174/3.9 at a top 20 school. What are my chances of getting a full ride at Top 10 law schools? Forum

[Mack.Hambleton]

Yea

[blueberrycrumble]

Additionally, being a Chinese student & of Chinese descent, unlike many undergraduate schools, may actually enhance your chances for admission among top law schools.

P.S. Are you willing to share your undergraduate school via PM ?

Disagree. While not nearly as negatively biased as undergrad, law school admissions do not see Chinese students in a more positive light than the average applicant. Asians are over-represented enough as it is.

With no other factors, such as a very strong unique diversity statement detailing experiences that are asian-related but not the typical middle class asian american upbringing, being asian is neutral, at best.

[Nathanael]

Full ride offers are a bit more holistic. You might get one or a few or you might not. If you are going straight through from undergrad it probably won't help your case. FWIW I had better numbers and didn't get any t10 full-ride scholarships, but I didn't apply to UVA or Penn.

[dnptan]

I agree with Mack, being Chinese is most likely a bump DOWN. For the SATs the rumor is it's equivalent to -50pts. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for the LSAT.

As for schollies, likely half at CCN and a decent shot at full in the rest.

[CanadianWolf]

It's going to depend upon the particular law school, their current class composition, & employers' requirements (for example, are firms interested in law grads with specific foreign language fluency/proficiency & cultural familiarity). As the legal markets change & expand to other countries, employers needs change as well.
Law school admissions for Asian students is not similar to college admissions simply because Asian law students in US law schools are not over-represented (although they may be at a particular law school).
(As a side note: The essay portion of the SAT college admission exam was designed in large part as an attempt to limit Asian students admission into the University of California system. The UC system was & is the largest customer of the SAT exam & it had threatened to leave if changes weren't made to the exam.)

[CanadianWolf]

I do think that one aspect needs clarification in this thread. My understanding is that OP is not American born & raised, so most likely is an international student attending a top 20 US university . Based on a prior post, OP shows schooling in the United Kingdom (UK) & is unfamiliar with the American slang (GTFO) as shown in this thread.
As Blueberry noted above, Chinese students should have a diversity statement &, as I wrote, foreign language proficiency or fluency.
I just realized that several posters in this thread seem to be under the assumption that OP is an American citizen born & raised in the US. That is not my belief, although OP hasn't been clear on this point. Nevertheless, even an American citizen with Mandarin, or even Cantonese, language fluency/proficiency should receive substantial consideration based on employers' requests/needs to address a growing market & should be able to produce a meaningful diversity statement.

[BizBro]

As others have said, you've certainly got the numbers for full rides at every school that offers merit aid (aka Not HYS).

Full ride scholarships are blackboxes and not based ONLY on numbers. Meaning your numbers are necessary but not sufficient. People have gotten full rides with lesser numbers. It will matter on the strength of your application and resume. Do you have an interesting background or work experience? I would not do NU because its 150k and you can get as much money at better schools. If anything you can negotiate scholarships anyway. I got 140k at NU just as an initial offer without ED. You'll probably see at least 75-90K worth of $$$ from CCN at the least.

I know that NYU has a number of full ride scholarships (some don't require an application) but the majority do. Look through the forum and check them out (An Bryce, Furman, RTK, Jacobson, etc). These are very competitive but attainable if you have the right story. In contrast, you can't really apply for the Hamilton at Columbia.

[joon]

Which is why they don't prefer over represented students..

I understand that being Asian may be bad, but I don't think any T14 law school is overrepresented with asians

[Stillblade]

Which is why they don't prefer over represented students..

I understand that being Asian may be bad, but I don't think any T14 law school is overrepresented with asians

You have to remember that when they talk about "over-representation" in law schools they mean the percentage of Asians in a class compared to the percentage of Asians if the U.S. as a whole. With there being less than 5% Asians in the country, we're definitely over-represented in law schools. However, I don't think it's as major a factor in law school admissions considering that Asians don't head to law school at the rates we head to, say, medical school.