Top Law Schools

Hi,

First time poster here. I've read the thread on the scholarships given by the T14, but I would like to distinguish between "full tuition" and "full-ride" - the latter being an award of the full cost of attendance, including cost of living. Do any schools in the T13 grant such financial aid? How about schools in whatever the next "tier" of prestige may be - perhaps top 25? In terms of need, I have no income and basically no savings, and I over 30 years old, so I think my parental resources won't be counted. In terms of merit, I have a 4.00 undergrad GPA, a Bachelor's and a Master's in Computer Engineering, and a couple years of work experience in the software industry.

Also, I am just now beginning my law school considerations. I have not taken the LSAT, and it is already too late to sign up for the Sept. 2017 LSAT, so I would have to wait until the December 2017 LSAT. Would that make it too late to have a chance of receiving the type of aid about which i asked above (for admission in fall 2018)?

Any replies would be appreciated.

Thanks.

To speak to the timing, I took the December test and applied in January. I had a decent cycle but definitely could have benefited from applying earlier. That being said, I was a reverse splitter and had an at or below medium LSAT for many of the t-13. I ultimately got into my top school with money, but I definitely should have applied earlier. Or gotten a slightly higher lsat.

TL;DR - could be okay so long as you do well!

I'm not sure there are any law schools out there that provide full-ride scholarships as you've described. Most of the T13 have some sort of named full tuition scholarship, and some go a bit beyond full tuition (IIRC Michigan's Darrow can come with a stipend). But I'm not aware of any law schools that provide a large enough stipend to cover all your other living expenses while in school.

No need to distinguish, because your "full-ride" doesn't exist. Some schools offer full scholarships with a minimal stipend, but it's never the full COL in an area.

I've personally never heard of a school that offers a stipend that truly covers COL. However, I was able to cover my full COL by getting another outside scholarship for 10k per year. It can be done.

Ah ok, thank you for the replies. The stipend part of Michigan's Darrow did catch my eye, but it appears it does not cover the full cost of living. I didn't see a mention of any stipends for any of the rest of the T13. However, at http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... p?t=244769 , it appears there are possibilities for more than full tuition at Chicago, Penn, UVA, Berkeley, and Northwestern? Does anyone have info on that?

As for outside scholarships, I thought law schools would simply subtract the amounts of any outside scholarships from the awards they give you. But maybe I'm incorrectly applying Yale's policy to all other schools? For example, at Yale, if you were originally going to be awarded a $50K grant but then received an outside $10K scholarship, Yale would simply reduce the amount of its own grant to $40K.

I ask these questions now because I think I would not attend law school if I cannot find scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance. If such scholarships don't exist, I suppose I need not put any effort into taking the LSAT.

All help is appreciated.

PanjandrumOfReason wrote:I ask these questions now because I think I would not attend law school if I cannot find scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance. If such scholarships don't exist, I suppose I need not put any effort into taking the LSAT.

Well, that's pretty absurd. Why would you make your attendance contingent on that?

Even in NYC, a full-tuition scholarship leaves you approximately $60k in debt, which is easily paid off with the kinds of jobs available to T13 grads.

Lol that's a bit much to say you don't have to worry about the LSAT, because there is no "full ride" to the T13 schools. If I were you, I'd study alot for the test and see how I do before I commit to applying this cycle. If you don't put any effort into the LSAT, you could very well have no viable options for matriculating in 2018

Iirc, Rubies have a ~$45k living stipend, which should get you pretty damn close with some budgeting.

PanjandrumOfReason wrote:Hi,

First time poster here. I've read the thread on the scholarships given by the T14, but I would like to distinguish between "full tuition" and "full-ride" - the latter being an award of the full cost of attendance, including cost of living. Do any schools in the T13 grant such financial aid? How about schools in whatever the next "tier" of prestige may be - perhaps top 25? In terms of need, I have no income and basically no savings, and I over 30 years old, so I think my parental resources won't be counted. In terms of merit, I have a 4.00 undergrad GPA, a Bachelor's and a Master's in Computer Engineering, and a couple years of work experience in the software industry.

Also, I am just now beginning my law school considerations. I have not taken the LSAT, and it is already too late to sign up for the Sept. 2017 LSAT, so I would have to wait until the December 2017 LSAT. Would that make it too late to have a chance of receiving the type of aid about which i asked above (for admission in fall 2018)?

Any replies would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Just curious, how do you have a BS and MS in Comp Sci and no income?

Gordon_Cole wrote:

PanjandrumOfReason wrote:Hi,

First time poster here. I've read the thread on the scholarships given by the T14, but I would like to distinguish between "full tuition" and "full-ride" - the latter being an award of the full cost of attendance, including cost of living. Do any schools in the T13 grant such financial aid? How about schools in whatever the next "tier" of prestige may be - perhaps top 25? In terms of need, I have no income and basically no savings, and I over 30 years old, so I think my parental resources won't be counted. In terms of merit, I have a 4.00 undergrad GPA, a Bachelor's and a Master's in Computer Engineering, and a couple years of work experience in the software industry.

Also, I am just now beginning my law school considerations. I have not taken the LSAT, and it is already too late to sign up for the Sept. 2017 LSAT, so I would have to wait until the December 2017 LSAT. Would that make it too late to have a chance of receiving the type of aid about which i asked above (for admission in fall 2018)?

Any replies would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Just curious, how do you have a BS and MS in Comp Sci and no income?

