<p>A young family member with limited funds is considering law school. Back in the early 1980s, I went to Duke on a virtually full-tuition scholarship (only had to pay for the last semester). I had also been admitted to Harvard, Columbia, and other top schools, so I was a pretty competitive candidate. The purpose of the Duke program was to lure top students away from the Ivy Leagues -- it definitely worked in my case. </p>
<p>Does anyone know whether there are similar programs at any other law schools ranked in the top 30 or so?</p>
<p>As far as I know, the only law schools in the top 25 or so which do NOT give ANY merit $ are YHS. All of the others give at least some merit money. You do have to be very competitive to have a shot at it, though.</p>
<p>However, if your young friend comes from a poor family, then remember that the top law schools, including YHS, do give some need based aid.</p>
<p>My young friend comes from a solidly middle class family. His parents are divorced, and his father (who could afford it) will not provide any financial support for law school. Not sure whether his father's income/assets would be counted for financial aid purposes -- perhaps it varies from school to school. He will most likely be under age 24 when he applies to law schools. </p>
<p>Based on my own experience, and the experience of the many lawyers I know, I'd like to steer him to good, solid (not necessarily the absolute top) schools that will allow him to graduate without a huge burden of debt, especially because he already has undergrad debt.</p>
<p>Parents' income is often considered until seven years out of undergrad; some schools use age 29, which is similar in effect but easier to avoid odd scenarios that complicate the question. It does vary from school to school, although I've actually never seen a school which does not use one of these two policies.</p>
<p>It's hard to get "tone" across on a message board, so please take my word for it when I say this isn't meant to be rude.</p>
<p>I think this is a decision your "young friend" should make for himself. Your choice worked out well for you, but a similar choice might not work out for him. I don't think you should be "steering" him to anything. </p>
<p>Some things to keep in mind--a few of the top private schools have wonderful loan forgiveness programs. This means that if you choose to go into a lower paying field of law, you don't have to be back all of the loans. I haven't checked in a few years, but Harvard's rule used to be that you didn't have to pay anything if you made below something like $43,000; you paid on a sliding scale between roughly 43,000 and about $80,000 and had to pay back the whole amount above that. (It's got a COLA.) Note that under some cicumstances the loan forgiveness applies to some undergraduate debt. So, if that's the direction he wants to go in, taking the merit money isn't always the best option. </p>
<p>There are a few jobs that it's uber-difficult to get. Should your young friend dream of being a law prof, for example, I'd tell him to go to the best law school he can. There are some public interest jobs which are also really hard to get. Taking the merit $ isn't the wisest decision then. </p>
<p>As for financial aid, you can see what some law schools do at Need</a> Access.org - Home. Look for the financial aid forms. </p>
<p>I'm NOT saying the choice you made isn't an excellent one for many people--it definitely is. However, your young friend should make the choice himself after considering all of his options. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes if you "steer" him to take the merit money and he then learns that his dream employer doesn't recruit at his law school or that if he'd chosen the more expensive school he wouldn't have had to pay back the loans.</p>
<p>Absolutely, my young family member should make this decision for himself. I wouldn't dream of trying to make it for him. My purpose in starting this thread was to determine whether anyone had information regarding substantial merit scholarships; I'll pass that information along to him and let him run with it. That's what I meant by "steering." Like many young people whose parents have limited experience with elite college or professional school admissions, he is relying on second and third-hand information from not particularly well-informed classmates, neighbors, friends of neighbors, etc. You know -- "I hear that you should go to Harvard Law if you want to go into politics" or "If you want to work in DC, you should go to a law school in DC."</p>
<p>clare- I would venture to say that there is a good percentage of kids (even those at elite colleges) who rely on second and third hand info. They never heard of Testmasters -- the Powerscore Bibles-- or LSN and LSD.<br>
They just plug away at college, try to obtain a high GPA and may take a Kaplan LSAT course as that is the only company they are familiar with.</p>
<p>Reason I hang around on cc is to pass on info to my own kid as she steers clear of these message boards and may not have as much "insight" into the process as some of the other law school applicants who regularly go on the discussion boards. As it now looks like she may not apply to LS until fall 2009, I don't know how much longer I'll be around. </p>
<p>I sort of see my role as a "coach". I gather the info that I think my kid needs- pass it along to her- and let her make the decisions which sounds like what you are doing too. There's nothing wrong with that. I think we forget that a good percentage of kids do not ever venture to these discussion boards and may not be as savvy re: LS admissions as those who gravitate here.</p>
