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In the world of law school applications, the personal statement is a well-known part of the admissions process.  Applicants may be less familiar, though, with a part of the application known as “optional essays,” where some schools invite applicants to submit additional information about themselves. 

Sometimes these essays are required, sometimes they are truly optional.  How does an applicant know when to submit an optional essay? What should these essays include? In our latest podcast, Law School Optional Essays & Addenda: What to Say & When To Say It, Law School Podcaster Host, Althea Legaspi, gets answers to these questions and guides you through this part of your application.

Admissions consultant, Paul Bodine lays the groundwork by explaining the basis for “optional essays.”  “Optional essays, on the highest level, are opportunities for the applicant to tell the school more about themselves than they can’t fit into the main personal statement. And so in that sense they are opportunities to round out your application, as opposed to explain negatives in your application. So, optional essays are not the place for exculpatory, explanatory, defensive or negative material. That’s what the addenda are for.”

What’s the point of yet another essay?

Each school may have a different way of using “optional essays” and the topics often vary from school to school. According to Bill Hoye, Associate Dean, Admissions & Student Affairs, Duke University School of Law, for example, “the purpose is to gather more information about the candidate. And we’re interested both in the substantive information that the candidate would provide in the essay, but we’re also interested in whether the applicant is able to compile information, and present it in a clear, convincing, compelling way. Because the application process is actually an advocacy challenge on the part of the candidate and being able to make a case effectively is a skill that’s useful in law school, and probably in legal practice, as well. So, there are really two reasons: One, can you put the information together? And second, does the information that you provide for us help us understand why you would be an excellent student at the law school, and contribute in very significant ways.”

In this show, we delve into the topic and examine how optional essays differ from your personal statement, we take a look at the range of topics schools invite applicants to write about, and how an applicant can use this part of the application to their advantage. Other guests include:

• Faye Shealy, Associate Dean for Admissions, William & Mary Law School
• Jamie Thomas-Ward, Director of Pre-Law Advising Services, University of Illinois

Listen to the full show to hear more!

Many writers tend to confuse adjectives and adverbs (“describing” words) with details. When adjectives and adverbs are used to emphasize an emotion or emotional state, they can add very little to the description of an experience and can even undermine it. However, when that emotion or emotional state is described properly, it can bring a story to life.

Example 1: “With the award in hand, I felt extremely proud of my accomplishment.”

In the case above, the word “extremely” does not help create or enhance the reader’s mental picture, but merely states the obvious. After all, the difference between being “extremely proud” and “proud” is very little, considering that pride is naturally an “extreme” emotion. This just doesn’t effectively convey how the writer actually felt.

Example 2: “Approaching the podium to receive the award, I admittedly felt faint. Even though my hands were shaking, I managed to give our company president a firm handshake when she passed me the award. As I began speaking to a crowd of my colleagues, I finally understood what it meant to be proud of myself.”

In this second example, the details of the story (“felt faint,” “my hands were shaking”) create an image in the reader’s mind. The reader is not relating to the simple adjectives that reinforce existing impressions, but experiencing details that bring color to the story. In the first example, the story does not change if the word “extremely” is removed, but in the second, real emotion is conveyed.

We encourage our candidates to avoid adjectives that reinforce an existing emotion and to write descriptively to capture a spirit.

This post is authored by jdMission, a professional law school admissions consulting firm, specializing in helping law school applicants identify and showcase the strongest aspects of their candidacy in their application.

You can sign up for a free one-on-one consultation with jdMission by submitting the form found at http://jdmission.com/consult.php.

For more information on this topic, listen to our podcast Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation: Where to Begin?

This week, Law School Podcaster pays tribute to Frank Kimball, a great contributor in the world of recruiting, mentoring and professional development for law students and young lawyers.  Frank was a guest on our podcast, Networking 101: Essential Tips for Law Students, (a podcast produced in collaboration with Ms. JD).  With great sadness, we learned today that Frank passed away.  Today Ms. JD posted a collection of some of  Frank’s warm, humorous articles, full of valuable advice for law students — and everyone else. 

To get a sense of Frank’s unique perspective about building relationships, you can also listen to our podcast, Networking 101: Essential Tips for Law Students.  Frank reminded us that networking is not only about landing a position; it’s about finding a way to build relationships with people, some of whom you might already know. “Well, I guess I’d put it this way. I don’t even like the word networking anymore because it’s become a time-worn cliché that conjures up images of young people standing around the hotel ballroom throwing business cards at each other. The point of networking is to connect with an individual and the concept of connecting with an individual is as old as the ages.” 

Frank’s connections, humor and his many contributions will be missed.

These days, if you’re considering law school, your job prospects upon earning your degree remain a big point of discussion. And well they should. The job market remains tough and the debt you incur during law school will be there for a while when you graduate — whether you have a job or not.

