Texas Law Class of 2019 Forum

[FairchildFLT]

I couldn't make the ASW this past week due to work but I'd love to hear about what those of you who could make it thought!

I literally can not think of a single thing they could have done better. The panels which described the faculty selection criteria including both fantastic scholarship and genuine love for teaching, the discussion of how the class size has been cut in half in recent years without a similar decrease in resources, the employment roundtable where they described in detail the excellent employment numbers we all should know, the engaging mock class with Professor Strong (on Queen v. Dudley & Stevens), the student acapella group performing during the luncheon, the tasty Mexican vanilla ice cream at the social, the story of Dean Farnsworth (the steer, not the scholar) etc, etc.

Here's what sold me, though--The People. We had a chance to interact with current students. Not the ones paid to talk to us, I mean the unbiased kids we saw walking to class or playing pool in the lounge or drinking brews at the local establishments. All those students were beyond friendly, smiling, willing to answer our questions, and unquestionable happy with their decision to attend Texas Law. Perhaps more importantly, I had the chance to meet and speak with probably 90% of the fellow admitted students. There were a couple of gunners and an akward kid or too, but hey those are necessary ingredients in the stew of law school. The point, however, is that, overall, I'm super impressed with the incoming class. If anyone here was Greek, you will know how important vibing with the other incoming students is. Those are the people you will spending all your time with.

After visiting I switched poll options from 75% to 90% and, I believe, it's all over but the negotation.

What really surprised me was the number of students who wanted to go out of state after graduation (at least 1/3 maybe 1/2 of students raised their hands for planning on ending up out of state) as well as the lack of people who indicated they were interested in Biglaw.

[Olliedemars]

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[BigTex]

I couldn't make the ASW this past week due to work but I'd love to hear about what those of you who could make it thought!

I literally can not think of a single thing they could have done better. The panels which described the faculty selection criteria including both fantastic scholarship and genuine love for teaching, the discussion of how the class size has been cut in half in recent years without a similar decrease in resources, the employment roundtable where they described in detail the excellent employment numbers we all should know, the engaging mock class with Professor Strong (on Queen v. Dudley & Stevens), the student acapella group performing during the luncheon, the tasty Mexican vanilla ice cream at the social, the story of Dean Farnsworth (the steer, not the scholar) etc, etc.

Here's what sold me, though--The People. We had a chance to interact with current students. Not the ones paid to talk to us, I mean the unbiased kids we saw walking to class or playing pool in the lounge or drinking brews at the local establishments. All those students were beyond friendly, smiling, willing to answer our questions, and unquestionable happy with their decision to attend Texas Law. Perhaps more importantly, I had the chance to meet and speak with probably 90% of the fellow admitted students. There were a couple of gunners and an akward kid or too, but hey those are necessary ingredients in the stew of law school. The point, however, is that, overall, I'm super impressed with the incoming class. If anyone here was Greek, you will know how important vibing with the other incoming students is. Those are the people you will spending all your time with.

After visiting I switched poll options from 75% to 90% and, I believe, it's all over but the negotation.

This is really great to hear. I've been 90% since I got accepted, with my one major hangup being the size of UT Law causing the community to be somewhat cold and impersonal relative to other schools. So it's a huge boost to read your account of interactions with both current and incoming students and the sense of overall community you got on your visit. I'm hoping to make it for the half-day ASD so I can experience it for myself. Really appreciate the feedback!

[BigTex]

Anyone have any clue as to whether financial aid is still being worked through and sent out? I haven't heard and can't tell if I was just passed over (was admitted 2/6). Would like to know so I can approach with my other offers to negotiate for at least something small but I'm not sure if I'd be jumping the gun at this point.

[kirby]

Anyone have any clue as to whether financial aid is still being worked through and sent out? I haven't heard and can't tell if I was just passed over (was admitted 2/6). Would like to know so I can approach with my other offers to negotiate for at least something small but I'm not sure if I'd be jumping the gun at this point.

I was admitted 2/16 and I also have not heard back about financial aid. I called the financial aid office earlier this week to ask for an update, and they said that they are still working on finalizing the student budget for the 2016-2017 school year. The rep I spoke with said that they have not sent any financial aid awards out to anyone because of this bottleneck, but they expect to send out financial aid awards by the end of March or the first week of April.

But I am confused because several of the other admits at ASW told me they had already heard back about scholarship and financial aid info from the school, including some OOS admits being offered in-state tuition. I raised this point with the rep on the phone and she reiterated that this is incorrect because they have not sent any financial aid awards to anyone.

However, the rep then pointed me to this page on their website where you can download a form for "Scholarship Reconsideration": https://law.utexas.edu/admissions/finan ... d/support/. The instructions for the form mention "If The University of Texas School of Law is one of your top choices and you feel that our financial aid package is not sufficient to enable your enrollment, you may request a one-time review of your scholarship offer. This limited matching opportunity will consider scholarship offers from similarly ranked schools along with other factors such as merit and need."

So my question is: if they have not sent out financial aid information to anyone, then why did she point me to this form that appears to have a prerequisite that you have already received a financial aid award from the school?

[BigTex]

Anyone have any clue as to whether financial aid is still being worked through and sent out? I haven't heard and can't tell if I was just passed over (was admitted 2/6). Would like to know so I can approach with my other offers to negotiate for at least something small but I'm not sure if I'd be jumping the gun at this point.

