Law School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

[Anonymous]

Exlawdean wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I thought I would add some context to the discussion of scholarship availability. First, I had intended this thread to be about much more than the T14. Most lawyers do not go to T14 schools. So, from time to time, I will try to widen, a bit, the discussion.

Second, the practice of awarding scholarships varies dramatically from school to school. As one of the commenters, above, noted, Yale, Stanford, & Harvard claim not to award merit scholarships, and have stuck to this claim for years. On the other hand, the University of Chicago -- a very fine school which has occupied the #3 spot on US News for the past couple of years -- clearly gives merit scholarships. And many of the other 25 law schools that claim to be in the top 20 also give merit scholarships. There is no hard and fast rule. Instead, you have to go school by school in whatever year you are accepted and find out what a particular school's policies are at that time. This goes further than just need v. merit. Many schools have scholarship endowments from alumni who want to give to law students who are "like" the donor. Thus, there are law schools with endowments for scholarship funds for veterans of the armed forces, for immigrants, for the first to go to law school in their family, and so forth. NYU has scholarships for those who plan to practice public interest law. Some law school may even have a scholarship fund for those who were mathematics majors. I don't know which school that might be, but I can't rule it out. You must work with an admissions and financial aid officer at each school to find out if that school has narrowly drawn scholarship assistance that might work with your situation.

Third, the regularity that we have observed for the past decade or two -- some schools say no merit scholarships -- may turn out to be quite contingent. Why do I say this? There are two phenomena that may destabilize our equilibrium. (1) The reformation of US News rankings in response to continued attacks by law school deans and others has shaken up the methodology and the rankings. The schools that have fallen may well feel pressure to do something about the situation. Consider Harvard Law, ranked number 5 this year. Do you believe that the Harvard Board of Trustees, the alumni of Harvard Law, or the Dean of Law at Harvard will be satisfied with that ranking? I don't. I believe that pressure will build to "do something." And part of "doing something" may well include putting some money on the table for merit scholarships. (2) We are approaching a small demographic cliff. As all academic administrators know, people stopped making babies after the advent of the great recession at the same pace that we did before the great recession. Most of the articles that I have read indicate that undergraduate admissions should expect approximately a 20% reduction in applications in 2028, give or take. And this reduction will persist for a while. By 2032 or 2033, this reduction will hit law school admissions. The effects of this very large reduction in the applicant pool will pressure admissions offices, even those at T14 law schools, to work much harder to enroll the classes they want and to keep their rankings. The obvious outcome will be that if you have a child in the seventh grade at this time who decides that they want to go to law school, they likely will be able to get into a higher ranked law school ten years from now than they can with the same LSAT and UGPA, etc., right now. And, as a corollary, that same child may find it possible to get some merit scholarship ten years from now at a law school that claims never to give merit scholarships today.

I hope this helps.

What??? I can assure you that Dean Manning and the rest of the Harvard types like myself don’t give two figs about USNWR! If you are going to write a book about this (which is the only reason I can think of you wasting the time to crowdsource here) you need to gather better info. HLS wasn’t even no. 1 when I graduated eons ago but it was the top sought out school because of law firm and law clerkship status. It hasn’t been no. 1 as by USNWR due to its size as far as I remember but no graduate (or Boards) has ever cared give. Harvard has never sent out a fundraising letter saying “OMG HLS is no 4 ! send in money!” It has been no 2,3,4 or 5 since the 1990s but no one cares. That’s one of the many reasons John Manning followed Yale in pulling out of USNWR - not to mention the costly venture of voluntarily supplying voluminous data to an archaic publication that should have been doing it’s own data sampling since the 80s. Google worlds best law school. It is always Harvard. And that’s also where all the international students prefer to go. Yale and Stanford can continue to turn out the arrogant law professor type (who can’t pass the bar because they’ve been too busy with “space torts”) but I would always recommend HLS over most of the other T5s simply for the vast array of connections. Most Harvard judges have one Harvard clerk every year. I undoubtedly benefited from that. I did get into the other top schools but it never even occurred to me to go there. Ask any Harvard grad if they think Harvard worries about being no. 5. I can assure you that it never cared about being 2, 3 or 4 or whatever it was when I attended. And we are all glad that HLS followed Yale (which has been no 1 as long as I can remember so had to go first). USNWR may remain important or self-important for undergrad purposes but with 65 law schools pulling out for law school rankings are over.

