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36 out of 37 law schools I emailed waived my application fee. I am wondering if they would also be willing to pay the report fee LSAC charges? Does anyone have any experience with this?
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36 out of 37 law schools I emailed waived my application fee. I am wondering if they would also be willing to pay the report fee LSAC charges? Does anyone have any experience with this?
38 comments
You know what. I’m going to email the adcoms back and ask if they thought my request was presumptuous.
In any case, I will ask, and will post the responses here.
Do remember that law school admission personnel are a part of the service industry, where one just doesn't say what (s)he thinks outright to potential or current customers. Also recall that, unlike an average server at a local eatery, some of these people work for (inter)nationally renowned educational institutions. Every single word or action reflects on them and their institutions. A simple mistake or mishap is more than capable of drawing ridicule on a(n inter)national scale.
If you ask such people whether you find your question presumptuous, of course they will say no. They may even add a few soothing sentences, e.g. "We are here to answer any and all questions you have." But their friendly response notwithstanding, they are human beings too.
On a personal note, I have administrative experience and have spent a good amount of time interacting with administrative professionals. Believe me, quite a number of them have memories like an elephant's and can be as vengeful and unforgiving as the Erinyes when they get pissed. And like I said before, I'm not so inclined to expect the best of the human nature from people who are forced to forge their ways through hundreds and thousands of pages every day.
@katewillis91551 said:
@xadrianas6x881 said:
Contrary to what everyone has already posted, Alabama sent out a coupon code to pay the $45 CAS fee. It came with an application fee waiver. Shout out to Bama! So at least one school “pays” the report fee and I wish more would!
I got an email a couple of days ago with a coupon code from Maryland for the CAS fee! I definitely wish more schools would do this. The $45 is a barrier to applying even if you have an app fee waiver.
That’s awesome! Good to know there are more schools taking this into consideration. I was recently accepted in Bama with 100k in scholly. Gonna definitely visit and see how I like Alabama. I wouldn’t have applied without the fee waiver and $45 CAS coupon code. Now I may be cheering “roll tide” next year.
@xadrianas6x881 said:
Contrary to what everyone has already posted, Alabama sent out a coupon code to pay the $45 CAS fee. It came with an application fee waiver. Shout out to Bama! So at least one school “pays” the report fee and I wish more would!
I got an email a couple of days ago with a coupon code from Maryland for the CAS fee! I definitely wish more schools would do this. The $45 is a barrier to applying even if you have an app fee waiver.
@xadrianas6x881 said:
I think the useful data point to the original question has been answered: Q: Do any schools pay your CAS fee, A: Yes. For that data point, thanks to the OP and the others who have confirmed this.
I fear that this thread is now devolving into a "I gotcha" discussion without a whole lot of long term merit. For @jsohn0305774 , I think you have answered your question. It is my humble opinion that you run a dangerous risk of continued engagement with admissions committees along this line of questioning. Do you think an email with this question (to those that have already answered in the negative) will be received as a valuable use of an admission staff's time and provide meaningful insight to you as an applicant or do you think there is a very real risk of turning yourself into "that applicant" with frivolous questions like this? Is there any actual value to you or anyone else in knowing the answer to "was my previous question presumptuous?" IMHO, you run a real risk of making yourself look less desirable than other candidates and could induce questions about your overall maturity.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck!
Agreed!
I think the useful data point to the original question has been answered: Q: Do any schools pay your CAS fee, A: Yes. For that data point, thanks to the OP and the others who have confirmed this.
I fear that this thread is now devolving into a "I gotcha" discussion without a whole lot of long term merit. For @jsohn0305774 , I think you have answered your question. It is my humble opinion that you run a dangerous risk of continued engagement with admissions committees along this line of questioning. Do you think an email with this question (to those that have already answered in the negative) will be received as a valuable use of an admission staff's time and provide meaningful insight to you as an applicant or do you think there is a very real risk of turning yourself into "that applicant" with frivolous questions like this? Is there any actual value to you or anyone else in knowing the answer to "was my previous question presumptuous?" IMHO, you run a real risk of making yourself look less desirable than other candidates and could induce questions about your overall maturity.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck!
It was more like a 10% success rate. I emailed roughly 10 schools that sent me solicitations (an already biased sample?) and received a positive response from 1. (This was a separate test with schools different from the 36 I asked application fee waivers from)
I think it would be helpful for everyone to know how this type of question is received by an adcom, but part of me feels like the adcoms will be obliged to answer a certain way when I ask them how they received it. In any case, I will ask, and will post the responses here.
Of course it’s just our opinion. We know 2-3 schools do this and have anecdotal support (pro and con) for the general opinion of adcoms with regard to to a prospective student asking. 98% of the schools you asked rejected you and we don’t know how they received it. None of us are an authority.
This is a public forum and others will be influenced by what’s stated here. I think we should be really clear on what we know and what we don’t. I’m happy to be wrong. I’m all for 0Ls saving money, but not without considering the risk of damaging their image and I think there is a reasonably assumed chance of that.
You know what. I’m going to email the adcoms back and ask if they thought my request was presumptuous.
Lol well in the same vein no one has shown me that they would find it presumptuous. Y’all are just the ones saying you think it is, but that’sjusr y’alls.
