Scholarship and Acceptance Deadline

mcglz_64

Hey! So I applied to about 14 schools and am still waiting to hear from 13 of them...BUT I just got accepted to a school (not my dream school but still good) with a deposit deadline due April 10 and a scholarship acceptance deadline by April 3. What should I do? I don’t think I’ll get most of my decisions in by those dates at all, since I applied close to the deadline for most of them (took the Feb LSAT)

westcoastbestcoast

Just because you submit a deposit and accept scholarship doesn't mean that you are bound to attend that school. I believe LSAC precisely forbids schools from making deposits and scholarships to be binding, except in the condition of early decision admissions. You can go right ahead and submit the deposit and scholarship acceptance and still wait on other schools.

Leah M B

Here's a blog post from Yale that we've been discussing around here that explains it. Per an LSAC rule, law schools aren't allowed to require you to (binding) commit or withdraw applications if you haven't heard from another school. Basically, if you are interested in attending that school, you can accept and put down a deposit but if you get a new offer from another school, they have to allow you to withdraw your commitment.

Edit: WHOOPS didn't paste here it is haha: https://law.yale.edu/admissions/jd-admissions/ask-asha/speaking-law-school-scams

TabbyG123

So there's a lot of controversy around this and schools actually differ depending on the details of their policy on the issue. There are also a lot of unethical practices from law schools so I would definitely read terms of accepting a scholarship offer very closely before you make a commitment.

@"Leah M B" is correct in saying that LSAC requires that schools not require you withdraw applications from schools you haven't yet heard from, but schools can ask that you only make a deposit at only that school at the risk of revoking your acceptance or awards if you deposit at another school you HAVE heard from.

Here is a direct quote from the award terms and conditions I received from USC:
"Please note that this scholarship offer is contingent upon the following requirements:
•You may not hold seat deposits at other law schools. USC Gould participates in the LSAC Deposit Overlap program, which provides participating law schools with the names of admitted students who have submitted seat deposits to other law schools. We require that since we are making a financial commitment to you, that in return you make a final commitment to us. If you elect to pay our tuition deposit you must withdraw from all other law schools to which you
have been admitted no later than May 1st. Verification that this condition has been met will be determined when the LSAC Deposit Overlap Report is released to law schools. If your name appears on the list, then your scholarship offer may be revoked. If you remain on any waitlists at the time you place your commitment deposit to USC Gould, it is not required that you withdraw from consideration unless you wish to do so."

I believe scholarship acceptance deadlines are typically less binding, but again, make sure to read the details. Why? Because once you start getting acceptances so close to deposit deadlines, you'll want to figure out a way to get as much time as possible to make a decision in case you need to appeal a scholarship award (which requires time and information from other schools, which takes time). Even though I applied in November/December to my 15 schools, I'm STILL having this issue of being pressured to put down a deposit at a school without knowing all of my other award amounts.

Leah M B

@PublicInterested Yes thanks, good clarification. I didn’t write that up well. Schools can require you to withdraw from other schools that have accepted you. They just can’t require you to withdraw from a school who hasn’t given you an offer yet (meaning, a school that either waitlisted you or that you haven’t heard from at all yet).

So basically, ou are free to deposit at that school if you want to attend there. And then after the deposit deadline, if a school gives you a new offer of admission that you hadn’t received before the deposit, you are allowed to withdraw.

It says specifically in that blog post though that some schools may give you grief for it, even though LSAC rules require them to allow you to back out if you receive a new offer. Which sucks and they are not supposed to do, but this process is rough.

Be sure to read all the fine print for the terms of accepting an offer. Good practice for lawyering!