Petition LSAC for 4th re-take? Forum

[bp shinners]

I believe in the value of the LSAT, and to a large extent the policies and restrictions surrounding it. My qualm is in the administration and the oversight of it at present - not the creating of it in the first place. The logic behind their creating of these policies must allow for exceptions. But they aren't proactive enough to allow themselves to consider these exceptions. Fully evaluating my case and the cases of the posters above would have required some leg work. It seems they did not do this.

I can imagine their policy being something along the lines of: "Grant their petition only if they have documentable proof of illness or significant classroom disruption, or they suffered from an extraordinary circumstance." Then I imagine the same people having to do a large amount of programming and administrative work if they grant a petition. They can stretch the word extraordinary as large or small as the want to, in this case I bet it's extremely limited. They skimmed my testimony; made some crappy PDF document; used the default headings and subject lines; and clicked send. Probably in about 2 minutes.

This is all speculation of course. I don't even think my case was necessarily flawless and should have been granted. I'm just making a case based on many observations I've had regarding LSAC - from this to fee waiver requests to simple customer service. They aren't a competent enough overseer of this process; they need to have more incentive to do good work.

But you already had 3 chances to take the exam. I can see something coming up the day of once, maybe twice, but three times? You can withdraw up until midnight the night before. I think that change in policy had more to do with this change than anything else. Even if you have documented evidence that you were sick for one exam, you still had two other attempts with which to score well. And if you were sick, or felt an illness coming on, you probably should have withdrawn, which doesn't eat up one of your chances.

So I'm sure there are exceptions that grant a third retake - otherwise, there would be no reason to have any kind of policy at all (unless it's just for psychological reasons). I think everyone here just wants the bar to be lowered to having issues with a single administration of the exam, and I don't think the LSAC considers that enough to warrant granting you another sitting.

I could be wrong - to the people who were denied and did provide documentary evidence: Did you do so for a single exam, for two exams, or for all three exams? I'm interested to know if it's an automatic rejection if you only have an 'excuse' for one exam.

[WhatOurBodiesAreFor]

I believe in the value of the LSAT, and to a large extent the policies and restrictions surrounding it. My qualm is in the administration and the oversight of it at present - not the creating of it in the first place. The logic behind their creating of these policies must allow for exceptions. But they aren't proactive enough to allow themselves to consider these exceptions. Fully evaluating my case and the cases of the posters above would have required some leg work. It seems they did not do this.

I can imagine their policy being something along the lines of: "Grant their petition only if they have documentable proof of illness or significant classroom disruption, or they suffered from an extraordinary circumstance." Then I imagine the same people having to do a large amount of programming and administrative work if they grant a petition. They can stretch the word extraordinary as large or small as the want to, in this case I bet it's extremely limited. They skimmed my testimony; made some crappy PDF document; used the default headings and subject lines; and clicked send. Probably in about 2 minutes.

This is all speculation of course. I don't even think my case was necessarily flawless and should have been granted. I'm just making a case based on many observations I've had regarding LSAC - from this to fee waiver requests to simple customer service. They aren't a competent enough overseer of this process; they need to have more incentive to do good work.

But you already had 3 chances to take the exam. I can see something coming up the day of once, maybe twice, but three times? You can withdraw up until midnight the night before. I think that change in policy had more to do with this change than anything else. Even if you have documented evidence that you were sick for one exam, you still had two other attempts with which to score well. And if you were sick, or felt an illness coming on, you probably should have withdrawn, which doesn't eat up one of your chances.

So I'm sure there are exceptions that grant a third retake - otherwise, there would be no reason to have any kind of policy at all (unless it's just for psychological reasons). I think everyone here just wants the bar to be lowered to having issues with a single administration of the exam, and I don't think the LSAC considers that enough to warrant granting you another sitting.

I could be wrong - to the people who were denied and did provide documentary evidence: Did you do so for a single exam, for two exams, or for all three exams? I'm interested to know if it's an automatic rejection if you only have an 'excuse' for one exam.

I'm not saying I did deserve a retake. I would according to some policies, I would not according to others. The problem I have with LSAC (as I expressed in my last two posts) is that it seems that don't really put forth the efforts to properly and effectively administrate this whole process. The evidence I have of this I explained and alluded to above.

Now more to your point. If their two retake rule is meant to allow for one slip up, that would lead to some problems. That would give undue advantage to those who were not unlucky and didn't have something happen to them on test day. The easy way to level such things out would be to allow a few retakes. The most effective way to level such things out would be to grant every decent petition, in my opinion. In my case, I improved my score each time mainly because of my nerves but also because I had a little better test day circumstances at each subsequent exam. Again, not saying this petition should have been granted. All I am saying is I had an argument and I presume that they did not hear me out.

Look, I know there is an argument that would favor LSAC's policies. Most likely they were even created by experts in this field with maximum efficiency and effectiveness in mind. But I'm sure the creators of these policies envisioned exceptions. I don't think the administrators at present are allowing these exceptions according to the policies they use. After all, if the poster above whose friend lost his life before his 2nd retake was not allowed to retake a third time, why shouldn't he have been allowed to take it the second time? It's not a solid policy.

All I am saying is that the administration of law school admissions should and could be better run. We all know of examples where LSAC has disappointed. They need incentive to do better.