joeschmuck (2022-2023)

My decision was all about money. I would strongly advise asking for more money from schools. However they want to know you are legitimately interested so go visit them or something. Tell them about your other scholarships from other schools. It will especially work if you can leverage offers against other schools nearby in the rankings. The biggest tool I had applying for schools and asking for more money was the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools on the www.lsac.org home page. In the school info it spells out how much aid each school gives out by percentages so you can figure out roughly how much aid you should get by comparing your lsat and gpa. It will also give you an idea of the schools grant patterns to see how much of a long shot it is to get a certain scholarship. (IE: if a school gives out full rides to 2% of their student body it doesn't matter how good your numbers are they probably won't increase you to a full ride. But I knew that I had a WAY better chance at a full ride with Iowa and Illinois than Notre Dame and Minnesota just because of their habits as indicated in the ABA guide.) Any way that is my biggest advice let me know if you have questions and I'll try to answer them.

Also make sure you take the lsat VERY well prepared (a good study course is well worth the money). I took the lsat multiple times and I think it hurt me with my T14 applications. But raising my score and taking the study course still helped me get scholarships I never could have dreamed of otherwise.