Top Law Schools

I don't normally post, I'm more of a lurker type. However, I just hit a brick wall with LSAC and want to help you avoid the same problem.

I took the LSAT during the last admissions cycle, registered for CRS, CAS, gathered my LOR's- basically prepared everything so that I could apply a year later (now). Last year, I received a good number of fee waivers, and asked that they be deferred to this cycle. Received packets in the mail every day, etc, etc.

Fast forward to now- I have been contacted by NO schools, received no fee waiver offers, no indication that I'm on any school's radar this year. I solicited fee waivers at every school I'm applying to; most of them want to use the automated CRS system. I called LSAC to ask why I'm not showing up in CRS searches (as I assumed was happening), and they told me CRS is only good for one year. It can't be renewed, can't be transferred to a different year, nothing can be done (I'm told). Schools are locked into their CRS system to look for candidates, so they can't be bothered to manually review my waiver eligibility, and LSAC has nothing to gain from helping me.

Sorry for the rant- this issue costs $100's in application fees, and makes you completely invisible to schools until you apply.

..

I'm going to try that as well (over the phone next time)- but in general the people answering emails & calls don't want to deal with something like this during application season, and would rather give a canned response. Most of the replies I've received were copied and pasted versions of "merit-based waivers are offered to worthy applicants in our CRS searches...".

LSAC is the one to blame here, unfortunately they don't seem to care. I didn't put this up only to vent frustration- make sure you don't register for CRS until the application year you will apply!

Past September if you email schools they are a lot more likely to give you fee waivers. I emailed a bunch of the T14 schools at that point (since I had only gotten some CRS waivers) and almost half of them gave me a fee waiver through email.

Duke also gave me PT when I emailed them to request it.

..

acrossthelake wrote:

Nom Sawyer wrote:Past September if you email schools they are a lot more likely to give you fee waivers. I emailed a bunch of the T14 schools at that point (since I had only gotten some CRS waivers) and almost half of them gave me a fee waiver through email.

Duke also gave me PT when I emailed them to request it.

Out of curiosity, could you list the ones that were happy and which ones still rejected you for reference purposes? If that's not too much of a bother.

Ugh I don't quite remember since it was almost a year ago.. Ok let's see I think that I got fee waivers after emails from:

UVA, Cornell, Upenn (maybe?), and maybe one other. I had CRS waivers from Columbia, NYU, and Berkeley i think? This is guessed at tho. Duke either gave me a CRS waiver or waived it after I emailed them forget which.

AMERICA wrote:I'm going to try that as well (over the phone next time)- but in general the people answering emails & calls don't want to deal with something like this during application season, and would rather give a canned response. Most of the replies I've received were copied and pasted versions of "merit-based waivers are offered to worthy applicants in our CRS searches...".

LSAC is the one to blame here, unfortunately they don't seem to care. I didn't put this up only to vent frustration- make sure you don't register for CRS until the application year you will apply!

CRS is not a big deal, IMO. I dunno why, but I hardly got any waivers as a result of CRS, but I paid for apps at less than half of the schools I appleid to. In all likelihood, if you've got the numbers and they do waivers, they'll give it to you either way.

Also, why is "LSAC the one to blame"? They are just upholding their policy. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing.

romothesavior wrote:

AMERICA wrote:I'm going to try that as well (over the phone next time)- but in general the people answering emails & calls don't want to deal with something like this during application season, and would rather give a canned response. Most of the replies I've received were copied and pasted versions of "merit-based waivers are offered to worthy applicants in our CRS searches...".

LSAC is the one to blame here, unfortunately they don't seem to care. I didn't put this up only to vent frustration- make sure you don't register for CRS until the application year you will apply!

CRS is not a big deal, IMO. I dunno why, but I hardly got any waivers as a result of CRS, but I paid for apps at less than half of the schools I appleid to. In all likelihood, if you've got the numbers and they do waivers, they'll give it to you either way.

Also, why is "LSAC the one to blame"? They are just upholding their policy. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing.

I will second this. A lot of my fee waivers were "hidden." This means they didn't show up until I clicked submit and found out what I had to pay for the application.

romothesavior wrote:CRS is not a big deal, IMO. I dunno why, but I hardly got any waivers as a result of CRS, but I paid for apps at less than half of the schools I appleid to. In all likelihood, if you've got the numbers and they do waivers, they'll give it to you either way.

Also, why is "LSAC the one to blame"? They are just upholding their policy. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing.

I got over a dozen waivers last year because of CRS. Its a big deal because many schools don't seem willing to circumvent it for fee waivers.

LSAC is the one the blame because nowhere in the CRS registration process did it warn about the one year limit. I would have waited. Also, they are to blame for being inflexible in a process that should accommodate applicants in many different situations. I'm betting I'm not the only one that prepared an LSAC account a year early. Not an unreasonable thing to do, and I don't see what their policy accomplishes.

blurbz wrote:I will second this. A lot of my fee waivers were "hidden." This means they didn't show up until I clicked submit and found out what I had to pay for the application.

They still got your information from CRS. I'm not in CRS.

Again, the vast majority of fee waivers come from asking for them, not from CRS. I honestly don't think any of my fee waivers were from CRS. I remember thinking, "Why is everyone getting fee waivers mailed to them but not me?" Hell, even UVA skipped me, and they'll give a fee waiver to anyone with a pulse. I got all of my fee waivers (WUSTL, BU, Vanderbilt, UIUC) either from asking for them or their application being free in the first place.

Also, why not re-register for CRS? And why are you doing this now? Most applications are not even out yet. Once they start going out, I'd imagine schools will be willing to give you one.

Did you go and update your law school admission year manually? I was registered with CRS last year and it didn't update automatically. Make sure your cycle is set to 2011 fall or you will not show up in any CRS database queries.

r6_philly wrote:Did you go and update your law school admission year manually? I was registered with CRS last year and it didn't update automatically. Make sure your cycle is set to 2011 fall or you will not show up in any CRS database queries.

Yes I did that several months ago, thanks though. The issue is that CRS only works for year- nothing can be done for me now. Everyone else take note before you register for CRS.

AMERICA wrote:I don't normally post, I'm more of a lurker type. However, I just hit a brick wall with LSAC and want to help you avoid the same problem.

I took the LSAT during the last admissions cycle, registered for CRS, CAS, gathered my LOR's- basically prepared everything so that I could apply a year later (now). Last year, I received a good number of fee waivers, and asked that they be deferred to this cycle. Received packets in the mail every day, etc, etc.

Fast forward to now- I have been contacted by NO schools, received no fee waiver offers, no indication that I'm on any school's radar this year. I solicited fee waivers at every school I'm applying to; most of them want to use the automated CRS system. I called LSAC to ask why I'm not showing up in CRS searches (as I assumed was happening), and they told me CRS is only good for one year. It can't be renewed, can't be transferred to a different year, nothing can be done (I'm told). Schools are locked into their CRS system to look for candidates, so they can't be bothered to manually review my waiver eligibility, and LSAC has nothing to gain from helping me.

Sorry for the rant- this issue costs $100's in application fees, and makes you completely invisible to schools until you apply.

Contact schools directly for the fee waivers. They love to ding applicants.

Something similar happened to me. It sucks. I got a bunch of fee waivers after I took the LSAT in December, and when I went to apply the following year many schools wouldn't carry the fee waiver over or give me a new one. Schools are especially stingy about requesting merit-based fee waivers early in the cycle - around November-December I started getting emails waiving the application fee from schools I had unsuccessfully tried to solicit fee waivers earlier.

I ended up just not applying to most schools that didn't waive the fee, especially safeties, unless I really wanted to go.