Dear AO,
When a law school gives an offer to an applicant, how long does the applicant have to decide to accept the offer? Is it the same as the seat deposit deadline? How much does the decision deadline vary between schools? I am wondering how long I would have to make my decision, wait for other offers to come in, do scholarship negotiation, etc.
Signed,
MichiganMan
Dear MichiganMan,
First, thank you for your questions!
To be honest, you already know the answers. Applicants accept their offer of admission by paying the seat deposit by the deadline. The regular decision deposit deadline varies from school to school and is usually between April 1 and May 1. Some schools’ deadlines may be later. Early decision seat deposit deadlines will vary depending on the law school and are usually due before April 1.
If you have not been admitted to your top choice law school, or you are waiting on a scholarship offer, you may have to put down more than one deposit to save your seat. Another option is to ask for an extension of the deposit deadline. This may be more difficult for a law school to do, but you should at least ask. Law schools have been known to give an extension for a week or two.
Another thing about deposits is to pay attention to the law school’s rules before paying the deposit. A school may request that you withdraw from other law schools to which you have been admitted before paying their deposit. However, a law school should not request that you withdraw from schools at which you are waitlisted. Lastly, you should keep track of each law school’s deposit deadline. If you miss paying the deposit by the deadline, you will be removed from the class and it may be difficult to get back in. If this does happen, and you really want to attend that law school, always ask to be reinstated. The worst thing they can do is say no.
I hope this is helpful!
Warmly,
Dr. Riley
Dear AO,
I have a handful of scholarships from Notre Dame (~100k), U Texas (~50k), Minnesota (~150k+), and Michigan (~100k). I recently got accepted into U Penn and am still waiting on a scholarship offer. This is my top choice but I’m FGLI, receive no financial support, and want to make sure I’m not leaving any money on the table.
How do you suggest I go about negotiating a scholarship with U Penn with all my current offers? Additionally, should I negotiate with all these other schools first in order to have the highest offers to present when I finally do reach out to Penn?
Thanks so much!
FirstGenCaliGirl
Hi FirstGenCaliGirl,
Thanks so much for your question! I think this question may be a bit premature since you don’t yet know what Penn is going to offer you or how it stacks up against the offers you currently have. Additionally, we recently hosted a Live Class with Carla Anderson, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid and Director of Access Initiatives at Penn Carey Law, and she advised that they generally do not have a reconsideration process. Hear more information about their process here.
When considering how to navigate your other offers, there’s some homework to be done here, because they aren’t apples-to-apples offers—some of these schools are public while others are private. One discounts tuition to a resident rate, and the rankings for these schools are different. If somehow Penn were to allow reconsideration, your most competitive offer is the one from Michigan, because here you’d be looking at two T10 schools. While Minnesota’s award is larger, Michigan may not necessarily be moved to increase its award to get closer to Minnesota’s given its difference in ranking.
From an admissions perspective, requests for negotiation/reconsideration requests are strongest when we can see the thought process behind the ask, whether that be the math to determine the differences in cost of tuition or cost of attendance, information about the barriers you are facing without that increase, and/or whether the amount requested is reasonable.
I hope this is helpful!
All my best,
taj
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