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Related Discussions
Scholarship Stipulations
legallyblondeee
Alum Member
One of my conditional scholarships says that I have to maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA. This is the grading scale:
A/A– No fewer than 8%
No more than 12%
A through B– No fewer than 45%
No more than 55%
C– and below No fewer than 8%
No more than 12%
About 66-68% of people have kept their scholarships over the past 3 years. Thoughts? It makes me nervous but I'm above the schools 75% cumulative GPA and LSAT so feel like I could do it?
Comments
Have you asked to have the stipulations removed? I have heard of people doing that as a negotiating tactic (and succeeding). The worst thing they could say is no...
Just a thought.
I tried asking for more money and they replied that they don't negotiate any of their scholarships, so kinda scared to ask again lol
What are you afraid of? They won't rescind your admission if you ask them to remove the stipulation.
Could be a good thing for you to be honest. Negative incentives aren't always bad.
Nope, it's a bad thing. You already have a powerful incentive to get good grades(getting a job). You don't need to lose your scholarship at the same time you find put it's going to be a lot harder to get said job because you got bad grades.
The other thing is it is really hard to predict who will be good at taking law school exams. Being above the 75ths helps but not much because neither college nor the LSAT really tested what the law school exam will test.
There is definitely no harm in asking to get rid of the stips.
However I would assume that if you can't get rid of the stips you have the same 66-68% chance of keeping your scholarship as everyone else. Maybe it is actually like 70 or 75%. But the point is there is going to be a non-negligible chance of you losing your scholarship at the same time as you find out it's going to be harder to get a job than you expected.
@"Seeking Perfection"
As you mention above, the correlation between law school GPA and job acquisition is a strong incentive in its own right. However, it is more of a long-term incentive and one that does not necessarily have immediate implications of suffering. There are certain people, like myself and many others, who work the best when there is a proverbial "gun to their head". Without this immediate negative incentive, such a student might become content with average to below average grades. Losing a scholarship for this type of person might be equally, if not more strong, than the positive incentive of getting a good job at graduation. Thus, in this way, you are underestimating the potential power of a negative incentive.
https://33.media.tumblr.com/f04c0b78230f5bef8aeec512a5e62ab5/tumblr_n4g7ifroCt1t5bluao1_500.gif
I wouldn't immediately assume that an incentive that is sufficient for you, or even for most, is sufficient for all students under all circumstances. If you wan't to talk about the effects of negative incentives, then that's a conversation that I'm willing to engage in. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that such a conversation probably isn't worth either of our time.
This is all still assuming that you have control over where you place on the curve. The evidence is mostly the other way. Most law school students seem to study close to as hard as they can and some do poorly against each other on the curve anyway. This is due to ability which you probably have to take a law school exam to measure. There isn't an incentive no matter how powerful which will help you if success is not within your control.
Is there a reason to assume that @jenmar18 wouldn't find unemployment with some debt a strong enough incentive to study? If there is and Jemmar does have influence over his or her grades, the stipulation is still a bad thing. He/she could create the same effect if they wanted by making a 50,000 or 100,000 dollar one way bet with a family member on their law school grades where they paid their family member if they didn't get good enough grades if they were convinced they needed the incentive. At least then the personal tragedy would harm one person in the family while helping another.
If you want to talk "evidence" then take into consideration the fact that @jenmar18 is above the 75th percentile for both GPA and LSAT. The latter of which is the most predictive factor for law school success. In such an instance, it would certainly seem that @jenmar18 will have considerable control over where they will place on the curve.
To your second point, I agree, it would have a similar effect. You're merely defining what a negative incentive is here. But you still haven't made a compelling argument for why or how such an incentive will have a negative impact. In part, this is because incentives are subjective; as I have stated previously, no incentive is equivalent for all people under all circumstances.
Saying that "if she fails then it's bad" isn't productive. You're just defining one of the negative payoffs in the matrix. Not whether a decision itself is good or bad.
I also want to point out that this is a pretty fruitless debate
The idea that she will place well because she is above the 75ths or because she works hard because of some incentive is not true. I can see why you would think it would be true. It would be if we were talking about having a really good SAT or ACT and working hard in most undergrad majors, but it's not true in law school because law school exams are fundamentally different and new. LSAT and GPA together explain about 25% of the variation in law school grades. That's not enough to count on doing well because you are above the 75ths. And knowing that before taking a scholarship with stips is not fruitless. It is pivotal to @Jenmar18 making a good decision. She shouldn't be under the delusion that she will be able to mantain the scholarship simply by trying hard.
She should try hard(whatever the incentives), but she can't know until she already is in law school whether that and her law school exam taking ability(which she has very little information about) will enable her to do well enough to keep the scholarship. That is why it is incredibly risky to take a scholarship with stipulations. I probably wouldn't do it unless I was willing to go even if I lost the scholarship.
I think the general wisdom that scholarship stipulations are bad and you know your odds: 66% of keeping your scholarship. I think negotiating to remove the stip is a great idea.
I also have the option of going to a "Rank Not Published" school for full tuition with no stipulations. So tempting and it's near the area I want to live and practice. I would have virtually zero debt due to my family paying cost of living. Same employment stats as the school with scholarship stipulations and about the same bar pass rate (same as CA state average)......thoughts?
More than one lawyer has told me that passing the bar is, by far, the most important factor in a law school (aside from debt). If the stats are the same, the outcomes are the same, but it's not going to cost you a dime and there's no added pressure? And it's where you want to be? Sounds like a win.
Yeah I agree @speedwagon and @"Seeking Perfection" ,OP should definitely try to negotiate the scholarships. Imagine if there are some external factors going on (3 years of law school is a long time) and OP's grades drop. Also consider that to get a scholarship, you would have to be admitted based on higher than median grades/LSAT generally. Yet about ~33% of these scholarship recipients could not meet the academic requirements. Much better to just play it safe in case family emergencies or something causes a grade drop and not assume what his/her class rank will be especially since law school grades are based entirely off one final exam.
I like it better if those are your only options. It might still not work out, but if you don't have any debt then getting any sort of job as a lawyer is a win if that is your dream. And it's not such a bad loss(compared to being in the same spot with a ton of debt) if you just have to find a JD preferred job or do something unrelated.
I like a retake or reapplication to get better options even better and if you can negotiate to get rid of the stipulation that also might be even better.
But I don't like the idea of significant debt at a school if you lose the scholarship along with the poor positioning in the class that would cause that. If things go poorly as far as grades, you don't want to take a financial hit ftom a lost scholarship too.
It sounds like it might be easier to hustle for a job where you want it and hopefully have some ties from this other school too.
Scholarships stipulations are bad because the law school grading system is curve based and fully determined by one exam. You have no idea how hard or smart your classmates will work. Arguably in a lower ranked school the competition will be more cutthroat, meaning that even disadvantages like typing speed may be a letter grade difference. The grading system is sometimes at the discretion of professor. Although a law school exam and the LSAT are different, imagine only having one opportunity to take the LSAT and that your score will be based on how you do relative to others. There are already too many variables with law school. You don't need to add to the stress by locking yourself to a conditional GPA scholarship. Law school is already difficult enough and the prospect of being unemployed with debt, a possibility for any law school grad, is enough of a negative incentive to motivate any sensible student. Part of being a wise investor is knowing when the risks are too great and knowing how to hedge your losses.