Wanted to ask the same thing along with how do you have no savings with multiple years of work experience in software engineering given your credentials? I did the same route (except EE) and I'm sitting comfortably after just a year out of school

PanjandrumOfReason wrote: In terms of need...

FYI- no need-based scholarships with ever come close to a full ride because no one needs to go to a professional school and have all of their living expenses paid for. There is a certain amount of debt need-based scholarships would expect you to be able to take on to go to a professional school. If your need is so high that you cannot pay for or take on debt for food, housing, etc, I think there are social programs (low income housing, food stamps, etc) that you would be expected to turn to. If you cannot take advantage of those programs because of your status as student, "no one needs to go to a professional school and have all of their living expenses paid for. There is a certain amount of debt need-based scholarships would expect you to be able to take on to go to a professional school."

So, in order to get a full ride, you'll be entirely dependent on merit-based scholarships.

To answer the questions about my situation, I have worked 2.5 years, but have been out of school for 8 years. I have no income because I voluntarily departed my previous position in search of a more desirable line of work, which I ultimately failed to achieve . I have no more savings because I have been searching for that gig for several years - while living comfortably off my savings . I guess another good question to ask at this point would be about what effect my gap in employment would have on my chances for financial aid or even admission.

PanjandrumOfReason wrote:To answer the questions about my situation, I have worked 2.5 years, but have been out of school for 8 years. I have no income because I voluntarily departed my previous position in search of a more desirable line of work, which I ultimately failed to achieve . I have no more savings because I have been searching for that gig for several years - while living comfortably off my savings . I guess another good question to ask at this point would be about what effect my gap in employment would have on my chances for financial aid or even admission.

Admission to most law schools is primarily numbers-based, so if you could add an LSAT score in the high 160s or better to your perfect UGPA, I'd normally say you're golden for the T13 no matter what your resume looks like. Tbh though that's a pretty weird story — I've certainly never met anyone at my T13 who spent so many years unemployed. Do you have anything else plausible you can say you were doing for all those years? Or were you just straight up unemployed for years on end with perfectly good computer engineering degrees?

.

Platopus wrote:

radio1nowhere wrote:

PanjandrumOfReason wrote:To answer the questions about my situation, I have worked 2.5 years, but have been out of school for 8 years. I have no income because I voluntarily departed my previous position in search of a more desirable line of work, which I ultimately failed to achieve . I have no more savings because I have been searching for that gig for several years - while living comfortably off my savings . I guess another good question to ask at this point would be about what effect my gap in employment would have on my chances for financial aid or even admission.

Admission to most law schools is primarily numbers-based, so if you could add an LSAT score in the high 160s or better to your perfect UGPA, I'd normally say you're golden for the T13 no matter what your resume looks like. Tbh though that's a pretty weird story — I've certainly never met anyone at my T13 who spent so many years unemployed. Do you have anything else plausible you can say you were doing for all those years? Or were you just straight up unemployed for years on end with perfectly good computer engineering degrees?

I think have having a multiple year gap on a resume would be an extreme red flag, especially if OP was actively searching for work. I would expect this to very negatively affect admissions prospects, and more importantly future job prospects after graduation. If I am reading this correctly, OP has effectively been unemployed for 5 1/2 years...? Sure, a couple of months is excusable, especially if it was immediately after graduation or some other life-altering event, but 5 1/2 years for no other reason than OP couldn't find a job is going to sink his/her applications, regardless of his/her scores.

Thus why I was wondering if OP had something to show for what (s)he was doing for all that time, even if it's not paid employment. Maybe if OP was traveling the region playing in bars with a crappy band trying to make it big, or writing novels that never ended up getting picked up, there'd still be some chance..

Platopus wrote:

radio1nowhere wrote:

PanjandrumOfReason wrote:To answer the questions about my situation, I have worked 2.5 years, but have been out of school for 8 years. I have no income because I voluntarily departed my previous position in search of a more desirable line of work, which I ultimately failed to achieve . I have no more savings because I have been searching for that gig for several years - while living comfortably off my savings . I guess another good question to ask at this point would be about what effect my gap in employment would have on my chances for financial aid or even admission.

Admission to most law schools is primarily numbers-based, so if you could add an LSAT score in the high 160s or better to your perfect UGPA, I'd normally say you're golden for the T13 no matter what your resume looks like. Tbh though that's a pretty weird story — I've certainly never met anyone at my T13 who spent so many years unemployed. Do you have anything else plausible you can say you were doing for all those years? Or were you just straight up unemployed for years on end with perfectly good computer engineering degrees?

I think have having a multiple year gap on a resume would be an extreme red flag, especially if OP was actively searching for work. I would expect this to very negatively affect admissions prospects, and more importantly future job prospects after graduation. If I am reading this correctly, OP has effectively been unemployed for 5 1/2 years...? Sure, a couple of months is excusable, especially if it was immediately after graduation or some other life-altering event, but 5 1/2 years for no other reason than OP couldn't find a job is going to sink his/her applications, regardless of his/her scores.

Yeah, I think this is getting weirder the more info we get. I would have serious questions for anyone with two perfectly good engineering degrees who was more than capable of working an engineering job for a couple of years and then just said f*** it I want to do something different and then took a 5 year vacation.

OP, what school did you go to? (wondering if your CpE degrees are actually worth the 4.0 they sound like)

It's not US News T14, but according to ATL rankings, Vanderbilt is 11. From what I've seen they've given out some full ride (tuition plus living stipend) scholarships in recent years, though OP's background may make that unlikely.