Top Law Schools

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My top choices are Berkeley, UCLA, and USC (of course Stanford is the dream). Clearly I want to work in California, but I probably won't qualify for any need based aid, so I'm hoping to get any merit aid that I can. Fortunately, I also have no undergraduate debt.

I plan on applying to a wide range of schools, from Stanford to Boston University. I am not currently applying to Cornell, Texas, or Vandy; however, I received fee waivers from all of these schools and after reading this topic, I feel like I should apply to the schools in a similar bracket of some of my top choices (this applies mainly to UCLA and USC for me, since I'm also applying to Michigan, Penn, UVA, and Duke, which would be Berkeley's main competitors).

Do any of you think it's worth $63 to extend my list from 13 schools to 16? I'd only be applying to try and secure money to use it as leverage assuming I'm admitted to UCLA or USC.

My numbers are: 168, 3.97. Double major, double minor, still in undergrad. Non URM.

Thanks!!

JohnMarshall17 wrote:My top choices are Berkeley, UCLA, and USC (of course Stanford is the dream). Clearly I want to work in California, but I probably won't qualify for any need based aid, so I'm hoping to get any merit aid that I can. Fortunately, I also have no undergraduate debt.

I plan on applying to a wide range of schools, from Stanford to Boston University. I am not currently applying to Cornell, Texas, or Vandy; however, I received fee waivers from all of these schools and after reading this topic, I feel like I should apply to the schools in a similar bracket of some of my top choices (this applies mainly to UCLA and USC for me, since I'm also applying to Michigan, Penn, UVA, and Duke, which would be Berkeley's main competitors).

Do any of you think it's worth $63 to extend my list from 13 schools to 16? I'd only be applying to try and secure money to use it as leverage assuming I'm admitted to UCLA or USC.

My numbers are: 168, 3.97. Double major, double minor, still in undergrad. Non URM.

Thanks!!

I'm of the thought that $63 is a worthwhile gamble if it even has a chance of helping your scholarship... Even though in this case I'm not going to give you great odds of it paying off.

chrisbru wrote:

JohnMarshall17 wrote:My top choices are Berkeley, UCLA, and USC (of course Stanford is the dream). Clearly I want to work in California, but I probably won't qualify for any need based aid, so I'm hoping to get any merit aid that I can. Fortunately, I also have no undergraduate debt.

I plan on applying to a wide range of schools, from Stanford to Boston University. I am not currently applying to Cornell, Texas, or Vandy; however, I received fee waivers from all of these schools and after reading this topic, I feel like I should apply to the schools in a similar bracket of some of my top choices (this applies mainly to UCLA and USC for me, since I'm also applying to Michigan, Penn, UVA, and Duke, which would be Berkeley's main competitors).

Do any of you think it's worth $63 to extend my list from 13 schools to 16? I'd only be applying to try and secure money to use it as leverage assuming I'm admitted to UCLA or USC.

My numbers are: 168, 3.97. Double major, double minor, still in undergrad. Non URM.

Thanks!!

I'm of the thought that $63 is a worthwhile gamble if it even has a chance of helping your scholarship... Even though in this case I'm not going to give you great odds of it paying off.

What do you mean?

JohnMarshall17 wrote:
What do you mean?

I mean that I don't anticipate one of those schools giving you a scholarship big enough to negotiate with your preferred schools... However, the $63 is probably worth spending to find out.

tl;dr

JohnMarshall17 wrote:My top choices are Berkeley, UCLA, and USC (of course Stanford is the dream). Clearly I want to work in California, but I probably won't qualify for any need based aid, so I'm hoping to get any merit aid that I can. Fortunately, I also have no undergraduate debt.

I plan on applying to a wide range of schools, from Stanford to Boston University. I am not currently applying to Cornell, Texas, or Vandy; however, I received fee waivers from all of these schools and after reading this topic, I feel like I should apply to the schools in a similar bracket of some of my top choices (this applies mainly to UCLA and USC for me, since I'm also applying to Michigan, Penn, UVA, and Duke, which would be Berkeley's main competitors).

