Strategic Applications - The Jealousy Game

NotMyName

How can we pit schools against one another? I am working under the assumption that if I applied to school X with a GPA/LSAT higher than their medium and I applied to no other schools, then I would receive less scholarship money (generally speaking) than if I applied to schools which School X competes with and was accepted to those competitor schools.

Maybe that assumption is wrong. Please let me know.

But assuming that it is right, how should we choose those other schools to apply to? Regionally? USNWR rank adjacent?

@"David.Busis" perhaps this is covered in one of the admissions courses. I am focused on my LSAT so have not ventured much into that world.

TheMikey

Yeah, basically you just want to apply to schools in the same range as the other school. Many people apply to schools knowing they don't want to go there, but they do it for negotiation purposes only.

For example, you can take a scholarship amount from Columbia and show it to NYU and they may match it or give you more to get you to go with them instead. More examples can be regionally, yes, such as FSU and UF, or Cardozo and Brooklyn.

David Busis

First of all—and pardon me if I'm saying something you already understand—a school's initial scholarship offer doesn't depend on where else you apply. But once a school makes you an offer, you'll be in a better position to negotiate if you have other offers.

In general, there are two kinds of leverage when you negotiate for a scholarship:

1. Other scholarship offers, including offers from lower-tier schools.
2. Other offers of admission, especially offers from higher-tier schools.

Thus, it's not actually that important which schools you apply to. The important part is to apply to a range of reaches, targets, and safeties.

holylsat

@jkatz1488 I went through the application process/negotiation etc before so maybe my perspective will help a bit. Then, I decided to retake the LSAT and do it all over again just because I thought it was so much fun... sigh...

1- I got a lot of scholarship money when I fit the school's median LSAT (my GPA is international so I don't know how they take that into account). Not as much when I was above it (which I found odd). Definitely apply to the schools where you'd be a perfect fit number wise.

2- I was able to bump up my scholarships offer but not by much money. For this, applying to schools regionally helps for sure. But you can use the opposite reasoning as well. Let's say school X is in NYC and they're giving you $ money. You applied to school Y in a less sexy city and they're giving you $ as well. You can make school Y give you $$ by saying how NYC is great but you like their school better. If Y gives you more you can ask X for more money if both schools are in the same range.

Feel free to message me if you want more info/ school details etc..

Hope this made sense and helps! Good luck!

OlamHafuch

One added piece of information: It might not be ethical to apply to a school that you have absolutely no intention of attending no matter what solely in order to use them as leverage in negotiating with other schools.

TheMikey

@uhinberg said:
One added piece of information: It might not be ethical to apply to a school that you have absolutely no intention of attending no matter what solely in order to use them as leverage in negotiating with other schools.

I slightly agree. It sucks for the school who wants the individual to attend who has no intentions, but at the same time, you have to remember that law school is a business. They mostly just care about their numbers and reputation, and they get that many people just want to negotiate between schools to get the most out of one so they can attend. You should be negotiating to get the best price for your purchase, honestly.

So I slightly agree that it is unethical in terms of it sucking for the school, but at the same time, I'm sure they have plenty of other applicants who would be more than willing to attend if another one doesn't.

Alex

@TheMikey said:

@uhinberg said:
One added piece of information: It might not be ethical to apply to a school that you have absolutely no intention of attending no matter what solely in order to use them as leverage in negotiating with other schools.

I slightly agree. It sucks for the school who wants the individual to attend who has no intentions, but at the same time, you have to remember that law school is a business. They mostly just care about their numbers and reputation, and they get that many people just want to negotiate between schools to get the most out of one so they can attend. You should be negotiating to get the best price for your purchase, honestly.

So I slightly agree that it is unethical in terms of it sucking for the school, but at the same time, I'm sure they have plenty of other applicants who would be more than willing to attend if another one doesn't.

Mikey hit the nail on the head with pointing out that law schools are businesses. It's zero sum when it comes down to it. The prices of some of these schools is what's unethical. Several ex-admissions personnel who have written books and blogs about scholarship negotiation all claim this is an effective way to do so.

I guess I can see how it may lead to some negative implications for others/the school itself. However, I think that they make decisions that take into account that this is a common negotiation technique.

OlamHafuch

I was also thinking in terms of wasting the time of people who are going to spend hours on an applicant that has no intent of attending. But perhaps you're right that it's all part of the game. I'd be interested to hear what @"David.Busis" has to say about this. Again, the question is about the ethics of applying to a school that one has absolutely no intent to attend solely in order to use admission to that school as leverage in negotiating with other schools.

David Busis

@uhinberg You make a great point. I'll start by pointing out, though, that most people don't apply to schools they know they won't attend, and that's certainly not what I'm advocating. Rather, I'm advocating that you apply to a healthy mix of schools, and start figuring out where you'll attend after you see their offers. It's hard to know what you want until you can deal in facts. Give yourself options!

A few other minor points: it would be nice if admissions officers were spending hours on your application, but the time they spend is probably best measured in minutes.

The other thing I would note is that law school admissions officers are, like you, trying to maximize certain numerical outcomes. They'll employ various strategies to boost applications, for example, and I doubt many of them are losing sleep over the possibility of accidentally encouraging someone who won't end up getting in. At the end of the day, I think it's fair to try to defray the cost of your legal education, even if that means applying to a school that's not your first or even your fifth choice.

NotMyName

@"David.Busis" Thank you very much for the information! No one likes debt and I'll take advantage of the strategies you laid out here.

@uhinberg That is a very interesting suggestion. And I mean that sincerely. I thought about this question of unethical application strategies and came up with 2 points. First, there is something about an individual acting unethically toward an established system which seems to make the invocation of "ethics" inappropriate. I don't have much explanation for this feeling except that it rings to me as the flip side of a coin; the other side being "corporations are people". Neither seem quite right to me.

Secondly, can something be unethical if it is within the realm of normal practice for a given system? That question goes into relativism vs universality. Personally, I don't like the idea of relative ethical codes -- seems too convenient. And yet, it does seem that environments do set their own terms of conduct. In light of this, it is probably the case that the agreed terms of conduct are independent of our ethics, which brings me back to my first thought. And in this respect, I have to consider the actual cost of such an act to the individual within that system: minutes of their time.

In any case, I can't say that I plan to apply to any school which I would not attend under any circumstances. But I do plan on applying to schools which are very low priority and which I would only attend in the worst case scenario i.e. safety schools.

This is all way more than I expected to write. But I really enjoyed thinking about your suggestion so I figured I might as well share.