Fee waiver inquiries? Forum

[rw2264]

i just spent an hour in a frenzy asking for fee waivers to the following schools based on my december LSAT score (170). do you think any will respond? did any of you do this and get positive responses?

berkeley
upenn
michigan
duke
NW
cornell
GULC
GWU
fordham
UCLA
USC


i hope they don't think i'm an asshole for including my LSAC account number in the email. was that douchey? should i have included my GPA? whoops.
oh well, barring a few i'll apply to regardless, i won't apply to any of these unless i get a fee waiver, too poor for reaches.

[MissLucky]

dude how are gwu or fordham a reach for your numbers?

[jackassjim]

Not douchy

[englawyer]

you should probably have included both lsac # and gpa

[rw2264]

dude how are gwu or fordham a reach for your numbers?

they're not but i asked for fee waivers anyway because i plan on applying.

[rw2264]

nobody answered my original question... has this worked for anyone?

[sibley]

I also had a 170. I didn't include my GPA but I attached a screenshot of my senior year's financial aid.

berkeley
upenn - uhhh I forgot to ask them. crap.
michigan
duke
NW - only unsolicited
cornell - said they'd send one monday (closed)
GULC
GWU - doesn't offer merit-based fee waivers
fordham - waiting
UCLA - didn't bother asking, just applied regularly (they have a form on their website to request one)
USC - waiting

[rw2264]

well fuck, i guess i'm not applying to most of those.

[MURPH]

i just spent an hour in a frenzy asking for fee waivers to the following schools based on my december LSAT score (170). do you think any will respond? did any of you do this and get positive responses?

berkeley
upenn
michigan
duke
NW
cornell
GULC
GWU
fordham
UCLA
USC


i hope they don't think i'm an asshole for including my LSAC account number in the email. was that douchey? should i have included my GPA? whoops.
oh well, barring a few i'll apply to regardless, i won't apply to any of these unless i get a fee waiver, too poor for reaches.

Including your LSAC # was important. They would ask for it if you don't. With that they can get your GPA, I believe. When I got a 170 I got Fee waivers from
UCLA
Cornell
Duke and NW.

[Thirteen]

nobody answered my original question... has this worked for anyone?

Northwestern, Georgetown, Michigan, and UCLA turned down my request for a waiver. I had better luck with schools in the 20-50 range.

[rw2264]

nobody answered my original question... has this worked for anyone?

Northwestern, Georgetown, Michigan, and UCLA turned down my request for a waiver. I had better luck with schools in the 20-50 range.

do we have similar stats?

[BaiAilian2013]

I included my LSAC number, since I figured if they did want to give me a waiver, it would save them an extra e-mail. Upon request, I got merit-based waivers from:
GULC
GWU
Penn told me that waiver notifications would be sent out automatically, not on request. I don't believe I ever did get that notification, but when I went to check out the fee was waived.
Fordham sent me what was clearly an application for a need-based waver. I e-mailed them again seeking clarification but never received a response, so I sucked it up and paid the fee.
I think Cornell and Michigan (and maybe USC) sent me unsolicited waivers via snail mail, but that was early in the cycle.

[jackassjim]

nobody answered my original question... has this worked for anyone?

Northwestern, Georgetown, Michigan, and UCLA turned down my request for a waiver. I had better luck with schools in the 20-50 range.

do we have similar stats?

I got waivers from more than one school in your list. I had better stats however.

[rw2264]

i'm not really asking whether you got unsolicited fee waivers but whether anyone has asked for them from these schools and received them.

[Thirteen]

nobody answered my original question... has this worked for anyone?

Northwestern, Georgetown, Michigan, and UCLA turned down my request for a waiver. I had better luck with schools in the 20-50 range.

do we have similar stats?

We have a similar LSAT, but my GPA is awful (I didn't include it in the waiver request e-mail )

[jackassjim]

i'm not really asking whether you got unsolicited fee waivers but whether anyone has asked for them from these schools and received them.

Precisely. I wrote emails to more than one of the schools you list and they sent me waivers.

[kalvano]

nobody answered my original question... has this worked for anyone?

I wrote a brief (5 sentence) email and included my LSAC #, GPA, and LSAT.

Really, you can use one email and just replace the school names. It takes a very few minutes and can potentially save you hundreds of dollars.

[Jockin Jay-Z]

Fee waiver inquiries work, albeit imperfectly. As the previous poster said, it takes a few minutes, literally. That's all you lose by asking.

[sibley]

W&M over the weekend.

...now dreaming about going to Georgetown but having issues taking the train to go see my bf in ny (I keep dropping my ticket out the window...)

[rocaveli]

same here- ask and ye shall receive

[rw2264]

sent short emails to each, then i sent another adding my GPA in case they needed it (original email was quoted in that one also). hopefully they'll give me fee waivers, i'm so broke i can't really stand it.

[revrocksteady]

is it worth asking for a fee waiver if your numbers fall in the general admissions range of a school? (but not the top of the range)

[Bulls]

Yes. Again, it takes a few minutes and can't hurt you.

[Jockin Jay-Z]

Some schools are perfectly content to give you fee waivers if you ask, even if you're near the bottom of their ranges. Why? To boost USNWR rankings, of course, by increasing their selectivity score. The five minutes it takes for UVa to auto-deny a non-URM with a 162 and a 3.6 isn't particularly costly.

I'm not against the concept of law school rankings (quite the contrary), but Professor Leiter seems to have a point that USNWR considers lots of of irrelevant, manipulable information. Giving schollys to people to boost GPA/LSAT ranges is good and perfectly understandable. But your selectivity (i.e. admissions percentage) or yield seem pretty irrelevant.

[84Sunbird2000]

I can't wait until tomorrow when all the offices re-open. I sent out a total of 40 combo need/merit requests, and I'd bet I'll get 10-15 of them at minimum, in addition the 4 that responded during this week.

It's not douchy at all, and even if it was, it's doubtful they would specifically remember you once they are 4500 applications in to their admissions process .