Negotiating scholarships works!!!!! Forum

[MrPapagiorgio]

Wake Forest offered 30K each year and U of GA offered nothing. Is it reasonable to request a comparable award from U of GA?

ALWAYS worth a shot.

If you don't ask, the answer is always no.

[laxbrah420]

Wake Forest offered 30K each year and U of GA offered nothing. Is it reasonable to request a comparable award from U of GA?

ALWAYS worth a shot.

If you don't ask, the answer is always no.

If you don't ask, then they don't answer

[drizzle12]

I was wondering if anyone has been successful or if anyone knows about leveraging an admissions offer from a higher ranked school to get scholarship money or increase a scholarship at another school.

For example, say someone got into YHS and they also got into UCLA. Could you write to UCLA and mention that YHS are higher ranked, have better job prospects, better national placement for jobs, and lower COL in an effort to get some/more money from UCLA? Or would this be considered inappropriate and in bad taste?

[wamanda]

I was wondering if anyone has been successful or if anyone knows about leveraging an admissions offer from a higher ranked school to get scholarship money or increase a scholarship at another school.

For example, say someone got into YHS and they also got into UCLA. Could you write to UCLA and mention that YHS are higher ranked, have better job prospects, better national placement for jobs, and lower COL in an effort to get some/more money from UCLA? Or would this be considered inappropriate and in bad taste?

Read the rest of the thread. It is full of stories exactly like this.

[Cornelius]

I was wondering if anyone has been successful or if anyone knows about leveraging an admissions offer from a higher ranked school to get scholarship money or increase a scholarship at another school.

For example, say someone got into YHS and they also got into UCLA. Could you write to UCLA and mention that YHS are higher ranked, have better job prospects, better national placement for jobs, and lower COL in an effort to get some/more money from UCLA? Or would this be considered inappropriate and in bad taste?

Read the rest of the thread. It is full of stories exactly like this.

I would just be careful how it's phrased. Don't want to insult the school you're asking.

[drizzle12]

Thanks for the info and tips! Sorry for rehashing something that has already been addressed.

[punkyg0608]

I was wondering if anyone has been successful or if anyone knows about leveraging an admissions offer from a higher ranked school to get scholarship money or increase a scholarship at another school.

For example, say someone got into YHS and they also got into UCLA. Could you write to UCLA and mention that YHS are higher ranked, have better job prospects, better national placement for jobs, and lower COL in an effort to get some/more money from UCLA? Or would this be considered inappropriate and in bad taste?

From what I've read, it seems like a bad idea to mention rank. The admissions people know the ranks of the schools and you don't want to throw it in their faces. I would, however, say something like "I've been admitted to OTHER prestigious schools such as..."

[Unagi]

Hey everyone!

I have a basic question about scholarships negotiation. It may sound dumb but I was thinking about it randomly (note: I do not want to employ that strategy, I'm just wondering!)

Let's say for instance I apply at U. of Miami and UCLA. Let's pretend Miami offer me a 75k$ scholarship (25 000$/year) and UCLA offers me the same thing. If my inner goal is to go to UCLA and to have them upgrade my scholarship, it obviously is not a big leverage tool because it's the same amount and U. of Miami is less prestigious and less well-ranked than UCLA. So writing them an email negotiating with these numbers would be pretty useless.

However, if (just want to mention again that i'm not going to do , I'm really just wondering what happens if someone does it) I would write to UCLA and pretend that U. of Miami are offering me a full ride scholarship, does UCLA has any way of finding out? Is it common practice for law schools to call other law schools to verify these kind of statements?

There was a case at Michigan where someone tried this and, since the other offer sounded a little fishy, Michigan called the other school and found out that the applicant was lying. Pretty safe to say that that person did not attend either of those two schools. I have a feeling most admissions officers can pick out this type of stuff and will not hesitate to verify their hunches.

Here is Dean Z's post (got it from her blog http://www.law.umich.edu/connection/a2z)

When you work in admissions, you accumulate a lot of amazing stories of people at their best and worst. Mostly this kind of story is merely entertaining; they tend to be sui generis, rather than exemplary of Large Life Lessons.

Yesterday gave rise to a people-at-their-worst incident. It wasn’t, however, totally sui generis.