<p>I think I am glad my kid doesn't come to these boards, but at the same time I think it is good that we're hanging around so we can pass along good info to our family members.</p>
<p>If the young man is in college, the best advice you can give him is to stop by to see his pre-law adviser. Most colleges make their resources available to alums as well. Colleges keep grids showing where students got in and the median gpa and LSAT of students accepted to each law school from that particular college. </p>
<p>Many law school admissions officers visit colleges and going to one or two of their talks can help. </p>
<p>In addition, he should spend some time at LSAC.org</a> Homepage. There's a lot of good information there about applying to law schools. You can even download a sample LSAT.</p>
<p>jonri- some pre-law advisors are better than others. My kids advisor at Cornell really wasn't that helpful. Just went over bare basics such as making sure LSAT was taken and went over process to get recommendations. </p>
<p>To be fair, my kid never intended to apply while still in college as she was planning to take a year off (now it looks like 2 years off)- so it is possible that her advisor was fairly laid back as d would not be applying while still a college student.
My guess is that there are alot of cc and lsd posters who are far more savvy about the current admission process than their advisors.</p>
<p>I'd be curious to see how some of our cc posters felt about their own law school advisors at college.</p>
<p>I can't comment on Cornell's adviser, but the ONE thing almost every pre-law adviser has that nobody else can offer is grids. These set forth how many students from your college applied to each law school and the median gpa and LSAT. Some schools also asterisk special cases--URM, legacy at law schools that count it, developmental cases. A few colleges post these on-line--Yale's have been "linked' to this forum many times. </p>
<p>My kid's alma mater goes far beyond grids. I doubt my kid spent much--if any--time meeting with the adviser, but certainly used the other resources in the office, e.g, reports from students about law schools, interviews for scholarships, etc. </p>
<p>Plus, I'm sure many ls admissions officers visit Cornell. Going to these talks can help get insights as to what to include/not include in a personal statement, etc. Some law schools hold open "chats" with prospective students. Often your adviser can you "invited" to such a chat. Just reading the questions and answers can be helpful.</p>
<p>I think grids may be available, but then again ?? EVERYTHING at Cornell is quite de-centralized. I believe each college (HOTEL- CAS-ILR etc) has separate advisors and possibly different outcomes - so for all I know, there may be 7 different grids OR they don't want CAS grads comparing admission success with Hotel- ILR etc and grids may not be readily available. I think I asked my kid about grids and I got a typical "eye-roll" look, so I didn't pursue it. Again- my kid didn't get overly involved with the admission process as she knew she was not applying until a year or 2 out of college. </p>
<p>And yes- Cornell has a Law school admission fair in October and many schools are represented. But to really get detailed info is easier said than done. As you have a few hundred kids (maybe a few thousand as kids from other upstate schools like Colgate attend too)- and as they all want to speak to the same 20 Admission Officers, there is not much detail derived from these sessions.<br>
Yes- they are good and helpful. But I certainly understand why people come to CC-LSD and Top Law school discussion boards to ask questions re: the admission process .</p>
<p>If college law school advisors were very helpful, there wouldn't be a need for these boards as well as law school consultants like Ana Ivey and other such companies.<br>
So it is helpful to have a community to ask questions - get some info- and pass it along.</p>
<p>ps- I got my kid the Powerscore Bibles. She never heard of them before I mentioned it to her. I think she just hung out with too many engineering kids; and law school admission was never a hot topic in that crowd.</p>
<p>Out of curiousity, I checked on-line. The grids are called the Action Report at Cornell. In addition, like my kid's alma mater, Cornell has grads fill out confidential surveys regarding the law schools they attend and they are available in the career services office. It also offers several workshops on how to apply to law school, including one on how to write a personal statement. Another was a panel discussion with the deans of admission at several law schools. </p>
<p>A summary of the Action Report for the law schools to which 120+ Cornellians applied for the cycle 2005-06 is available on line. It lists median gpa and LSAT score for Cornell students admitted to those law schools. I'm sure students can get a more recent one.</p>
<p>It may be that career services doesn't endorse specific LSAT prep courses and, yes, you can get some good information on these boards. However, that doesn't mean that it isn't worthwhile to stop by career services and see what they have on offer.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info Jonri- I guess I wasn't as successful as you were getting access to the Action Report but I did see the post graduate Report #'s re: law school. I think they actually send these reports out, as they looked familiar.</p>
<p>what I find on the college confidential site, is that some people just want to give "facts" and are hesitant to give anecdotal info.
