puts up another 10k, and the school covers an additional 10k). However, most schools - especially law schools - are not full participants of this program, and so only offer a certain matching amount. For example, Boston College caps it at 5k, BU at 9k, NYU/Cornell/Columbia/Fordham will match as much as the VA will offer, etc. And the downside is that the amount they'll match can change year to year.
http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/yello ... tes/ma.asp

First Offense wrote:I had one match my best offer (and it was a higher ranked school), but when I tried to use that higher ranked matched offer to the other school, they wouldn't budge.

haha, I've heard a lot about this kind of wheeling and dealing - I've heard of a few cases where it worked really well and students actually went to school A and said B made a better off, B beats school A's offer, then the student goes back to school A and says B made a better offer. But I hear that usually doesn't work.

Auxilio wrote:

Troianii wrote:

Auxilio wrote:I got no response to negotiating requests (despite what I thought were quite unbalanced offers between peer schools) except for the one school I ended up attending, which I actually got to go up small amounts 3 times (Penn for the record) although the last time was a last minute threat to leave them for a waitlist-school.

Just Penn? hmmm. Interesting. Kind of unfortunate that only one bit, but thanks for sharing. Is there anything in particular that you think led you to have that kind of response? Did you only contact a handful about negotiating? Just curious for more info if you don't mind sharing it.

NYU, Chicago, and Columbia turned down negotiating requests, they were the only ones to accept me (except H from WL). I think a big part of Penn was because I had been in contact with them a bit more, and was emailing the financial aid guy directly from pretty early on. They were the only school I had much extra contact with.

I had the impression Penn was much stingier with money than the others? I had half tuition+ at CCN (the two I applied to) and need-based at H and Penn wouldn't offer me a dime. Literally, could not squeeze a penny out for that matter.

I got an extra $2k a year from my mid-30s state school just by asking. I didn't have a better offer as leverage.