Do any of you think it's worth $63 to extend my list from 13 schools to 16? I'd only be applying to try and secure money to use it as leverage assuming I'm admitted to UCLA or USC.

My numbers are: 168, 3.97. Double major, double minor, still in undergrad. Non URM.

Thanks!!

the ideal situation is playing UCLA and USC off against each other

First, thanks OP very much for the helpful info, I'm a total newcomer to this kind of thing (it feels a bit awkward more-or-less just asking for money... but it's something I could definitely use / worth it), and your post gives a very nice overview.

Still, I had a few general questions that I didn't see from briefly scanning the thread / searching (again, sorry if these are considered common knowledge on TLS):

1) When is the best time to begin negotiating? Is earlier necessarily better? Should I wait until I have all offers in front of me, or should I begin when I have a nice scholly offer from one of my higher-ranked choices to "wave in front" of the other schools?

2) Do all schools consider the rankings important? If I have a half-scholarship from a T25 school, would it be appropriate to use this to negotiate further with a T2 generally-regional school, or will T2 school be likely not to care very much about a school outside of their peer group / region?

3) Is a scholarship offer from a school that has a reputation to give out $$$ much more liberally therefore less valuable, even if it's fairly ranked? (i.e. WUSTL and UMN generally give out more $$, would using an offer from one of them be less likely to garner interest than even a more modest offer from a peer school?

I'm probably looking too much into this, but I just want to be appropriate and tactful as well as get as best offers as possible. If anyone has any wisdom they'd like to share, it'd be much appreciated!

tag

Granfalloon12 wrote:First, thanks OP very much for the helpful info, I'm a total newcomer to this kind of thing (it feels a bit awkward more-or-less just asking for money... but it's something I could definitely use / worth it), and your post gives a very nice overview.

Still, I had a few general questions that I didn't see from briefly scanning the thread / searching (again, sorry if these are considered common knowledge on TLS):

1) When is the best time to begin negotiating? Is earlier necessarily better? Should I wait until I have all offers in front of me, or should I begin when I have a nice scholly offer from one of my higher-ranked choices to "wave in front" of the other schools?

2) Do all schools consider the rankings important? If I have a half-scholarship from a T25 school, would it be appropriate to use this to negotiate further with a T2 generally-regional school, or will T2 school be likely not to care very much about a school outside of their peer group / region?

3) Is a scholarship offer from a school that has a reputation to give out $$$ much more liberally therefore less valuable, even if it's fairly ranked? (i.e. WUSTL and UMN generally give out more $$, would using an offer from one of them be less likely to garner interest than even a more modest offer from a peer school?

I'm probably looking too much into this, but I just want to be appropriate and tactful as well as get as best offers as possible. If anyone has any wisdom they'd like to share, it'd be much appreciated!

I asked within a month of my acceptance. I only said that while the school is my top choice, I was worried about costs, especially in light of scholarship offers I received from other schools. I ended up with a significant increase without mentioning the other schools or amounts.

Keep in mind that it's about competition. For example, UCLA won't care what Pepperdine offers, but will take note of anything USC offers. In the same vein, if you wrote a compelling "why UCLA" essay, they might not consider a WUSTL offer particularly threatening, but if a candidate gave no indication they cared, a UT offer might get them to reconsider.

Truth of the matter is they know how much they're willing to pay for what scores and while they'll probably lowball the initial offer, there's only so much you can extract out of them. Whether or not a competing school is known for giving out a lot of money has no bearing - either they believe you that they need to up the scholly or they don't - a great example is Fordham, which doesn't have a lot of cash compared to its peers (BU/BC/GW) and often can't match their offers even though it'd like to

If your numbers are above both 75%, you should be able to extract a lot, while being at both medians you might not get much. Use this board to see how other people fare and try to figure out how much people with similar numbers get.

Does anybody know what kinds of schools work best for negotiating merit aid with NYU? Will Penn or UVA work, or does it have to be higher ranked?

