Top Law Schools

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Also, if possible, what are the reputations of certain T14s regarding stinginess/generosity with need-based aid? Specifically, HYS, CCN, Berkeley, Cornell, and GULC.

From what I can gather on TLS, need-based aid means loans for the most part. Outside HYS, aid is a combination of need + merit

I can't speak to specifically which schools are more generous than others (other than that HYS only gives need-based aid whereas the others do some need and some merit, which obviously suggests HYS will be a little better about need than the others), but generally graduate school is different than undergrad. IME you cannot expect any school to give you full tuition need-based aid - you may be able to get a full tuition merit scholarship, though, or maybe a combination of need and merit aid that covers most of tuition. There may be specific scholarships that are need-based or have need-based components, like the AnBryce at NYU (for first generation college students). But they aren't exactly aid and there are a limited number.

The thing is that although some students may have more need than others (like your description in the OP obviously is in a more precarious situation than a middle class student), basically no one can afford to pay for law school out of pocket. Having parents that bring in 60K a year doesn't help you afford law school any more than having a parent on disability does. Probably 90% of students have to take loans. I think law schools spread the need money out across everyone except the very wealthy or the merit scholarship recipients rather than giving full tuition to the people with the most need....like I think at CLS it is common for people to get maybe about 30K-40K in need-based grants. The poorest student might get 40K while the middle-class student might get 25K or 30K, but as you can see no one is anywhere near full tuition.

I think another aspect of it is that graduate school is viewed as not as necessary as college, which may not be a fair assessment given the fact that a college degree is much devalued from when our parents were in college. But the idea is that if you want to have this unnecessary good, you need to figure out how to cover the cost whether that is taking out loans or getting a merit-based scholarship.

I have seen your earlier posts and remember you are a 170/3.5 AA male, right? I believe you will have some full tuition merit scholarships within the T14, so you can probably get essentially the same thing as a full tuition need scholarship except that you may have to sacrifice some school prestige. Make sure to apply for all the named scholarships that require applications. The NYU ones come to mind, but I think there might be some others. Good luck!

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With the upper end of that range, especially as an URM, you'll probably get in at Harvard. I hope that withdrawal works out for you bro. In regards to their aid though - they're not super generous. I deposited at Harvard but have no money, and their aid to me sucked. So I'm left with only the option of taking out over 200k in loans. In your case I imagine they'll offer you a good amount of aid - perhaps 20-30k a year, but you won't get full tuition or anything close. For Harvard, you'll have to take out some loans.

brownpride wrote:With the upper end of that range, especially as an URM, you'll probably get in at Harvard. I hope that withdrawal works out for you bro. In regards to their aid though - they're not super generous. I deposited at Harvard but have no money, and their aid to me sucked. So I'm left with only the option of taking out over 200k in loans. In your case I imagine they'll offer you a good amount of aid - perhaps 20-30k a year, but you won't get full tuition or anything close. For Harvard, you'll have to take out some loans.

^This guy has no clue what he is talking about. As long as you don't have significant savings, upper middle-class parents, or major assets you will likely get grants close to full-tuition. They adjust the student budget for students with somewhat special circumstances (married with a low income spouse, children, etc). I am a single student, normal age, with no special circumstances and I get ~$34K in grants per year. I know of students with children and they get significantly more in grants than I do.

AllTheLawz wrote:

brownpride wrote:With the upper end of that range, especially as an URM, you'll probably get in at Harvard. I hope that withdrawal works out for you bro. In regards to their aid though - they're not super generous. I deposited at Harvard but have no money, and their aid to me sucked. So I'm left with only the option of taking out over 200k in loans. In your case I imagine they'll offer you a good amount of aid - perhaps 20-30k a year, but you won't get full tuition or anything close. For Harvard, you'll have to take out some loans.

^This guy has no clue what he is talking about. As long as you don't have significant savings, upper middle-class parents, or major assets you will likely get grants close to full-tuition. They adjust the student budget for students with somewhat special circumstances (married with a low income spouse, children, etc). I am a single student, normal age, with no special circumstances and I get ~$34K in grants per year. I know of students with children and they get significantly more in grants than I do.

