Stanford or take the money?

[Special Agent Dana Scully]

Thanks guys. I just wanted to make sure I'm not being irrational for favoring SLS over UVA/Penn at this point. I feel really lucky to have gotten in.

My family is pretty midde class and I did well for need based aid undergrad... I'm assuming SLS has a pretty good need based aid program? Anyone whose gone through the process have any idea of what kind of awards they give out and when I can expect them? I wouldn't say my family is poor, but our EFC for college was in the teens. Now, my EFC is obviously 0, but that's because I'm considered independent by FAFSA and have no income.

eh, if you have to fill out Need Access (for any school) you may get screwed despite an efc of 0 for FAFSA

We'll see how it goes. Hopefully stanford ponies up. if not, i might work for a year (some might find this silly because i'll make more after law school, but i do want to work before law school to make sure law school is for me. however, if working is just going to decrease my need based aid, i'm not going to do it. there'd be no incentive).

I worked for a year...I don't think it affected my aid negatively wrt Need Access schools (in my case, CLS, Chicago, and Mich)

[newtothis]

I'm aware this is a minority opinion around here, but I tend to think Yale and Stanford are both tremendously overrated both in terms of the education you get and the ultimate benefit to your career opportunities.

How'd you gather this?

Minority opoinions usually complain about Harvard being overrated.

[Ulfrekr]

Without a full scholarship at any of the other schools, I say take Stanford, pending a visit to make sure you wouldn't hate it for some reason. Wherever you go, you're still gonna come out with some pretty significant debt, so you might as well make your decision without regard to money.

[und3r3stimat3d]

Without a full scholarship at any of the other schools, I say take Stanford, pending a visit to make sure you wouldn't hate it for some reason. Wherever you go, you're still gonna come out with some pretty significant debt, so you might as well make your decision without regard to money.

This sounds a little reckless to me. I don't think I have the luxury of saying "What's another 90,000!" I'm not saying it's not the right approach, just a little risky.

[botbot]

Without a full scholarship at any of the other schools, I say take Stanford, pending a visit to make sure you wouldn't hate it for some reason. Wherever you go, you're still gonna come out with some pretty significant debt, so you might as well make your decision without regard to money.

This sounds a little reckless to me. I don't think I have the luxury of saying "What's another 90,000!" I'm not saying it's not the right approach, just a little risky.

Stanford affords you the opportunity.

Their superior LRAP + PI programs + placement would make it the correct choice if you wanted to save the world.  Their superior BIGLAW placement (in both prestige and Cali QOL firms) would make it the correct choice if you wanted to sell your soul.

Plus its in California...

It seems that in all likely hood you won't be receiving a $90k+ scholarship from CCN, so you probably won't be burdened with this problem.  (not to mentions Stanford's deep need-based pockets)

[und3r3stimat3d]

Without a full scholarship at any of the other schools, I say take Stanford, pending a visit to make sure you wouldn't hate it for some reason. Wherever you go, you're still gonna come out with some pretty significant debt, so you might as well make your decision without regard to money.

This sounds a little reckless to me. I don't think I have the luxury of saying "What's another 90,000!" I'm not saying it's not the right approach, just a little risky.

Stanford affords you the opportunity.

Their superior LRAP + PI programs + placement would make it the correct choice if you wanted to save the world.  Their superior BIGLAW placement (in both prestige and Cali QOL firms) would make it the correct choice if you wanted to sell your soul.

Plus its in California...

It seems that in all likely hood you won't be receiving a $90k+ scholarship from CCN, so you probably won't be burdened with this problem.  (not to mentions Stanford's deep need-based pockets)

and you think stanford still makes sense with 60K from Penn/UVA or 50K (potential) from one of CCN? I just need to hear someone validate this for me.

[Special Agent Dana Scully]

Without a full scholarship at any of the other schools, I say take Stanford, pending a visit to make sure you wouldn't hate it for some reason. Wherever you go, you're still gonna come out with some pretty significant debt, so you might as well make your decision without regard to money.

This sounds a little reckless to me. I don't think I have the luxury of saying "What's another 90,000!" I'm not saying it's not the right approach, just a little risky.

Stanford affords you the opportunity.

Their superior LRAP + PI programs + placement would make it the correct choice if you wanted to save the world.  Their superior BIGLAW placement (in both prestige and Cali QOL firms) would make it the correct choice if you wanted to sell your soul.

Plus its in California...

It seems that in all likely hood you won't be receiving a $90k+ scholarship from CCN, so you probably won't be burdened with this problem.  (not to mentions Stanford's deep need-based pockets)

and you think stanford still makes sense with 60K from Penn/UVA or 50K (potential) from one of CCN? I just need to hear someone validate this for me.

I think you will be fine, debt wise, if you go to SLS.  In the long run, 50k isn't that much difference, especially when you can make half of that back during 2L summer.  Plus, if SLS is like CLS, then you will get emails from Fin Aid about scholarship opps and stuff to supplement your grant.

Go to SLS if that's where you want to be.

[botbot]

Without a full scholarship at any of the other schools, I say take Stanford, pending a visit to make sure you wouldn't hate it for some reason. Wherever you go, you're still gonna come out with some pretty significant debt, so you might as well make your decision without regard to money.

This sounds a little reckless to me. I don't think I have the luxury of saying "What's another 90,000!" I'm not saying it's not the right approach, just a little risky.

Stanford affords you the opportunity.

Their superior LRAP + PI programs + placement would make it the correct choice if you wanted to save the world.  Their superior BIGLAW placement (in both prestige and Cali QOL firms) would make it the correct choice if you wanted to sell your soul.

Plus its in California...

It seems that in all likely hood you won't be receiving a $90k+ scholarship from CCN, so you probably won't be burdened with this problem.  (not to mentions Stanford's deep need-based pockets)

and you think stanford still makes sense with 60K from Penn/UVA or 50K (potential) from one of CCN? I just need to hear someone validate this for me.

Unless I needed to be in NYC or Chicago for a personal reason, I wouldn't consider the other scholarships.

[t L]

Go to Stanford.  $50,000  just isn't that much in the long term.  LIke MCB said, you can make that up during 1L and 2L summer.

[Ulfrekr]

This sounds a little reckless to me. I don't think I have the luxury of saying "What's another 90,000!" I'm not saying it's not the right approach, just a little risky.

Yeah, you're right. I should have put more though into it. I guess my feeling was just that if you were talking about a full scholly at UVA or Penn, then one of those might be the obvious choice, but even in that scenario some people might pick SLS. With a half scholly, you still have to worry about pretty significant loans either way, so I felt you should take the higher ranked school. However, upon reflection, I'd say it depends a lot on what you want to do. If you're just interested in firm work, there isn't any real difference in what you're likely to make coming out of any of those three schools, so it might actually make more sense to go with the cheaper option; at the same time, if you're going into firm work, then the financial difference between the schools might not be that significant overall. You're right, it is a tough call. I guess the question is whether the differences between what SLS can offer and what the other schools can is worth ~60k (or whatever the actual difference works out to). For most career options, the opportunities each school will give you are likely to be fairly similar, so it might just come down to how much the intangibles between the options matter to you. Basically, I don't think you can go too wrong either way.

Are the scholarships to UVA and Penn named scholarships? That might also be a factor, since presumably a named scholarship erodes at least a little of the prestige difference between the schools.