Does applying ED restrict what scholarships you can obtain?

Comments

• 1 Like

  westcoastbestcoast Alum Member

  February 2018 3788 karma

  Your best bet would be to reach out to the Financial Aid office at UT. They should have the answers for you
• 1 Like

  Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  February 2018 edited February 2018 4428 karma

  It might or might not technically restrict you. As @westcoastbestcoast says you can ask. Some schools look at whether you applied ED when awarding scholarships and consequently rarely give scholarships to ED students who will attend no matter what. Other schools have blind scholarship decisions where they don't look at whether or not you are ED when deciding scholarships.

  However, once you have applied ED you lose all leverage. You can't go to another school. Therefore you can't negotiate for a higher scholarship. Since many scholarships are gotten or increased significantly through negotiation, you will be giving up some money by applying ED.

  Hence, I would only apply ED if you think getting in is a long shot and would happily attend with only the guaranteed $10000 a year.

  There are a handful of places (WUSTL and Northwestern to name two) that offer bigger scholarships tied to Early Decision though. These make more sense to me to use.
• TexAgAaron Alum Member

  February 2018 1723 karma

  @westcoastbestcoast @"Seeking Perfection" Thanks for the responses! I agree on the leverage part of ED. @"Seeking Perfection" what is considered long shot in your opinion? And does ED really make a difference to a committee if you are indeed a long shot?
• Paul Caint Alum Member ⭐

  February 2018 3521 karma

  Yeah I'd contact their financial aid office and ask them directly.

  The general sentiment is though that if you apply ED you are essentially throwing away your negotiating power, and the school has less incentive to actually throw money at you to get you to come (since you have to).

  If money isn't as big of a concern for you as just getting in is though, and if you think you are a "long shot" applicant who can increase their chances by applying ED, I would apply ED
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  February 2018 4428 karma

  @akeegs92 said:
  @westcoastbestcoast @"Seeking Perfection" Thanks for the responses! I agree on the leverage part of ED. @"Seeking Perfection" what is considered long shot in your opinion? And does ED really make a difference to a committee if you are indeed a long shot?

  As far as the helpfulness of ED to your chances, I would look at info like this...
  https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.powerscore.com/lsat/applying-to-law-school-to-ed-or-not-to-ed?hs_amp=true

  It seems to me that if you have according to law school numbers anything above about a 1/3 chance of admission its probably not worth ED unless you have a special affinity for the school or it comes with a significant scholarship. Afterall, you can probably apply to three or four peer schools and get into one with out the sacrafice of any chance at money.

  Mostly though, I would just say if you are happy paying full price at the school or full price minus any guaranteed ED scholarship and going there given your other options it is a long enough shot to ED.
• TexAgAaron Alum Member

  February 2018 1723 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection" Thanks for the article! Very good read! The 1/3 number also is helpful as well. Texas is at the top of my list and I feel confident about getting to their LSAT median and maybe slightly above by this summer...its my GPA that may be below their median which makes me look a bit more at ED.

  @"Paul Caint" Money is definitely a concern though I won't have many peer schools with Texas to negotiate against (maybe UVA but I can accomplish a lot at UT that I could at UVA goal wise; also may look and Vandy and Georgetown but same issue). My next few schools are Houston, SMU, Cincinnati (I'm pretty set on what markets I want/willing to work in).
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  February 2018 4428 karma

  @akeegs92 said:
  @"Seeking Perfection" Thanks for the article! Very good read! The 1/3 number also is helpful as well. Texas is at the top of my list and I feel confident about getting to their LSAT median and maybe slightly above by this summer...its my GPA that may be below their median which makes me look a bit more at ED.

  @"Paul Caint" Money is definitely a concern though I won't have many peer schools with Texas to negotiate against (maybe UVA but I can accomplish a lot at UT that I could at UVA goal wise; also may look and Vandy and Georgetown but same issue). My next few schools are Houston, SMU, Cincinnati (I'm pretty set on what markets I want/willing to work in).

  If you get your LSAT score up above Texas's median and apply regular decision I would also throw an app to Washington University in St. Louis. Even if you don't actually want to go there, they consistently offer scholarships to high LSAT scorers which can be helpful in scholarship negotiation.
• TexAgAaron Alum Member

  February 2018 edited February 2018 1723 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection" WUSTL can really push the needle that much? Kind of a general question but on average, lets take the example you used UT vs. WUSTL, how much can one reasonably push their scholarship up through negotiations?
• 1 Like

  Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  February 2018 4428 karma

  @akeegs92 said:
  @"Seeking Perfection" WUSTL can really push the needle that much? Kind of a general question but on average, lets take the example you used UT vs. WUSTL, how much can one reasonably push their scholarship up through negotiations?

  I think it is hard to tell exactly how much. The good thing about WUSTL is that it gives out more money than it other schools would given its rank for people with fairly high LSATs.

  I don't know what GPA you have or what LSAT you have, but say you manage to push your LSAT to a 170 and had a GPA of 3.7.
  http://mylsn.info/sislgu/
  Or a 170 3.6.
  http://mylsn.info/sho4wn/
  Or a 170 3.5.
  http://mylsn.info/b2zbth/
  Or a 170 3.4
  http://mylsn.info/j9zgvg/

  Anyways. You can play around with the LSAT score too. The WUSTL scholarships and decent chances at the Top 14 for lowish GPA splitters start to dry up below a LSAT score of about 168, finish disappearing by 165, and are most prominent if you can hit 170 or higher.

  Either way, you definitely would have a shot at some top 14 schools. You can see that from the first % column which says the % of non-URM students who got in with about your stats over the last several years. The sample sizes are small so don't trust the numbers exactly.

  But, what you can also see is the percent of students recieving a scholarship and the average value of that scholarship. At Washington University in St Louis that scholarsip ammount is close to $150000 because they like to give out full tuition scholarships to people with high LSAT scores. A 3.7 is above their GPA median, but a 3.6 is below their GPA median and people below GPA median with high LSAT scores still wind up with full tuition scholarships.

  UT and Georgetown obviously doesn't see WUSTL as a peer which is a shame because normally a school will match its peers. However they will probably still budge and give you something more to keep you from going to WUSTL since it is only ranked 3-4 spots below them. Vandy likely grudgingly sees WUSTL as its peer and will come close to a match. The other schools you listed will match WUSTL if they have the funds for it because they see WUSTL as their better.

  As far as how much you can push a higher ranked school to move with a full scholarship from WUSTL I'm not sure. I have heard negotiation s can work quite well. Once my other offers are in I'll be trying though. So far I'm in at WUSTL, Duke, Michigan, and Columbia and have a full scholarship from WUSTL and no word from everyone else. Unless I get another scholarship naturally(which I hope I do), sooner or later I'll be trying to get Duke, Michigan or some other school I get into to give me a scholarship using cross pressure between the threat of me going to Columbia which is higher ranked and going to WUSTL which is lower ranked, but free. If that doesn't work, I'll try to get WUSTL to give me a stipend and then we'll have a exciting Columbia at sticker vs WUSTL free decision thread later in the year.
• TexAgAaron Alum Member

  February 2018 1723 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection" Thank you for the amazing post! A ton of information packed in there! Thanks for the intro to all of this. While I'm not in that whole process yet, I definitely will be soon. I appreciate the help! And good luck on the your law school choice!