That is impressively better than the need aid distributed at the rest of the T14 (excepting Y and S, I presume). I guess the no merit aid thing does help, combined with a gigantic endowment. I went to H for undergrad where it was free for anyone whose family made less than 60K/year and 10% of the family's income for families making between 60K and 180K. This was controversial, though, because people were saying families making 180K did not need aid. I don't really agree with that unless it is taking money away from people who need it more because even if your family makes 180K pre-taxes, spending over 1/3 of your post-tax income on one kid's college tuition is a big burden. The bigger issue is that even with this aid program, only 70% of the class got financial aid, meaning that 30% of the class' families made more than 180K, which obviously does not represent the US as a whole. /off-topic commentary

On topic: Although 34K/year is generous, you will still end up with close to 100K+ in loans in the end, not including interest. If you work at a big firm two summers (a reasonable possibility if you are URM), you can defray a lot of that. Also, OP, you may want to look into SEO, which places non-whites (I say that rather than URM bc Asians can do SEO) in big firms pre-1L summer. You get paid decently and could end up with a job offer for after your 1L summer at a firm before you have even started school, which is a big boost.

somewhatwayward wrote:

AllTheLawz wrote:

brownpride wrote:With the upper end of that range, especially as an URM, you'll probably get in at Harvard. I hope that withdrawal works out for you bro. In regards to their aid though - they're not super generous. I deposited at Harvard but have no money, and their aid to me sucked. So I'm left with only the option of taking out over 200k in loans. In your case I imagine they'll offer you a good amount of aid - perhaps 20-30k a year, but you won't get full tuition or anything close. For Harvard, you'll have to take out some loans.

^This guy has no clue what he is talking about. As long as you don't have significant savings, upper middle-class parents, or major assets you will likely get grants close to full-tuition. They adjust the student budget for students with somewhat special circumstances (married with a low income spouse, children, etc). I am a single student, normal age, with no special circumstances and I get ~$34K in grants per year. I know of students with children and they get significantly more in grants than I do.

That is impressively better than the need aid distributed at the rest of the T14 (excepting Y and S, I presume). I guess the no merit aid thing does help, combined with a gigantic endowment. I went to H for undergrad where it was free for anyone whose family made less than 60K/year and 10% of the family's income for families making between 60K and 180K. This was controversial, though, because people were saying families making 180K did not need aid. I don't really agree with that unless it is taking money away from people who need it more because even if your family makes 180K pre-taxes, spending over 1/3 of your post-tax income on one kid's college tuition is a big burden. The bigger issue is that even with this aid program, only 70% of the class got financial aid, meaning that 30% of the class' families made more than 180K, which obviously does not represent the US as a whole. /off-topic commentary

On topic: Although 34K/year is generous, you will still end up with close to 100K+ in loans in the end, not including interest. If you work at a big firm two summers (a reasonable possibility if you are URM), you can defray a lot of that. Also, OP, you may want to look into SEO, which places non-whites (I say that rather than URM bc Asians can do SEO) in big firms pre-1L summer. You get paid decently and could end up with a job offer for after your 1L summer at a firm before you have even started school, which is a big boost.

Another thing to note, summer firm income reduces aid at all need based schools. This is also true of merit aid at some schools (NYU for example) where they give aid contingent on whether you make over a certain amount in the summer. You might still end up with loans close to six-figures but for me I have to admit it was probably worth it. I turned down full scholarship at multiple T-14 schools to attend H. While the six-figure debt is worrisome, the fact is that I got excellent offers from OCI without having to kill myself during 1L year. With similar performance at the other schools I was looking at, there is a fair chance I would have struck out.

I still would want to do an SEO summer job, even if it decreases my need based aid a bit - the experience seems invaluable. But I'll certainly weigh my options based on where I get in and how much I get.

Great advice from everyone, thanks.