Law School Cutting Scholarships For Students Who Don’t Commit Fast Enough?

Applying to law school is bad enough. Throwing your future into the hands of administrators applying bespoke black box methodologies to weigh your life’s work and a 4-hour test. Prospective students shouldn’t have to deal with exploding offers of financial assistance while waiting on a final decision from the 10 other schools on the list.

An ominous thread on r/lawschooladmissions, suggests that at least one school has started playing games with student finances as a means of controlling its student population.

That’s a full-tuition scholarship offer reduced to $15,680 less than a week later. And, as the quoted passage indicates, the school made this cut based on who hadn’t yet submitted a seat deposit.

The deposit isn’t even due for three weeks!

What the school calls “an unanticipated level of interest” should properly be called “an entirely expected level of interest.” Roughly, oh, 8 years ago we went through all this already. That’s when Donald Trump first ascended to the Oval Office and students flocked to law schools to defend the rule of law. In retrospect, the assault on the sanctity of the Constitution in 2017 seems quaint by comparison. Say what you will about obstructing justice we weren’t actively disappearing people to slave camps yet. Would law schools see another “Trump bump” in applications after November? OBVIOUSLY!

And that’s before adding the historical jump in admissions during times of economic uncertainty — the sort of uptick that might materialize when the White House decides to model its economic policy around replaying the Great Depression’s greatest hits.

Every law school should’ve been able to see this coming since right around 11 p.m. Eastern, November 5, 2024.

Moreover, a school just can’t fire off an email a few days after awarding a scholarship to say, “Oopsie.” It undermines trust in the admissions process and can have long-term repercussions, affecting the school’s reputation and its ability to attract top talent in the future.​ Remember the black eye one school took for threatening to revoke scholarships if students put down deposits at other schools while going through the process.

There are so many better alternatives if a school finds itself a victim of poor planning. For instance, the school could have:​

• Secured additional funding to honor the original scholarship commitments, recognizing that scholarship discounts are often more about accounting than actual expenditures.​
• Offered incentives for deferral, such as guaranteed scholarships for the following year or unique internship opportunities, to manage class size without reneging on promises.​
• Provided clearer communication from the start regarding the conditional nature of scholarship offers, ensuring transparency from the outset.​

In the competitive realm of legal education, maintaining integrity in admissions practices is paramount. Arizona Law’s recent actions serve as a cautionary tale for institutions nationwide.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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