How do you get scholarships?

julsnet2

When you get accepted, are the schools going to straight up offer it on the letter or do you need to apply? Can you haggle?

allison.gill.sanford

There is so much to be said about this process, I encourage you to do some online research and potentially hire a consultant if getting scholarship funds is a priority for you. Sometimes you can haggle, but you need leverage (such as a better offer from a peer school), and you need to do it right.
Basic overview is that you will be in a really good position for schols if you are above 75th percentile for a school in both LSAT and UGPA. You can still get some help if you're below this mark, but how much is trickier to estimate. However, this depends a lot on the school, and their degree of funding. I applied to some schools where I was way over 75th percentile on both, and their scholarship offer was far smaller than other much more highly ranked schools gave me. You need to be aware of who competes with who for the same students, because that is where they try to influence your choice by showering you with funds. Check out http://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/, you can download reports on schools and see averages of how much money they give in scholarships. And of course http://lawschoolnumbers.com/ will give you anecdotal pictures of the same information from individual students.

Ron Swanson

@julsnet2

A few months ago 7sage put on a Webinar with Mike Spivey about the law school admissions process and it's available here:

While it doesn't directly answer your question, the webinar is super informative about the admissions process and does touch on scholarships, admissions decisions, when to apply, etc.

BruiserWoods

listen to @"Ron Swanson" i watched this webinar this morning, and it was very informative.

Sprinkles

I agree with @allison.gill.sanford as she hit it on the nail. I would also suggest you attend the admissions webinar hosted by @david.busis this coming Wednesday at 9pm EST. He's taking questions at the end where you could ask about this.

David Busis

@julsnet2 it depends. Some schools, such as NYU, have scholarships for which you have to apply. Some might offer you scholarships even before you ask. As @montaha.rizeq said, law schools use scholarship money (1) to lure applicants who might go elsewhere, and (2) who will make the student body more diverse, and might not be able to attend otherwise.

There are also external sources of scholarships. Check out this article for a quick roundup: http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-scholarship-coach/2014/03/13/make-your-case-for-these-law-school-scholarships

It won't hurt to ask for money once you get in, but it may not help, either...