Responding to Admission and Waiting List Offers
Offers of admission are usually accompanied by requests for deposits by specified dates. This means that you may need to submit a deposit to hold your place in a law school if you are still waiting to hear from one that you would prefer to attend. There is nothing illegal or unethical about accepting a position at one school while waiting for a better offer, unless you have no intention of attending that school. This could deny a place to a deserving student, so if you no longer have interest in that school, you should simply decline its offer of admission. This is also true for waiting list placements, and there is nothing wrong with remaining on several waiting lists while you await final admission decisions.
If you do well enough to earn a scholarship, you will often have to make a decision between a reduced rate at a lower-ranked law school and full tuition at a higher-ranked law school. While saving money your tuition might seem an easy decision, you need to know that most scholarships come with renewal conditions, such as maintaining a certain average. Law school is a hypercompetitive environment and law schools place percentage limits on how many A grades each professor may award, so even if you have maintained a 4.0 GPA at Touro, this practice of grading “on a curve” may make it difficult to achieve a 3.2 at a local law school. You need to consider whether you would still be happy attending a lower-ranked school if you failed to meet the minimum first-year GPA, had no realistic hope of transferring to a better school, and had to pay full tuition for the last two years.
The more important consideration is that law schools are more highly ranked if they provide their students with better job opportunities and better classmates. The former are important so you can find a job upon graduation; the latter are important when you look to change jobs in the future. At some lower-ranked law schools, many graduates will no longer be practicing law ten years out, and so they will be less helpful than graduates of a school whose students remain in the legal profession for decades. This means that unless you have a guaranteed job before you enter law school, you should usually try to attend the best law school you can. While saving tens of thousands of dollars seems mighty attractive when you have just graduated from Touro, you may be foregoing many lucrative job possibilities by accepting a full scholarship to a lower-ranked law school. Furthermore, many top-rated law schools have loan forgiveness programs that substantially reduce your debt if you accept a public-interest job.
Once you have heard from one law school, you can use it to your advantage in negotiating with other law schools that have yet to decide. One Touro student used an offer of a scholarship at a lower-ranked law school to convince a higher-ranked law school to admit him. Another used an offer of a scholarship at one law school to obtain a scholarship from a similarly-ranked law school, and then used that scholarship offer to convince the first school to match his scholarship at the second school. While this strategy does not always work, it is more likely to be successful earlier in the application process rather than later, when scholarship funds have been depleted. You should discuss such strategies with your prelaw advisor should the opportunity arise. Also, remember that law schools are training future professionals, and the more professionally you handle any negotiations, the more likely you are to be successful.
At some point, you will be ready to make your final decision. When you do, submit your acceptance and deposit, and notify other schools that you are no longer interested. Should your life circumstances change after you have applied, and you need to defer for a year, many law schools will allow this so you can hold your place and avoid having to go through the application process the following year.