I'm a big fan of "analyzing" anecdotal info, not taking it too seriously but nevertheless not excluding it either.</p>
<p>so to ClareMarie- over the past 2 years, it seemed GW and Wash U, were a bit more generous with merit money than other like schools. Will this hold true next year?? I have no clue- but if your relative is looking to apply to top 30 schools and needs merit funds, he may want to throw an application to GW and Wash U.
There are no hard and fast rules with college or law school admission. So read the info, follow the trends, don't take info as gospel and don't take any info too seriously as there are way too many exceptions to the rule.</p>
<p>General statement: if your relative has T-14 stats, he may get lucky and get some decent merit funds from a T30 school.</p>
<p>jonri- I figured I'd try one more time to get the action report. And lo and behold- I got it. What I thought interesting (and I pulled 2003-2004 Report and 2004/2005) If you do a break down of all Cornell grads applying, about 1/3 are seniors and the remainder are alum. The kids applying as seniors had about a point higher on the LSATthan alum and about a .25 higher GPA than alum. Whether the alum with slightly lower stats felt a year or two work experience would bolster their chance, would just be a guess on my part.
There also doesn't seem to be too much of an "Ivy bump" for Cornell kids getting into T-14 schools. The mean LSAT/GPA for admission seems to be in line with what is posted on LSAC/USNWR .
as an example 41 cornell kids got into NYU with a mean 172/ 3.76 (one year cycle) and 30 into Columbia with similar stats , so it doesn't look like their chances of admission were much better than graduates of other schools. </p>
<p>And I also saw that while Cornell likes its grads, they don't give open invitations to the law school. They seem to accept around 20%- and the mean GPA/LSAT is on target with all college applicants at 167/3.65.</p>
<p>I don't know if any of this info interests anyone- but I was so glad to find it, I thought I would pass it along to any interested party.</p>
<p>I don't want to hijack this thread, but I thought this aside might be valuable.</p>
<p>marny, though I don't know the current status, until not too long ago Cornell Law actually encouraged Cornell undergrads to go to law school elsewhere in order to see something else of the world outside of Ithaca. </p>
<p>It has always been my anecdotal experience that Cornell graduates generally do very well getting into top law schools, whether they apply right out of college or if they work for one or more years before applying. These same Cornell graduates also generally do very well in the job market after law school.</p>
<p>thanks for the info sallyawp-
though my d absolutely adored her time at Cornell,I think she too would like to broaden her experiences- but it would be a great honor to get the acceptance from Cornell Law and I know she will be applying there. When I checked the 3 Action Reports for 2003-2006 (I pulled the 2005/2006 too)-- of the 177 Cornell UG's admitted to Cornell Law, only 64 matriculated there. So I guess it is natural for many kids to want a new experience. </p>
<p>Looks like law school will be further down the road than I initially thought as d may want to work 2 years before she starts law school. She starts her job in July- so unless the job is a real stinker (and I don't think it is), she won't be applying this cycle.</p>
<p>She has her LSAT's out of the way- registered with LSDAS -- sent in transcript info- and got 2 recommendations. So at least she covered the basics while still an UG.</p>
<p>Before we know it the Applications will be out for the next cycle.
Good luck to ALL.</p>