Waitlist and receiving money? Forum

[mjb77]

Does anyone know the likelihood of receiving a scholarship or financial aid after being admitted off the waitlist? Does anyone have a story of this happening to them? Also, does writing a strong letter of continued interest that states an applicant will attend if admitted, hurt a student's chances of receiving money?

[dropout]

It is possible to get significant scholarship money off of the waitlist. Check out lawschoolnumbers to get an idea of what similar applicants are getting in terms of scholarships. These are base primarily on numbers.
Writing a strong loci indicating you preference for the school will not hurt your chances of receiving a scholarship

[albanach]

It is possible to get significant scholarship money off of the waitlist. Check out lawschoolnumbers to get an idea of what similar applicants are getting in terms of scholarships. These are base primarily on numbers.
Writing a strong loci indicating you preference for the school will not hurt your chances of receiving a scholarship

This seems speculative. I don't see any hard evidence that waitlisted candidates are getting similar money to those, even if similarly situated in terms of numbers, were accepted earlier.

Typically schools have a budget for scholarships. At any good school, that is long since allocated. The only way new money would open up is if a candidate with a scholarship (and who has already paid seat fees by this point) decides to withdraw.

The general consensus for a good many years is that the easiest way to get accepted and maximize your scholarship is to apply and be accepted early.

That's not to say it doesn't happen at all. There are certainly instances where people have reported success. However, you have to think about why you would be waitlisted in the first place - did you apply too late but with good numbers? In that case you might have luck, should an accepted student drop out freeing up dollars and you're the most qualified on the list. If you were waitlisted because of yield protection, a spot opens up, and the school is confident you will accept (perhaps through your LOCI and conversations with adcomms) then dollars are possible - the school will recognize there's no chance of you attending without them because you could just as easily go elsewhere with money. If, however, you were waitlisted because your numbers aren't great for the school, then where's the incentive to pay you to attend, assuming the school is good enough to fill the spot with someone else paying sticker?

Now, bear in mind that at some lower ranked schools, next to no-one is paying full tuition. Check LST for stats on that. E.g. CWRU has 6% of the class paying sticker. At a school where almost everyone gets a "scholarship" you might be offered dollars from the waitlist, but likely all that's happening is you're paying at the upper end of what everyone else is paying.

[dropout]

Back in 2012 I was waitlisted at Emory and after getting off the waitlist i received a scholarship offer that was actually marginally better than other students with the same numbers who had been accepted right away. This is just one instance though so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, to get in i visited the school and cleared up concerns on my application, so maybe i was an exception in that i was an unusual applicant. But, it can happen. I was given my offer in march of 2012

[mjb77]

Thank you all. This was very helpful.