I have no freaking idea where to go. Forum

[crayonsinorange]

Here's the list of all my acceptances and scholarships: lawschoolnumbers.com/crayonsinorange

I'm currently in the SF Bay Area, where all my family is from. Other than that, I have no location preference. I can't decide if I want to do big law or not after graduation, but I do want to pursue public interest law in the future. Any and all thoughts are appreciated.

[d373]

Congrats -- those are some great options.

I'd pick NYU in your shoes but the sticker cost is intimidating. If you want to do public interest than they have a good LRAP. But I would take a run at getting all the T14s you got into to give you some money (maybe to at least match the Cornell offer). Also, if you want to be in the Bay obviously best case is that you get off the waitlist at Berkeley or Stanford.

Also, if you want more advice I'd post the results in your post rather just the LSN link.

[ExperssioUnius]

I second the idea of trying to leverage your money offers at USC/UCLA/Cornell to get some of the other T-14 schools to give you some money. This is common and works more than you'd think.

The USC offer looks very tempting, especially if you want to practice in California. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to go with UVA. They have a very strong criminal law faculty and a good setup for public interest plus the cost of living in Charlottesville is a lot lower than New York City so the overall price of attending is considerably less than NYU.

[Greenlanpern]

I have similar numbers to you. I got into NYU (in August via WL!!!) w/20k per year by explaining my financial circumstances in a letter and then appealing. I also sent them my cornell 75k offer and northwestern 60k. What I'm saying is explain the totality of your circumstances and include any possible thing that would make you look poor. I'm pretty sure this scholarship was need based only, but theres no telling what it actually was, since the merit and need comes from the same pot and were dealing with a black box.