I was admitted 2/16 and I also have not heard back about financial aid. I called the financial aid office earlier this week to ask for an update, and they said that they are still working on finalizing the student budget for the 2016-2017 school year. The rep I spoke with said that they have not sent any financial aid awards out to anyone because of this bottleneck, but they expect to send out financial aid awards by the end of March or the first week of April.

But I am confused because several of the other admits at ASW told me they had already heard back about scholarship and financial aid info from the school, including some OOS admits being offered in-state tuition. I raised this point with the rep on the phone and she reiterated that this is incorrect because they have not sent any financial aid awards to anyone.

However, the rep then pointed me to this page on their website where you can download a form for "Scholarship Reconsideration": https://law.utexas.edu/admissions/finan ... d/support/. The instructions for the form mention "If The University of Texas School of Law is one of your top choices and you feel that our financial aid package is not sufficient to enable your enrollment, you may request a one-time review of your scholarship offer. This limited matching opportunity will consider scholarship offers from similarly ranked schools along with other factors such as merit and need."

So my question is: if they have not sent out financial aid information to anyone, then why did she point me to this form that appears to have a prerequisite that you have already received a financial aid award from the school?

Interesting... Thanks for the info. I talked with a financial aid rep when I did a campus tour and class visit a few weeks back. Earlier in the visit, someone in admissions had told me they were still working through scholarships so I didn't ask the financial aid rep. We talked about FAFSA, continuing ed reconsideration, etc. But then he too pointed me to the scholarship reconsideration form which, like you, I found odd if scholarships hadn't been sent out. He also told me to look for scholarships posted on the admitted students Facebook page (which have all been extremely specific and inapplicable to me).

Considering that the reconsideration form is a one shot thing, I don't want to fire that shot too early. It's getting pretty late in the game now so I'm just starting to get uneasy about being somewhat in the dark.

I'll re-enter wait-and-see mode until early April I guess

[mornincounselor]

I believe many (most? all?) of the people who have heard of scholarships either received minimal 1k scholarships (i.e. just the in-state waiver) or else were rolled over from ED and given less than the 10k.

So, I don't think the reps you talked to were wrong necessarily. If they said late March or early April I would take them on their word and not be worried if a few others have heard back already.

[FairchildFLT]

I believe many (most? all?) of the people who have heard of scholarships either received minimal 1k scholarships (i.e. just the in-state waiver) or else were rolled over from ED and given less than the 10k.

So, I don't think the reps you talked to were wrong necessarily. If they said late March or early April I would take them on their word and not be worried if a few others have heard back already.

Not all. My scholarship is larger than that.

[James.K.Polk]

Successfully negotiated my scholarship up; feel free to PM.

[BigTex]

Update: got my scholarship today and pretty much sealed the deal. Planning on making it to the Apr. 1 half day ASD. Hope everyone else gets their good news!

[JuliusCaesar]

I'm just wanting to make sure, there is no form to submit (like cornell's or georgetown) or anything I need to do other than Fafsa in order to receive the initial merit/need based scholarship consideration, correct?

[Olliedemars]

I'm just wanting to make sure, there is no form to submit (like cornell's or georgetown) or anything I need to do other than Fafsa in order to receive the initial merit/need based scholarship consideration, correct?

Nope, no form needed.

[Gtr411]

Hi guys. Do you know what the expected attire is at the mini visit?

[BillClinton Jr]

Just for those of you considering negotiating, especially the out of state people: Texas initially offered me $0 then I negotiated and got $45,000 total in scholly money and instate tuition as an exemption so the total value of the scholarship $93,000. Good luck and keep hope alive.

[alice1990]

Just for those of you considering negotiating, especially the out of state people: Texas initially offered me $0 then I negotiated and got $45,000 total in scholly money and instate tuition as an exemption so the total value of the scholarship $93,000. Good luck and keep hope alive.

Gosh that's good to know! I got a much lower offer than I was expecting - in-state exemption (for which I already qualified thanks to the military ) and 1K a year! So I'm defo going to try and negotiate some. Can I ask what your stats are if you don't mind? And how did you go about approaching the issue with them?

[Olliedemars]

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[FairchildFLT]

Has anyone heard about financial aid? I've got my scholarship information, but nothing about FAFSA.

[sollos]

Has anyone heard about financial aid? I've got my scholarship information, but nothing about FAFSA.

I don't believe that sort of stuff has gone out yet.

[FairchildFLT]

Has anyone heard about financial aid? I've got my scholarship information, but nothing about FAFSA.

I don't believe that sort of stuff has gone out yet.

Maria Rivera confirmed a few months back that the first batch had gone out. I'm just wondering if any other batches have been released.

[sollos]

Has anyone heard about financial aid? I've got my scholarship information, but nothing about FAFSA.

I don't believe that sort of stuff has gone out yet.

Maria Rivera confirmed a few months back that the first batch had gone out. I'm just wondering if any other batches have been released.

It's not clear to me that she was referring to financial aid proper, that is, need-based financial aid, but rather merit based scholarship. Who knows, I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anyone report actually receiving need-based financial aid yet. And personally, I was admitted pretty early on, Dec. 8th, had my FAFSA submitted fairly early too, around Jan 15th, and haven't heard anything.

[RonMexico2015]

What kind of piece should I bring on the first day of class? I know law school is about tradition so I was thinking a revolver

[nomad12]

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[Olliedemars]

What kind of piece should I bring on the first day of class? I know law school is about tradition so I was thinking a revolver

A tip of the hat to this post.

[gazorpazorp]

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[20171203]

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