Yup I'm here to help! Though I'm just a blur sotong 1L so take my words with a pinch of salt.

I actually didn't study law for undergrad in NUS and had zero knowledge of the legal industry in Singapore, so I can't really do a comparison between the viability of the US and Sg legal markets for you... I can definitely talk about the scholarship issue though!

International Students CAN get scholarships
Unlike in Sg where most scholarships are granted by the government and comes with a bond, US law school scholarships are granted by the individual schools themselves and have no bond. I'm a recipient of one of these scholarships!

Named scholarships
Scholarships can be "named" scholarships like the Darrow scholarship at UMich, or the Ruby (stands for Rubenstein or something) scholarship at UChicago, or the AnBryce scholarship at NYU, etc. These named scholarships are usually more atas, are full-ride (meaning you pay zero tuition fee!) and some even come with a stipend (they pay you to attend school gosh). They are open to everyone, including international students. But I'm like a nobody haha so I never even bothered to apply to them. You should definitely try though!

Regular merit-based scholarships
Apart from those rare atas named scholarships, schools also give out regular merit-based scholarships. Regular merit-based scholarships are based on the strength of your application package. Your LSAT score, college GPA, Personal Statement, Diversity Essay, Resume, and Interview are all part of your application package. Merit-based scholarships can range from as high as a full-ride (0 tuition fees!) to maybe as low as 10k or 30k. You may also get no scholarship at all (paying sticker price)

Need-based scholarships
Out of the over 200 USA law schools, only the top 3 (Harvard/Yale/Stanford) provide need-based scholarships. Meaning no matter how poor you are, they will make sure you can study at their schools. I'm not at HYS, so I'm not exactly sure of how it works, but basically if you get accepted into one of HYS, you can put your immediate worries about whether you can afford to attend aside and just let the school settle things for you.


As for my situation... I don't really wanna doxx myself so I'll just speak in generalities haha. I'm at a lower T14 school that is NOT RECOGNIZED by Singapore's MinLaw, so even if I wanted to practice Sg law I can't do it :'(. This means I have to practice US law, be it in the US, or back in Asia in a foreign office of a US firm (which is what I hope to do as I wish to be closer to my family).

But not to worry for you, there are four T14 schools that are recognized by MinLaw, so if you do not have an NUS/SMU llb, but you wish to leave the option of practicing Sg law open, I would recommend going to those instead. They are Harvard/Columbia/NYU/Michigan.

If you are on this forum, that means you are likely from NUS/SMU law. This means you're definitely smarter and more hardworking than me, and I hope you can get better outcomes than I did! I would highly recommend going to a T6 rather than a T14 like I did. Top 6 schools generally assure you of getting a biglaw (i.e. 190k USD starting pay) job, while if you are attending a lower T14 school maybe only around 60% of their students each year manage to get a biglaw job. Grades are the number 1 factor in terms of determining whether you get offered a biglaw job, though networking also helps a lot. I'm like an introvert who doesn't network and my grades are crappy so things aren't looking so well for me... (but don't let that demoralize you, most Singaporeans do really well in US law schools, I'm just... not the typical hardworking Singaporean)

It certainly is a huge time (3 years) and money (I'm spending maybe around 200k SGD of my parents' money, even with my significant scholarship, not to mention the loss of income from 3 years of not working) sink. I can't say for sure that taking this route will make you more or less money overall compared to simply walking the standard sg law path... but I will say that this is an experience that I will treasure.

I must have bored the others in this forum to tears with my rambling, so I'll stop here. But if you are really keen on this route, feel free to ask more questions, I'm willing to help . I wish someone had been around to help me when I was going on this path some years back, instead of trying to do this all by myself. I'll be glad if I can make things easier for you!