[Anonymous]

You can always tell a Harvard man. But you can’t tell him much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can always tell a Harvard man. But you can’t tell him much.

+1

[Anonymous]

My child did quite well throughout college and completed an undergraduate degree in political science six years ago.

After working in various jobs that were (mostly) policy related, said child decided to apply to law school, was accepted to a DC area program, and began their first semester last fall.

However, there were some bumps in the road during that first semester…aside from getting acclimated to the “newness” of law school, there was a 7 day absence due to an illness that required hospitalization; difficulty getting help with legal writing assignments from the school; and the unavailability of required medication that was needed for concentration. As a result, the fall semester grades weren’t great and an academic dismissal was issued.

This came as a complete surprise to my child (and to us as well), but I investigated and found out the story we got was indeed accurate. Our child appealed the decision, but the appeal was denied.

Are first semester dismissals typical in law school? I would have thought that academic probation would have been the first step, especially given the handful of challenges that were experienced during the semester.

My husband and I are very upset by this, but our child is devastated. We think it was an extreme measure, but we’re not really sure of how to advise our child to address it, assuming it even should be addressed. The dismissal letter that was provided had a line that read, “we encourage you to reapply for admission.,” but I’m not sure if that was a genuine statement. It seemed strange to dismiss a student from school and encourage them to return all in the same letter.

We think this child is capable of successfully managing and completing law school (our other child is not), and they would like to continue working toward a law degree. Would you be able to offer any suggestions on possible next steps? Would switching to another school be feasible? How do most law students proceed in cases like this?

Thank you for any insight you can offer.

[Anonymous]

I’m a retired lawyer following up on the Harvard poster’s criticism of the OP. I’m not a Harvard guy.

I agree with the criticism. I think the OP is out of touch and that much of what he says is demonstrably wrong. I don’t think, for example, that Harvard is now going to start awarding merit scholarships to maintain or move up in the rankings, and neither will the other schools who have boycotted the publication. One of their core stated reasons for the boycott was that it led too many good law schools to award merit aid at the expense of need based aid and that was bad for the system. The boycotting schools aren’t about to reverse course now.

Interestingly, OP uses Chicago as an example of an elite school that “clearly” gives merit aid, while failing to mention that it’s also the one elite school that didn’t boycott the rankings. So it’s the exception that proves the rule actually.

The one thing I will disagree with the Harvard guy about is his claim that Harvard has always been the number one most in demand law school. US news ranking or otherwise, the “number one” distinction belongs to Yale and has for a long time. It is without question, the nation’s most selective law, school and when given the choice between Yale and Harvard, the majority of students accepted to both pick Yale. That is a fact, not conjecture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child did quite well throughout college and completed an undergraduate degree in political science six years ago.

After working in various jobs that were (mostly) policy related, said child decided to apply to law school, was accepted to a DC area program, and began their first semester last fall.

However, there were some bumps in the road during that first semester…aside from getting acclimated to the “newness” of law school, there was a 7 day absence due to an illness that required hospitalization; difficulty getting help with legal writing assignments from the school; and the unavailability of required medication that was needed for concentration. As a result, the fall semester grades weren’t great and an academic dismissal was issued.

This came as a complete surprise to my child (and to us as well), but I investigated and found out the story we got was indeed accurate. Our child appealed the decision, but the appeal was denied.

Are first semester dismissals typical in law school? I would have thought that academic probation would have been the first step, especially given the handful of challenges that were experienced during the semester.

My husband and I are very upset by this, but our child is devastated. We think it was an extreme measure, but we’re not really sure of how to advise our child to address it, assuming it even should be addressed. The dismissal letter that was provided had a line that read, “we encourage you to reapply for admission.,” but I’m not sure if that was a genuine statement. It seemed strange to dismiss a student from school and encourage them to return all in the same letter.

We think this child is capable of successfully managing and completing law school (our other child is not), and they would like to continue working toward a law degree. Would you be able to offer any suggestions on possible next steps? Would switching to another school be feasible? How do most law students proceed in cases like this?

Thank you for any insight you can offer.

Retired lawyer here. Not the OP. I will say this: it is extremely rare for a capable student to fail out of law school after one semester, and rarer still for that student to return to the same law school (or another) and succeed to the level required to actually get a decent job. And your “child” as you call him is not a child anymore: if he graduated from college 6 years ago he has to be pushing 30 by now.

