Law School Discussion

So I went to one of UChicago's day in the life programs for admitted students. Note: DO NOT STAY IN THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE. I thought it would be convenient, since it's right on campus, but it was awful. I went with my boyfriend and it was $80 for a tiny room with a double bed plus $7 for internet. There was only one girl's shower and one toilet for two floors, which meant you had to wait in line to use the single shower. When we first got there, they sent us to a dirty room and we had to wait a while before they found us another one. The front desk people seemed pretty incompetent.

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't hold that against the law school. I found both the classes I went to pretty interesting and dynamic, but I wasn't really impressed by the student hosts or the panel discussions. My student host, instead of answering any questions about the law school, made us go to this talk after we'd just been to two lectures. She kept insisting that it would be a really great talk, but when we got there, she spent the entire time on her laptop and didn't pay attention to any of it. The other student she was leading around played around on her iphone the whole time. In fact, my boyfriend was the only one paying attention and he isn't even going to law school. Afterwards, she talked for about fifteen minutes about the law school, and then said she had to get to class. One of the things she emphasized was how her extracurriculars organized many speakers and how so many people at UChicago attend speakers, unlike at NYU, where students are out having fun. She said how some people came to the speakers just for the free food but they were generally looked down upon for not being fully engaged in the lecture, which was funny to me because she didn't pay any attention either.

Basically, it just seemed like a pretty boring place. I find myself wanting NYU so badly even though UChicago's better at academia. I love everything about NYU and I just wonder if I'm going to regret my choice.

Anyone going through similar decision anxiety? Anyone have a good experience during their UChicago visit? 

Are there any success stories involving scholarship negotiation? Like has anyone received a scholarship from, say, Michigan, and then called somewhere like NYU to ask if they could match it?

So I'm a senior in undergrad applying to law school and my top choices are Harvard, Columbia, NYU, and Yale (but that's a long shot). I want to go into academia and I have two LSAT scores - 170 and 177. However, my current lsdas gpa is around 3.66 and I believe that after this semester, it'll definitely go up to 3.71 or 3.72. I believe my first semester grades will definitely make my application stronger, but not going complete until January seems risky. My recommendations and personal statement are just about ready to go, but should I wait to go complete until my first semester grades are ready? Or should I apply in the next couple weeks and assume that they probably won't get to my application till January any way? I'm applying to most of the T 14.

So I've been an econ and English major and now it's my senior year and I have two or three classes left to complete my economics major. However, I really don't like econ and I've been keeping up with it because it's more "practical." But now, I'm pretty much set on law school and I feel that my economics class this semester may hurt my gpa, especially since I could take an easier, more enjoyable class in its place in which I could get an A+. Anyway, point being...would law schools look unfavorably upon dropping a major this late in undergrad or will a higher gpa more than make up for that?

I took the LSAT last October and got a 170. I thought I could do better, so I studied again and got a 177 this June. I'm obviously really happy with my score, but what happens now? Supposedly, LSAC says to consider the highest score now, but certain law schools still claim to average the scores and ask for an addendum if there is a significant score increase. I feel my score increase is pretty significant, but I don't really know what to include in an addendum. I honestly think I did better because it was a noon test rather than a morning test (I barely got three hours of sleep before the October test) and because it wasn't during the school year so I could focus better on the LSAT. Are these valid things to include in an addendum? I didn't cancel my first score because I still thought I did decently, which I did.