Financial aid is a big deal in law school decisionmaking. Law school is expensive. People usually go to law school with the hope of earning a large salary at the end of it, or at least a mild expectation that they’ll be able to do so should they choose. They weigh the considerable cost of tuition against the likely career benefits and, one hopes, come to a rational conclusion about whether a particular school at a particular cost makes sense for them and their particular goals. However rational one tries to be, however, there are large amounts of unknowns in this formula and making the decision to attend law school therefore involves, to some degree, a leap of faith. Everyone has a different temperament for that sort of risk, and for some people, the process generates a great deal of anxiety.

That’s always been the case. But as we all know, the ground under law firms, along with most other industries, has shifted since the fall of 2008. The unknowns in the formula have only grown, and the corresponding sense of risk has only increased—along with the anxiety. We do our best to counsel admitted students in an objective way about the pros and cons (one of the panels we put on during our admitted student weekends, for example, features a current student who was a CPA pre-law school, along with alumni speaking frankly about debt). Nonetheless, the fact is, for some people, money and debt are an emotional quagmire in which it is hard to be objective and measured.

Which brings me to my story of yesterday. We got a call from an admitted student who had already received a merit scholarship from us. The caller wanted us to increase his award because he had received larger awards from other law schools. Now, it is our policy, stated in the scholarship award letters, not to alter scholarship awards once they have been made, but the receptionist quite correctly advised him to email the office with the information about the other awards. However unlikely it may be that we’ll alter our stated policy, she knows that we always want to be able to consider individual circumstances. He hung up in anger at that advice, though—and then emailed to complain that the receptionist had been most unhelpful for not having immediately forwarded the call to me. I reiterated the advice: please do send us the information requested. His behavior made me highly dubious, yet knowing how anxiety-producing the issues of money can be made me loath to assume the worst; maybe, I thought, he had some extraordinary circumstances. His response was fairly peremptory — a list of schools and awards, none of which were much in excess of what we had already given him.

As I mulled over how to respond, I called my colleague in our Financial Aid Office for a little guidance, as she takes many such calls; I recited the figures he had given, and she observed that one figure just didn’t sound right, given what she knew about that school’s awards.

This led me to call that school to ask whether the number I had received was in error. (For the record: our admitted student website does alert candidates that we may contact other law schools to verify scholarship awards.) And that’s when I learned not merely that the figure was a little off, but that in fact, no scholarship award at all had been given.

Yikes.

Now, none of this is typical behavior, by any means, but it’s also not unique. (Past readers of the blog will doubtless have seen that coming. Human behavior is rarely unique.) So let me extract from all this the two nuggets of important information for people who are very anxious about the cost of law school.

One: you should certainly approach the schools you are considering for advice about aid—just be nice when you do so. There’s a reason why “you catch more flies with honey” is such a well-known aphorism that I don’t need to finish typing it out for you to know what it is. So don’t make the call when you’re feeling so wound up that you just can’t communicate effectively. Practice what you’re going to say, and think about how it sounds. Making the people in the admissions office or the financial aid office feel that they made a mistake in admitting you is not likely to result in an increase in your aid.

Two: whatever you do, don’t lie. Here’s another aphorism: Honesty really is the best policy. What I’ve described is a pretty clear-cut case of deliberate misrepresentation, and in the absence of some astonishing explanation, I am compelled to report the candidate to the Law School Admissions Council for misconduct in the admissions process. That may mean that this candidate doesn’t go to law school at all.

-Dean Z.
Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions

[jbabs]

Does anybody have advice for negotiating when the school (Texas, for me) has given you no aid at all? I have decent $$$ from several lower-ranked, T30 schools - how well do those kinds of scholarships leverage in this case?

[bobbyh1919]

Can anyone answer (from personal experience or hearsay) how strict Michigan is with their no negotiations policy?

[bobbyh1919]

Does anybody have advice for negotiating when the school (Texas, for me) has given you no aid at all? I have decent $$$ from several lower-ranked, T30 schools - how well do those kinds of scholarships leverage in this case?

You'd have to be a little more specific about what schools and how much money you got, but I'm guessing you would face somewhat of an uphill battle here.

Absolutely worth a shot though, and you should mention how even though the prestige of Texas, etc. is appealing to you, other good schools have offered you financial aid and (given your circumstances, whatever they may be) you were wondering if Texas could make a more competitive scholarship offer.