You are doing him no favors encouraging him to continue with law school. He needs to pursue a different career path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

DP. T14 is a phrase referring to the group of tier 1 law schools (without getting in arguments about which is the very best). Georgetown is generally understood to be in that group whether or not this year they have dropped to 15 in USNWR.

The idea that there is a huge dropoff from UCLA to Georgetown because this year USNWR changed their methodology and those schools switched places is just silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child did quite well throughout college and completed an undergraduate degree in political science six years ago.

After working in various jobs that were (mostly) policy related, said child decided to apply to law school, was accepted to a DC area program, and began their first semester last fall.

However, there were some bumps in the road during that first semester…aside from getting acclimated to the “newness” of law school, there was a 7 day absence due to an illness that required hospitalization; difficulty getting help with legal writing assignments from the school; and the unavailability of required medication that was needed for concentration. As a result, the fall semester grades weren’t great and an academic dismissal was issued.

This came as a complete surprise to my child (and to us as well), but I investigated and found out the story we got was indeed accurate. Our child appealed the decision, but the appeal was denied.

Are first semester dismissals typical in law school? I would have thought that academic probation would have been the first step, especially given the handful of challenges that were experienced during the semester.

My husband and I are very upset by this, but our child is devastated. We think it was an extreme measure, but we’re not really sure of how to advise our child to address it, assuming it even should be addressed. The dismissal letter that was provided had a line that read, “we encourage you to reapply for admission.,” but I’m not sure if that was a genuine statement. It seemed strange to dismiss a student from school and encourage them to return all in the same letter.

We think this child is capable of successfully managing and completing law school (our other child is not), and they would like to continue working toward a law degree. Would you be able to offer any suggestions on possible next steps? Would switching to another school be feasible? How do most law students proceed in cases like this?

Thank you for any insight you can offer.

The first year of law school is, arguably, the most important year of law school because it teaches one to think like a lawyer. Your child missed too much time and performed poorly. The law school did your child a favor by dismissing him/her and requiring reapplication for admission.

Has your child considered enrolling in a masters degree program related to his/her work experience ? Maybe a masters degree in public policy or an MBA program ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a retired lawyer following up on the Harvard poster’s criticism of the OP. I’m not a Harvard guy.

I agree with the criticism. I think the OP is out of touch and that much of what he says is demonstrably wrong. I don’t think, for example, that Harvard is now going to start awarding merit scholarships to maintain or move up in the rankings,


and neither will the other schools who have boycotted the publication. One of their core stated reasons for the boycott was that it led too many good law schools to award merit aid at the expense of need based aid and that was bad for the system. The boycotting schools aren’t about to reverse course now.

Interestingly, OP uses Chicago as an example of an elite school that “clearly” gives merit aid, while failing to mention that it’s also the one elite school that didn’t boycott the rankings. So it’s the exception that proves the rule actually.

The one thing I will disagree with the Harvard guy about is his claim that Harvard has always been the number one most in demand law school. US news ranking or otherwise, the “number one” distinction belongs to Yale and has for a long time. It is without question, the nation’s most selective law, school and when given the choice between Yale and Harvard, the majority of students accepted to both pick Yale. That is a fact, not conjecture.

+1. Harvard does not need USNWR and doesn’t care if it dropped from 3 or 4 to 5. It’s still considered the finest law school in the world. Dean Spitzer is out of touch. He was Dean at USC (not a law school I would pay for) from 2000-2006 and is 71 or 72. A lot has changed in the law school world during COViD. Fwiw I got in to Yale, Harvard, Chicago, UCLA, Stanford and Minnesota and picked Harvard, precisely for the reasons good center above (size, reputation, law review clout, contacts, federal clerkships, diversity, foreign students, etc.) My friends at Yale were miserable. And they did not go on and teach. The fact that USNWR has had it at no. 1 for 30 odd years is baffling to most and actually never discussed because no one cares. It’s time to scrap a ranking service that was designed to drive up advertising and subscription revenues for a failed magazine. All if the law schools which pulled out did the right thing. It’s obsolete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a retired lawyer following up on the Harvard poster’s criticism of the OP. I’m not a Harvard guy.

I agree with the criticism. I think the OP is out of touch and that much of what he says is demonstrably wrong. I don’t think, for example, that Harvard is now going to start awarding merit scholarships to maintain or move up in the rankings,


and neither will the other schools who have boycotted the publication. One of their core stated reasons for the boycott was that it led too many good law schools to award merit aid at the expense of need based aid and that was bad for the system. The boycotting schools aren’t about to reverse course now.

