fee waivers indicating admission chances? Forum

[willyj]

To what extent can one interpret receiving a fee waiver as signalling a probable chance of being admitted? I realize many schools will give waivers come whoever come who may, but the top schools tend to be more selective with their waivers. I find it strange that they would say, "Hey, we want you to apply so badly that we don't even want money from you," to a person they would deny anyway, but given my numbers (167, 3.90), I find it hard to believe that I'll actually be admitted to every one of these schools, even though I received a waiver from pretty much every one except the top few. Opinions?

[jwrash]

schools give fee waivers so they can increase the number of applicants and consequently the number of rejections....fee waivers help a school appear to be more selective than it would be if only qualified applicants applied

[Borhas]

Nope, use law school predictor to figure that out, sometimes they give them to everyone with a certain LSAT and up (so not completely arbitrary)

they use fee waivers to increase applications, increased # applications mean they can deny more people, means they are more "selective"

[Bumi]

They may want to use fee waivers to influence their admit profile or application profile somewhat. This also should indicate nothing to you about your chances. A school that wants to boost its LSAT might offer fee waivers to everyone over 170 LSAT. If you have a 170/2.2, your chances are still terrible because of the 175/3.7 applications that are also getting that fee waiver and applying.

You know those credit card offers that get mailed to you that say "You are pre-approved! And your membership fee has been waived!" Those don't necessarily mean you're getting a good credit line or even a card. It's just another kind of marketing.

Or think about Illinois. They have decided that they are way better off just not charging a fee. Sure they lose money, but what they get out of it (higher selectivity, plus a few extra people get in that maybe wouldn't have applied to Illinois for $75, a few of those people actually decide to attend, and now you have a better class).