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Tagging for (near) future interest

nickb285 wrote:If a school has given you a time frame for scholarship offers, would it be poor form to bring up the topic before that time? When I got the acceptance call to my first choice school, the dean informed me that scholarship information would be going out in the first week or two of March. Considering that seat deposits start coming due in early April, I'm not sure this will give me enough time for the negotiation process--I'm willing to put down a couple of seat deposits if I have to, but I'd rather just be able to make the decision. Should I email them later this month, or would that just be obnoxious?

Negotiating for me took all of one day. I emailed them asking for more money and the next day they upped their offer (to the maximum). It's not exactly rocket science.

Fair enough. Just seems like I've read posts from people who were negotiating for months.

nickb285 wrote:Fair enough. Just seems like I've read posts from people who were negotiating for months.

either they (candidate or school) weren't very responsive, or the candidate wasn't that strong. I was clearly a strong candidate, negotiating at a very responsive school, so that made a difference. I also made it very clear that if they gave me enough aid I would probably attend.

ph5354a wrote:Does anybody know what kinds of schools work best for negotiating merit aid with NYU? Will Penn or UVA work, or does it have to be higher ranked?

I too would like to know this. From what I've gleaned on this site, it seems like CCN does not negotiate often with offers outside its "tier" and not even much across it, but anyone else's insight would be appreciated!

jubee wrote:

ph5354a wrote:Does anybody know what kinds of schools work best for negotiating merit aid with NYU? Will Penn or UVA work, or does it have to be higher ranked?

I too would like to know this. From what I've gleaned on this site, it seems like CCN does not negotiate often with offers outside its "tier" and not even much across it, but anyone else's insight would be appreciated!

For what it's worth, what I've learned since is that Chicago or HYS can be useful in negotiating --definitely nothing ranked below NYU, and even Columbia may not be too helpful since NYU and Columbia don't like negotiating against each other. Seems like once you get to the T6, you almost have to take what you can get.

dingbat wrote:

nickb285 wrote:Fair enough. Just seems like I've read posts from people who were negotiating for months.

either they (candidate or school) weren't very responsive, or the candidate wasn't that strong. I was clearly a strong candidate, negotiating at a very responsive school, so that made a difference. I also made it very clear that if they gave me enough aid I would probably attend.

Did you use another school's offer to negotiate or did you just ask for an increase based on wanting to attend?

danitt wrote:

dingbat wrote:

nickb285 wrote:Fair enough. Just seems like I've read posts from people who were negotiating for months.

either they (candidate or school) weren't very responsive, or the candidate wasn't that strong. I was clearly a strong candidate, negotiating at a very responsive school, so that made a difference. I also made it very clear that if they gave me enough aid I would probably attend.

Did you use another school's offer to negotiate or did you just ask for an increase based on wanting to attend?

I just said that I really like the school but that cost was a serious consideration, especially considering some other offers that I had received.

I did not say what those offers were (did not mention amount or school)

does anyone know what law schools usually say to decline a request for (more) merit aid?

also, can law schools retract their offers?

username101 wrote:does anyone know what law schools usually say to decline a request for (more) merit aid?

they generally say that they can't offer you more. The language varies from adcom to adcom

username101 wrote:also, can law schools retract their offers?

Yes, they can, whenever they want for whatever they want. If you ask for more money, they will not retract your offer (but you should couch it with words like maybe, possibly, probably, etc. to create some ambiguity, which helps the negotiating process anyway), but if you lie to them, or you go ham on someone, or in some other manner show that you have a personality defect, then they might retract their offer. (this is especially true for violating early decision agreements)

Does anyone have any experience with using a Stanford acceptance as leverage for $$ with NYU or Columbia? My chances at S are higher than H but I'm sure I won't actually get any money there.

Would a 30k/yr scholarship from a higher ranking school have any effect on a school like Univ of Hawaii in negotiation? I have absolutely no scholarship info from them, and they haven't given me a snail mail acceptance (I don't know if they even do that).

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