Do I have a case to protest/do something? Forum

[ericmak]

So.. our LSAT today was on a college campus and consisted of approx. 100 test takers. We all arrived at 12:30 or earlier to the assigned location. Time is going by... everyone is patient... then at 12:52 we were informed that our testing location had been changed (absolutely nobody received any sort of communication). We then had to walk across the college's campus (approx. 15 minutes) to a new location. All things said and done, we started our first section at around 2:30pm. Over 1.5 hours late.

I don't think that I did that great.. and I'm not entirely blaming the commotion, but it certainly did not help. I was now over an hour removed from my warm up sections, I was unable refuel with water/snack at the time I had planned for. I understand 30 minutes give or take is to be expected, but 1.5 hours is a different ball game.

You guys think there is anything I can do?/Anything that could be done about this?

I'd be happy with them allowing me to cancel my score without it counting against my 3 attempts.

Any thoughts?/Experiences?

[NoodleyOne]

You can try, but LSAC states that the entire exam can take up to 7 hours. Doubt you'll get anywhere with it.

[thelawdoctor]

I'd at least report it. Even if you don't win, they need to know about it to try to avoid it happening again.

I am not sure what the official policy they have on it is right now, but you'd think that a phone call, or at least a group email, would be a minimum amount of effort for that. Most people don't show up an hour early to have commute time.

[jas1503]

Which college was it?

University at Buffalo?

[Jeffort]

If you write to LSAC and complain about the test center conditions with the long walk and delay before the test, the best you will get from LSAC is a free re-take if they agree that the testing conditions at your center were bad. When they offer a free re-take due to bad test center conditions they typically require that you agree to have the score cancelled but it still does count as one of your allowed three takes in two years. Perhaps later down the road if for some reason you needed to take it a fourth time within two years (lets hope not), you would obviously want to use the bad conditions take as your reason to request an exception to the limit, but whether LSAC would grant it because of that is up to them and you could only figure that out by getting in that situation and trying, which is not a good idea.

Sorry to hear about your experience, I would for sure cancel if you think it really messed up your performance, and if that's the case also write a complaint letter to hopefully avoid having to pay the registration fee again. In short, the best outcome from complaining is a free re-take. Also FYI, if you do decide to complain, LSAC puts a hold on your score/account until they review the complaint, give you their decision about a resolution and receive your decision about it. That stuff is usually complete by score release but not always since if they determine there was a test center problem (which there was with the building change problem), they offer you free re-take with score cancel and give you time to decide, which can sometimes be later than when scores come out but not always. I'd suggest sending the complaint before cancelling your score if you are going to cancel just to see the options LSAC gives you.