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juice999
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Risks of Parallel Scholarship Negotiations 11 Dec 2024, 22:04
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I'm planning to negotiate scholarship offers between multiple business schools (all within T15-T20 range). Since I'm equally interested in these schools and they offer similar career outcomes and prestige, my decision will primarily be based on the best financial offer. I believe this approach is reasonable since choosing the most financially advantageous option among peer schools is a practical decision.

My strategy would be to leverage offers from each school to potentially increase scholarships at the others, indicating to each that they are my top choice. I am happy to provide proof of my scholarship offers through official letters.

However, I have a key concern:
Do business schools communicate with each other to verify scholarship offers during negotiations?

I aim to optimize my scholarship outcomes but want to understand if this strategy carries any risks, particularly regarding schools discovering my parallel negotiations and my representation of each as my top choice

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Risks of Parallel Scholarship Negotiations 11 Dec 2024, 22:08
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No, they do not communicate with each other.

The schools assume that you are negotiating and they will do their best understanding that it may still not result into you choosing the program.

However, there are no downsides really... I’ve known people who have gone back-and-forth in a circle leveraging one of the other. However, the efforts reached diminishing returns and some schools don’t negotiate, such as Ross, at least historically.
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Risks of Parallel Scholarship Negotiations 11 Dec 2024, 22:09
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PS. Congratulations on your admits by the way! Try to join our admit weekend on Saturday this week, we will have a scholarship negotiation session.
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Risks of Parallel Scholarship Negotiations 11 Dec 2024, 22:19
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Thank you for sharing your experience, bb! I've been following the scholarship negotiation thread you created, where you mentioned that negotiation success rates are quite low, with failure rates over 80% if I recall correctly.

As an Indian IT candidate with a 770 GMAT, would peer schools typically be inclined to match competing offers to secure strong candidates?

Regarding your point about going back and forth - I'd love to understand the process better. For example, if School A offers $60K, I negotiate with School B using that offer, and School B increases their offer - can I then go back to School A with School B's improved offer?

I also have a question about negotiating based on total cost of attendance rather than just scholarship amounts. For instance:
  • School A: $160K tuition - $60K scholarship = $100K total cost
  • School B: $120K tuition - $60K scholarship = $60K total cost
Even with equal scholarship amounts, the final cost differs significantly. Would it be reasonable to negotiate with School A to match or come closer to School B's total cost of attendance, rather than just comparing scholarship amounts?

Would love to hear your thoughts on these strategies. I've signed up for the admit weekend this Saturday - really looking forward to it! Scholarship Negotiation topic feels like a bit of a black box, and I'm sure many admits would appreciate more insights since everyone loves the opportunity to reduce their costs.

bb
No, they do not communicate with each other.

The schools assume that you are negotiating and they will do their best understanding that it may still not result into you choosing the program.

However, there are no downsides really... I’ve known people who have gone back-and-forth in a circle leveraging one of the other. However, the efforts reached diminishing returns and some schools don’t negotiate, such as Ross, at least historically.
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Risks of Parallel Scholarship Negotiations 11 Dec 2024, 22:29
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Hi. So schools are not stupid and they understand that there’s a huge difference for example even if you get 50% scholarship at Stern for example, it may still equal the total cost of not getting any scholarship at Darden for example. So Darren is not gonna give you 50% scholarship because they know the dollars don’t add up.

I don’t know the exact success rate and if there is one, it’s likely outdated. Many of the people who do successfully get an increase in scholarship tend to keep it quiet.... For whatever reason.


So you can leverage offers from schools but usually only once so if you go to school A. and give them the offer from school B and they match it and then you go to school B and you give them the offer from school a to bump it up, they may bump it up but school will not match the bumping. There’s an end at some point 😂

PS. The less you ask for, the more likely you will receive it so that’s another strategies to see if you can eat out small amounts if you feel like you’ve reached the top. Most schools don’t like entertaining multiple discussions about scholarship negotiations. They generally don’t enjoy it.... But talking to former admissions Director from Berkeley, she mentioned that you may have an opportunity to possibly negotiate a little bit more during the admitted students weekend. That just came out in our scholarship video 😂 so there are many touch points and opportunities to potentially approach admissions...
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Risks of Parallel Scholarship Negotiations 11 Dec 2024, 22:58
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Thank you for the detailed clarification! Let me better explain my question about total cost negotiation:

I apologize if I wasn't clear earlier. I'm not referring to living costs, but rather the difference in base tuition between schools. Let me explain with a specific example:

School A ( Tepper)
  • Total 2-year tuition: $160K
  • Current scholarship: $60K
  • Net cost: $100K
School B ( Mccombs)
  • Total 2-year tuition: $120K
  • Current scholarship: $60K
  • Net cost: $60K
Even though both schools are offering the same scholarship amount ($60K), there's a $40K difference in what I'd actually need to pay due to the difference in base tuition. Since my scholarship request is primarily based on financial need, would it be reasonable to approach School A about this total cost difference?

My thinking is: If I express that the $60K total cost at School B is more manageable for my financial situation, could School A be willing to increase their scholarship (potentially up to $100K) to bring their net cost closer to School B's $60K? This would mean School A is offering a larger scholarship amount, but ultimately arriving at a similar final cost to the candidate.

I'm curious whether schools consider these total cost differentials during negotiations, particularly when financial need is a key factor in the discussion.

P.S. - I watched your scholarship 101 video and it's incredibly helpful - best resource I've found on this topic! I've taken detailed notes and will definitely use the admitted weekend tip you mentioned. Thank you for creating such valuable content for the community!

bb
Hi. So schools are not stupid and they understand that there’s a huge difference for example even if you get 50% scholarship at Stern for example, it may still equal the total cost of not getting any scholarship at Darden for example. So Darren is not gonna give you 50% scholarship because they know the dollars don’t add up.

I don’t know the exact success rate and if there is one, it’s likely outdated. Many of the people who do successfully get an increase in scholarship tend to keep it quiet.... For whatever reason.


So you can leverage offers from schools but usually only once so if you go to school A. and give them the offer from school B and they match it and then you go to school B and you give them the offer from school a to bump it up, they may bump it up but school will not match the bumping. There’s an end at some point 😂

PS. The less you ask for, the more likely you will receive it so that’s another strategies to see if you can eat out small amounts if you feel like you’ve reached the top. Most schools don’t like entertaining multiple discussions about scholarship negotiations. They generally don’t enjoy it.... But talking to former admissions Director from Berkeley, she mentioned that you may have an opportunity to possibly negotiate a little bit more during the admitted students weekend. That just came out in our scholarship video 😂 so there are many touch points and opportunities to potentially approach admissions...
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