Maybe I will try to apply to this school that gave me the fee waiver (even though I do not plan to attend) If I get accepted with a full ride then can we safely say no harm was done by my asking?
@jsohn0305774 said:
update for everyone:
y'all was wrong. I axed many of the schools that were sending me solicitations that I did not plan on applying to. Most said no, but one said yes. Schools do in fact offer CAS reporting fee waivers, for anyone interested.
If you plan to apply to a lot of schools, I'd say there is NO harm in asking. It's an innocent enough question and totally not presumptuous.
PS: The school that said yes was a top US News top 50.
Nice! The effort has brought you $45 so you are not empty handed. Although, you haven’t shown that there is “no harm” or that any of the adcoms who denied you didn’t find the request “presumptuous”.
update for everyone:
y'all was wrong. I axed many of the schools that were sending me solicitations that I did not plan on applying to. Most said no, but one said yes. Schools do in fact offer CAS reporting fee waivers, for anyone interested.
If you plan to apply to a lot of schools, I'd say there is NO harm in asking. It's an innocent enough question and totally not presumptuous.
PS: The school that said yes was a top US News top 50.
It would be great if more schools did this. I hope they take it into consideration. We're going to most likely have so many student expenses.
@xadrianas6x881 @lucykelly459
Woah. That’s great. Maybe this will catch on. In any case, I still agree w Audacious in that asking seems unwise.
I've had at least one school send an offer that they would pay the application fee plus waive their own. So, some schools do this.
But I would probably not ask a school to do this for me. If I have a waiver of the school application fees, that's pretty cool.
Contrary to what everyone has already posted, Alabama sent out a coupon code to pay the $45 CAS fee. It came with an application fee waiver. Shout out to Bama! So at least one school “pays” the report fee and I wish more would!
@koffi04jun147 said:
@xadrianas6x881 said:
Yikes. Yeah this definitely isn't a question to ask lol.
I mean... If I were an admissions officer, I probably would take that question as an understandable faux pas. People like saving money, after all.
To me, asking whether a school can pay for the LSAC reporting fee is incomparably understandable and better than attempting to imprint a lasting image on admissions personnel by asking long lists of obvious questions, e.g. "What's your school's median GPA?" "What's your school's required LSAT score?" "Does your school have clinics?" "What's your school's ranking?" "Where is your school located?" "Does your school offer joint degree programs?" (I actually witnessed someone doing this to an admissions dean.)
That's just me, of course...
I don't think we necessarily need to compare faux pas. But that said, I think I'd put these on similar levels. One is uninformed and making a bad impression, the other is presumptuous and making a bad impression. If someone were to ask me to pay for them to apply without knowing anything beyond stats, I'd think they had kind of a big head on their shoulders.
You're obviously welcome to do what you want, and take the gamble that they won't be irritated by it or think it's presumptuous to ask.
There are some financial resources for admitted students to help paying for visits, but that is only after you are admitted. That means the school already knows your profile very well and has a vested interest in you attending. Without first reading your entire application file though, I don't think they would want to be shelling out that kind of cash, paying for people to apply.
Yes, it's unfortunately a barrier for a lot of people. That's what need-based LSAC waivers are for though. And it sucks, but those with more money will always have more opportunities. They are the ones who can also afford private tutoring and admissions consultants to help them. There are lots of disparities. Schools and LSAC do what they can to make things a little fairer, but I highly doubt schools will pay someone to apply. Maybe if you're Malala or Malia Obama. But they're not going to pay the average joe, even with good stats, to apply.
But if you do ask, let us know what they say. I've been around law school boards a good amount of time and have never seen anyone mention this, so there's little to no data out there.
No they will not.
Paying the reporting fees is not part of Admissions' protocols. I think their belief is probably that this is why there's an LSAC fee waiver and they don't set these fees or collect their bills, plus the individual schools just deal with application fees and/or their waivers, where applicable.
@jsohn0305774 , seems like you have your mind set already :) Asking anonymously won't pose any obvious harm but I'm sure the school will either A) not respond because you did not provide info to who you are, or B ) ask for your LSAC ID.
What if I ask anonymously. What could the harm be in that? Aside from taking a couple minutes of the admissions persons time.
It might be interesting to see how schools respond.
The LSAC reporting waiver is nice, but it still leaves a lot to be desired in terms of equity of income disparity.
Those who have high incomes or family’s with high incomes will be able to more easily apply to more schools and therefore have more leverage for negotiations.
I asked for app fee waivers from 37ish schools. The only school that declined to waive my app fee was Hawaii.
No, I do not plan to apply to all 37of then. I have not submitted any applications yet. I will probably apply to about 15, but even so, that’s a lot of money in reporting.
@jsohn0305774 , did you apply for the LSAC waiver? Even with that waiver, which is surprisingly the most generous of them all, they only cover 4 CAS even if you apply to all the schools. Still, it saves you quite a few bucks.
One thing that's been lost in this conversation is that you applied to 37 schools. Is that true? If these applications have already gone out, that means you've paid $1,600 in CAS fees.
While I would still recommend you not ask this question, if you do, please let us know what each of the schools say!