When you work in admissions, you accumulate a lot of amazing stories of people at their best and worst. Mostly this kind of story is merely entertaining; they tend to be sui generis, rather than exemplary of Large Life Lessons.

Yesterday gave rise to a people-at-their-worst incident. It wasn’t, however, totally sui generis.

Financial aid is a big deal in law school decisionmaking. Law school is expensive. People usually go to law school with the hope of earning a large salary at the end of it, or at least a mild expectation that they’ll be able to do so should they choose. They weigh the considerable cost of tuition against the likely career benefits and, one hopes, come to a rational conclusion about whether a particular school at a particular cost makes sense for them and their particular goals. However rational one tries to be, however, there are large amounts of unknowns in this formula and making the decision to attend law school therefore involves, to some degree, a leap of faith. Everyone has a different temperament for that sort of risk, and for some people, the process generates a great deal of anxiety.

That’s always been the case. But as we all know, the ground under law firms, along with most other industries, has shifted since the fall of 2008. The unknowns in the formula have only grown, and the corresponding sense of risk has only increased—along with the anxiety. We do our best to counsel admitted students in an objective way about the pros and cons (one of the panels we put on during our admitted student weekends, for example, features a current student who was a CPA pre-law school, along with alumni speaking frankly about debt). Nonetheless, the fact is, for some people, money and debt are an emotional quagmire in which it is hard to be objective and measured.

Which brings me to my story of yesterday. We got a call from an admitted student who had already received a merit scholarship from us. The caller wanted us to increase his award because he had received larger awards from other law schools. Now, it is our policy, stated in the scholarship award letters, not to alter scholarship awards once they have been made, but the receptionist quite correctly advised him to email the office with the information about the other awards. However unlikely it may be that we’ll alter our stated policy, she knows that we always want to be able to consider individual circumstances. He hung up in anger at that advice, though—and then emailed to complain that the receptionist had been most unhelpful for not having immediately forwarded the call to me. I reiterated the advice: please do send us the information requested. His behavior made me highly dubious, yet knowing how anxiety-producing the issues of money can be made me loath to assume the worst; maybe, I thought, he had some extraordinary circumstances. His response was fairly peremptory — a list of schools and awards, none of which were much in excess of what we had already given him.

As I mulled over how to respond, I called my colleague in our Financial Aid Office for a little guidance, as she takes many such calls; I recited the figures he had given, and she observed that one figure just didn’t sound right, given what she knew about that school’s awards.

This led me to call that school to ask whether the number I had received was in error. (For the record: our admitted student website does alert candidates that we may contact other law schools to verify scholarship awards.) And that’s when I learned not merely that the figure was a little off, but that in fact, no scholarship award at all had been given.

Yikes.

Now, none of this is typical behavior, by any means, but it’s also not unique. (Past readers of the blog will doubtless have seen that coming. Human behavior is rarely unique.) So let me extract from all this the two nuggets of important information for people who are very anxious about the cost of law school.

One: you should certainly approach the schools you are considering for advice about aid—just be nice when you do so. There’s a reason why “you catch more flies with honey” is such a well-known aphorism that I don’t need to finish typing it out for you to know what it is. So don’t make the call when you’re feeling so wound up that you just can’t communicate effectively. Practice what you’re going to say, and think about how it sounds. Making the people in the admissions office or the financial aid office feel that they made a mistake in admitting you is not likely to result in an increase in your aid.

Two: whatever you do, don’t lie. Here’s another aphorism: Honesty really is the best policy. What I’ve described is a pretty clear-cut case of deliberate misrepresentation, and in the absence of some astonishing explanation, I am compelled to report the candidate to the Law School Admissions Council for misconduct in the admissions process. That may mean that this candidate doesn’t go to law school at all.

-Dean Z.

Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions