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I'm taking the LSAT in October and obviously want to apply as soon as possible upon receiving my scores. On the other hand, I don't want to leave a lot of money on the table from potential fee waivers. I'm going to send out standard fee waiver request emails to all of the T14 (except HYS) the day I receive my scores. How long should I wait for responses before saying F it and submitting my applications with or without waivers? Three days? Five? How long do most schools take? What are the exceptions? Specifically interested in answers regarding Columbia, NYU, Penn, Michigan.

Edit: I'm aware NYU "doesn't grant fee waiver requests," but sometimes issues them one or two weeks later. Should I just plan on paying their app fee?

Does anybody have any experience with this or know the average wait before hearing back from these schools regarding fee waivers?

I asked a couple of schools last cycle (NU and Chi) and they got back to me within a day (and said no for that matter).

I received some responses within a day, others trickled in up to a month later.

Also be sure to check for hidden fee waivers. NU gave me one after rejecting my request for one via e-mail.

i sent out 5 requests this year and got them all back within a day

I should amend my response. Answers to solicited waivers did not take up to a month for me. Everyone I e-mailed answered in some fashion within a few days. But waivers did trickle in up to a month later. It seems there are schools that tend to deny e-mail solicitations then do a pass through CRS an send waivers to some people who happened to have been denied one via e-mail earlier.

If you pay their app fee and get a CRS fee waiver later, do they credit you back with whatever you paid?

Don't believe so, don't know though.

2014 wrote:If you pay their app fee and get a CRS fee waiver later, do they credit you back with whatever you paid?

No.

Don't mean to hijack the thread - I also have the same question - but should fee waiver requests be specified for each school? Or should I use a standard request, changing only the school name?

Standard will do. There were a couple of templates floating around this forum last year.

Hattori Hanzo wrote:Standard will do. There were a couple of templates floating around this forum last year.

I'll do a search when I get to that point. Thanks for the input!

I used standard.