Interestingly, OP uses Chicago as an example of an elite school that “clearly” gives merit aid, while failing to mention that it’s also the one elite school that didn’t boycott the rankings. So it’s the exception that proves the rule actually.

The one thing I will disagree with the Harvard guy about is his claim that Harvard has always been the number one most in demand law school. US news ranking or otherwise, the “number one” distinction belongs to Yale and has for a long time. It is without question, the nation’s most selective law, school and when given the choice between Yale and Harvard, the majority of students accepted to both pick Yale. That is a fact, not conjecture.

+1. Harvard does not need USNWR and doesn’t care if it dropped from 3 or 4 to 5. It’s still considered the finest law school in the world. Dean Spitzer is out of touch. He was Dean at USC (not a law school I would pay for) from 2000-2006 and is 71 or 72. A lot has changed in the law school world during COViD. Fwiw I got in to Yale, Harvard, Chicago, UCLA, Stanford and Minnesota and picked Harvard, precisely for the reasons good center above (size, reputation, law review clout, contacts, federal clerkships, diversity, foreign students, etc.) My friends at Yale were miserable. And they did not go on and teach. The fact that USNWR has had it at no. 1 for 30 odd years is baffling to most and actually never discussed because no one cares. It’s time to scrap a ranking service that was designed to drive up advertising and subscription revenues for a failed magazine. All if the law schools which pulled out did the right thing. It’s obsolete.

More accurate phrasing: Harvard Law School is considered to be among the finest law schools in the world.

Yale, Stanford, Chicago, & Columbia are also among that group. There are probably a few others as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child did quite well throughout college and completed an undergraduate degree in political science six years ago.

After working in various jobs that were (mostly) policy related, said child decided to apply to law school, was accepted to a DC area program, and began their first semester last fall.

However, there were some bumps in the road during that first semester…aside from getting acclimated to the “newness” of law school, there was a 7 day absence due to an illness that required hospitalization; difficulty getting help with legal writing assignments from the school; and the unavailability of required medication that was needed for concentration. As a result, the fall semester grades weren’t great and an academic dismissal was issued.

This came as a complete surprise to my child (and to us as well), but I investigated and found out the story we got was indeed accurate. Our child appealed the decision, but the appeal was denied.

Are first semester dismissals typical in law school? I would have thought that academic probation would have been the first step, especially given the handful of challenges that were experienced during the semester.

My husband and I are very upset by this, but our child is devastated. We think it was an extreme measure, but we’re not really sure of how to advise our child to address it, assuming it even should be addressed. The dismissal letter that was provided had a line that read, “we encourage you to reapply for admission.,” but I’m not sure if that was a genuine statement. It seemed strange to dismiss a student from school and encourage them to return all in the same letter.

We think this child is capable of successfully managing and completing law school (our other child is not), and they would like to continue working toward a law degree. Would you be able to offer any suggestions on possible next steps? Would switching to another school be feasible? How do most law students proceed in cases like this?

Thank you for any insight you can offer.

Why not have him take a paralegal course. I think Georgetown used to have a summer version that was 10-ish weeks of intensive training. Otherwise, take a longer version. He can still work in the legal field. It will show commitment, and also allow him to really learn what skills are needed to be a lawyer.... it's not all courtroom drama! It's a LOT of research-librarian-type work. Maybe he'd be a good paralegal in something that is more "hands on" or "active" --- like a prosecutor or criminal public defender's office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

Tell that to wikipedia, Spivey, and all of the students trying to get into law school:

from wiki: Top 14 law schools
There exists an informal and unofficial category known as the "Top Fourteen" or "T14", which has historically referred to the institutions that most frequently claim the top fourteen spots in the yearly U.S. News & World Report ranking of American law schools.[6] Furthermore, the "T14" schools remain the only ones to have ever placed within the top ten spots in these rankings.[7] Although "T14" is not a designation used by U.S. News itself, the term is "widely known in the legal community."[8] While these schools have seen their position within the top group shift frequently, they have consistently placed within the top fourteen since the inception of the rankings. Because of their consistent placement at the top of the US News rankings, the schools that have most frequently taken the top fourteen spots are commonly referred to as the "Top Fourteen" by published books on law school admissions,[9] undergraduate university pre-law advisers,[10] professional law school consultants, and newspaper articles on the subject.[11]


No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.