Friday, March 11, 2011

Law School is My Corvette

I got two interesting packets in the mail.  One was from University of Toledo.  It was my official acceptance packet.  The other was from Seton Hall.

Yet another school that, yes, I would LOVE to go to, but no, I won't be attending.  The way this works for those who haven't done this before is that the guys who give you the LSAT also are the ones you send all your application stuff to.  They put you on lists that other law schools have access to, and you end up getting a never-ending stream of e-mails and the occassional mail-mail that invites you to apply to some law school, somewhere.

I wanted the UT packet because I was curious if I might have gotten a scholarship.  I wasn't thinking this at first, but read some stuff on blogs about people who had LSATs like mine who got full-rides.  Even a half ride or a quarter ride would be a big chunk of money.

I have my official acceptance letter.  I also have a piece of xeroxed paper from financial aid that mentions that scholarships are awarded on a rolling basis, and that the decision is made shortly after the acceptance decision and the scholarship recipients are informed, directly.

Now, I'm pretty sure that the two items, when you put them together, mean I didn't get a scholarship.  However, I shot off an e-mail just to make sure. 

I suspect that I didn't get one, but they don't put things like, "incidentally, we reviewed you for one of our scholarships, but we don't give scholarships to dumbasses... nice gpa, doofus" on the acceptance letter.

Still, I want to hear one way or the other.

By not giving a scholarship, UT actually puts CWRU back in play.  CWRU, with a 50% scholarship, is the same cost as UT at sticker price.  Between the two, CWRU would be a monumentally huge hassle to attend.  However, if the cost were the same, I'd seriously have to consider driving to the mistake on the lake... I mean Cleveland, to go to Case Western Reserve again.

I will almost certainly take out the maximum allowable direct loans, if for no other reason than I can use the money to pay off higher interest debt. 

So, now, just waiting to hear back from financial aid on whether this is their final answer on a scholarship, then to wait to hear from CWRU.  From what I remember about CWRU, though, they give precious few scholarships. 

We'll wait and see.

If I don't get one, now, I can always try to compete for one later, but I think I would need something like a top 10 class rank to get one later in the process.  It would give me something to work for, though.  $20,000 isn't the biggest amount of money in the world, but it's real money.

The way I look at it, if my business recovers and I start making money again, it's only a matter of time until I buy a Corvette or Escalade.  Instead, Law School will be my Corvette.

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