[shbe0701]

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[JonnyBart]

I originally had $72k from W&M, negotiated up to $87k. Three years of law school for (roughly) twenty grand:

I just received $75k from W&M and I'm considering negotiating for more. I haven't heard back from other schools yet, though, so do you think I should wait? Also I'm a 173/4.0x

Wait, its always better to come to the table with other offers, or else the school is just negotiating against itself.

[ClassyKelly]

Did you use my scholarship negotiation letter?

Could you PM me your negotiation letter....pretty please?

[kroakstool]

Did you use my scholarship negotiation letter?

Could you PM me your negotiation letter....pretty please?

Send it to me to if you would

[nikkib]

Hey everyone!

I have a basic question about scholarships negotiation. It may sound dumb but I was thinking about it randomly (note: I do not want to employ that strategy, I'm just wondering!)

Let's say for instance I apply at U. of Miami and UCLA. Let's pretend Miami offer me a 75k$ scholarship (25 000$/year) and UCLA offers me the same thing. If my inner goal is to go to UCLA and to have them upgrade my scholarship, it obviously is not a big leverage tool because it's the same amount and U. of Miami is less prestigious and less well-ranked than UCLA. So writing them an email negotiating with these numbers would be pretty useless.

However, if (just want to mention again that i'm not going to do , I'm really just wondering what happens if someone does it) I would write to UCLA and pretend that U. of Miami are offering me a full ride scholarship, does UCLA has any way of finding out? Is it common practice for law schools to call other law schools to verify these kind of statements?

I would say to send your UCLA offer to U Miami and see if they increase it at all, and then send the higher offer to UCLA.

[kroakstool]

When I'm negotiating, would it be a good idea to talk about my ties to the school? Like my sister is in undergrad there and both of my in-laws are alumni. Is this a good idea or would this make it seem like that is where I will end up anyways so there is no reason to offer more scholarship money?

[acadec]

When I'm negotiating, would it be a good idea to talk about my ties to the school? Like my sister is in undergrad there and both of my in-laws are alumni. Is this a good idea or would this make it seem like that is where I will end up anyways so there is no reason to offer more scholarship money?

This is something I am wondering as well. On the one hand, it makes it seem like their offer is more likely to be accepted; on the other, they might assume you're planning on attending with or without an increase. Anyone have thoughts on this?

[Cornelius]

I'm curious how people are wording certain requests. If you get more money somewhere else, the logic and request is simple - ask them to match. When you're asking the school that's already given you the highest award, though, to give you more because "a better school accepted me/gave me almost as much money" it's harder to think of what to say without saying something to that effect.

[kroakstool]

Do schools look at how much your education will actually cost you? Like if a public in-state school gives me $5k a year and an OOS private school gives me $10k a year. It'd still be more expensive to go to the private school, but would it still be a good idea to say to the public school that the higher ranked private school gave me $10k a year? Or would they say it's still cheaper to go to our school so we aren't offering anymore at this time

[Cornelius]

Do schools look at how much your education will actually cost you? Like if a public in-state school gives me $5k a year and an OOS private school gives me $10k a year. It'd still be more expensive to go to the private school, but would it still be a good idea to say to the public school that the higher ranked private school gave me $10k a year? Or would they say it's still cheaper to go to our school so we aren't offering anymore at this time

They might, but I'd ask in that manner anyway without mentioning the total cost.

[Cornelius]

Would someone who's done so in the past be willing to share, generally, what you said to negotiate with a school where the situation was basically "Your scholarship offer is the highest I've received, but these other schools that are better than you gave me almost as much." Hard to offer up any reason why they should give you more $ without putting the school down. Easy to ask schools to match higher offers, harder in this situation.

[dreamflower]

Is anyone willing to send me their negotiating letter???? I will be forever grateful/help you in any way!

You can PM me!

[kroakstool]

Is anyone willing to send me their negotiating letter???? I will be forever grateful/help you in any way!

You can PM me!

Please PM me as well

[kaveman]

Would someone who's done so in the past be willing to share, generally, what you said to negotiate with a school where the situation was basically "Your scholarship offer is the highest I've received, but these other schools that are better than you gave me almost as much." Hard to offer up any reason why they should give you more $ without putting the school down. Easy to ask schools to match higher offers, harder in this situation.

If possible, meet with them in person. Just because they're your highest offer doesn't mean you can't be unsure and/or leaning toward somewhere else, especially if the offers are close and the other schools are ranked higher.