I’ve heard that law schools can take away your scholarship even if you pass a class, is that true?
Most law schools that offer scholarships have a minimum GPA requirement needed to keep the scholarship. If the minimum GPA requirement is at or near the minimum GPA required to stay enrolled and in good academic standing, this is no problem. All that means is that to keep your scholarship you need to do well enough to stay in school and avoid academic probation.
However, some schools have historically attached very high GPA requirements to scholarships. Law schools also typically use a curved grading system, which means that the average GPA of every class at the law school cannot exceed a set amount (usually around 3.0, but it varies). If a scholarship’s minimum GPA is near or higher than their curved GPA, this means that the deck may be stacked against you keeping your scholarship. If a school requires a 3.4 to keep your scholarship, but enforces a curve with an average of 3.0, it means that mathematically most students cannot keep such a scholarship. It is a regrettable practice, but schools do sometimes attract students with scholarships that they know these students will not keep – by the time the scholarship is revoked, the student is already enrolled and invested.
I heard I can negotiate with law schools? What does that mean? How does it work?
Law schools compete with other law schools for quality students, just like jobs compete for quality employees. Occasionally, this can directly benefit students. If two similarly ranked schools offer you admission, you can inform them of your admission to the other school and let them know that financial incentives (scholarships) or overall cost would be part of your decision-making process, and a scholarship award (or an increased scholarship award if you’ve already received some money) would make you more likely to attend their school.
Keep in mind: If you want a school to increase its offer to you, you’re going to need to convince them that you have another offer that is similarly attractive to theirs. For example, a school ranked #5 is unlikely to consider an offer from school #70’s competitive, even if #70 includes scholarship money. School #5 knows they are prestigious, and doesn’t think they’re competing with school #70 for the same students. If, however, you have admission to school #24 and school #30, they each might feel pressure to offer you scholarship money because the schools are similarly ranked.