What schools are most generous with merit $$$?

[fred]

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[Bouzie]

Are there any schools that are particularly well known for giving out $$$? My numbers are pretty solid (170/3.7) and I imagine I'd have a shot at some top schools...but I'm really not looking to graduate with $100,000 in debt, as I have no desire to sell my soul after school.

I was looking at Buffalo's website and it looks like they only give out need-based aid. Is this is case for most state schools??

Also...how does financial aid work for law school? Do schools still look at your parents' incomes, even if you're an independent? I imagine they must...otherwise it seems like everyone applying to law school would qualify for massive amounts of aid.

Thanks,
-Dan

Dan -- sadly, yes, your parents income will count against you at most schools.  At Michigan we have some sort of sliding scale basued upon the number of years that a person is independant (I think that 40% of my parents income counted against me because I'd been independant for 3 years).  Most schools, however, will just count their entire income.

With numbers like that are you really looking seriously at UB?  Is there somethign about that program that you really like?  WIth your numbers you would probably get a good deal of money at schools like emory, washington u in st louis, and GW and might pull down some scholarships at 'top' schools as well.

A word of caution though 100K in debt from a top school isn't as big of a deal as you might think and opens up a lot of career options.  Another caveat- law school, with no scholarships costs about 170K with living exepenses, I don't know why everyone's always talking about 100K in debt --- thats what most people with decent sized scholarships end up with

Best of luck

[vap]

www.lsac.org

HTH.

...

But seriously, you can search the schools by the % of class that gets full tuition scholarships.  If there's a particular school you're interested in, just look up it's data - LSAC has compiled the % of students that receive scholarships and broken it down by category (more than full, full, half to full, less than half, etc.).

If you're looking for full ride and up (full ride and/or full ride plus stipend) to top 25 or so schools, look at Minnesota (about 6%), WashU (about 5%), Emory (about 8%), U of Illinois (about 9%), and Iowa (about 23%).  You'd probably also be well-positioned for the Gates scholarship at U of Washington.

[vap]

GWU was always confusing to me because tons of people on LSN report $120K in scholarships (which I assume is the "full tuition + housing" scholarship lots of people talk about on these boards), but ABA data say no one at GWU gets more than a full ride, 0.1% get full rides, and 2.2% get half to full tuition scholarships.
http://officialguide.lsac.org//SearchResults/SchoolPage_PDFs/ABA_LawSchoolData/ABA5246.pdf

[LionelHutz]

GWU was always confusing to me because tons of people on LSN report $120K in scholarships (which I assume is the "full tuition + housing" scholarship lots of people talk about on these boards), but ABA data say no one at GWU gets more than a full ride, 0.1% get full rides, and 2.2% get half to full tuition scholarships.
http://officialguide.lsac.org//SearchResults/SchoolPage_PDFs/ABA_LawSchoolData/ABA5246.pdf

the data on lsac, as on usnews, is from last years entering class or the class entering in 2006. I think gw just started doing the full ride/housing thing this past year, so it should be reflected in next years lsac guide.


to the OP, you are definitely selling yourself short if you go to buffalo. Do some research on LSN to see which schools give a lot of merit money to people with similar numbers, and you might wanna seriously consider the GW early decisions/ full ride option.

[Eveman in Ingmarland]

My family lived about an hour from Buffalo when I was little. I've been there many times. It's a horrible place. Going to school there would be a bad life choice.

[tonyp]

My family lived about an hour from Buffalo when I was little. I've been there many times. It's a horrible place. Going to school there would be a bad life choice.

I went to UB for undergrad.  While I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a "horrible place," it's a hard place to enjoy unless you're from there.

The law school in particular has very limited reach in terms of placement.  The OP can do much, much better and still get plenty of merit aid.

[fred]

Thanks everyone! Yeah, the only real reason I was looking at Buffalo is because I had assumed they'd give a lot of money...now I'm starting to see that there are better options.

I'm definitely going to look into GW.

Thanks again

[ManTGeo]

Thanks everyone! Yeah, the only real reason I was looking at Buffalo is because I had assumed they'd give a lot of money...now I'm starting to see that there are better options.

I'm definitely going to look into GW.

Thanks again

Yeah, GW is a good thing for you to look at - their ED program has a full-tuition scholarship attached, and with your numbers you probably will get it.

Understand that law school is not like med school or college - your career options afterward are impacted very heavily by the school you choose to attend. Even venturing outside of the top 14 (which GW is not in) closes a lot of doors. If you really are certain that you don't want to sell your soul, are you interested in public service jobs after law school? If so, you should consider applying for the public-service scholarships that some of the T14 schools have.

[Matthew]

Yeah, GW is a good thing for you to look at - their ED program has a full-tuition scholarship attached, and with your numbers you probably will get it.

If you get in ED, you get the scholarship?

Yes, automatically.