Back in July, we posted on this topic, observing that “the business of law school has been getting a fair share of attention lately,” and that escalating tuition costs, increased student debt loads and the employment data reported by law schools – and what all that means – were a hot topic.  Specifically, we pointed to the following:

• The New York Times, published an article Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!, where David Segal wrote that “[l]egal diplomas have such allure that law schools have been able to jack up tuition four times faster than the soaring cost of college. And many law schools have added students to their incoming classes — a step that, for them, means almost pure profits — even during the worst recession in the legal profession’s history. . . In short, law schools have the power to raise prices and expand in ways that would make any company drool. And when a business has that power, it is apparently difficult to resist.”

• Commenting on a May 2011 NYT article, Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Law Schools Win, the WSJ Law Blog posted that “some schools lure top students with offers of merit scholarships that pay thousands of dollars annually. The schools bolster their U.S. News rankings by attracting academic overachievers, but there’s a catch: the students must maintain high GPAs to retain their scholarships, which students often are unable to do partly because schools grade on a curve, thus ensuring that only a small percentage of student will earn the sort of grades needed to retain their scholarship money, according to the Times.”

• Last year, two Vanderbilt law students started an effort — Law School Transparency — to collect more accurate employment data from law schools.

• The ABA Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has taken steps to approve new standards to report law school placement data. The new reporting rules, which have been reported on extensively by Law School Transparency, will require schools to report jobs data on whether a new J.D. grad is employed in a job requiring bar passage, in a job for which a J.D. is preferred, in another professional job, in a nonprofessional job, or in a job of unknown type. For those that are not employed, the categories of possible responses are will be pursuing a graduate degree, unemployed not seeking, unemployed seeking, or status unknown. In addition, the schools will have to report if the jobs are full time or part time and long term or short term. Schools will also need to indicate the number of jobs that are funded by the law school or university. Jobs will be broken down further in law firms of various sizes, business and industry, government, public interest, judicial clerkships, academia, and employer type unknown.”

Since our post, The Wall Street Journal reported that disgruntled law graduates had filed suit in Michigan and New York, seeking to recover hundreds of millions in tuition and alleging that two schools, New York Law School, and Thomas S. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich. , had distorted post-graduate employment information and inflated graduates’ average salaries.

Given all the talk on this topic, prospective law students might be interested in resources that can shed some light on career prospects for recent law grads.  That’s where the “best career prospects” ranking given to ten law schools in Princeton Review’s newly released guide,  The Best 167 Law Schools, 2012 Edition, might come in handy.

Since 1993, Princeton Review, a test prep and educational services company, has been putting out a law school guide. While for many years the guides included ratings for such things as academic experience, quality of life and best professors, in recent years the guides have also ranked career prospects for graduates.

Northwestern University School of Law in Evanston, Ill. tops the list of schools. According to data provided by Northwestern, 93% of grads find a job when they’re out of school for nine months, and the average starting salary is $130,557. Ninety-five percent pass the bar exam on the first try. The majority, 58%, work in private practice, and 6% in the public interest realm. Princeton Review reports that annual tuition, room, board, books and fees come to almost $71,000 and the average student carries a debt of $127,000 at graduation.

University of Chicago Law School comes in second second place in the career prospect category.  Ninety-nine percent of grads find jobs by the time they’re nine months out, the average starting salary is $160,000 and 98% pass the bar the first time they take it. Total for annual tuition, room, board, books and fees: $61,000 with the average student debt coming to $128,000. Though those numbers look even stronger than Northwestern, David Soto, Princeton Review’s director of rankings and ratings says Northwestern edged out University of Chicago on the student surveys. Seventy percent of University of Chicago law school graduates wind up in private practice and 8%, in public interest work. The average debt upon graduation from University of Chicago: $128,000.

Coming in third in the survey, is Columbia University School of Law, also with 99% of graduates finding work once they’ve been out of school for nine months, an average starting salary of $160,000 and a 96% first-time bar exam pass rate. Total cost at Columbia for tuition, room, board, books and fees: $70,500. The average graduate has a debt of $125,000.

You can hear more about the Princeton Review rankings, how they are compiled, and how they can be used, by listening to our podcast, Law School Rankings: What Do the Numbers Mean? Princeton Review’s Senior Vice President-Publishing, Robert Franek, was a guest on that show.

A word of caution from the Dean of Admissions at Yale Law School: “Do not write the “one-trick pony essay.”

What exactly is this? The one-trick pony essay is a personal statement that reiterates ad infinitum certain stellar accomplishments that have already been more than adequately showcased in your resume and recommendations. Instead, the personal statement should be taken as an opportunity to include additional information about yourself that you have not been able to present in the other elements of your application.

For example, if you are a prize-winning equestrian, and this aspect of your profile has already been conveyed in one part of your application, the personal statement essay would be a good chance to let the admissions committee know that you are also an avid foodie who once auditioned for “The Next Food Network Star.”

You want to present yourself as being a very interesting, multidimensional candidate who can add a unique perspective, in light of your life experiences, to classroom discussions. You do not want to portray yourself as being defined by just one particular idea or activity. You have more than one interesting story to tell, so make sure to demonstrate that.

This post is authored by jdMission, a professional law school admissions consulting firm, specializing in helping law school applicants identify and showcase the strongest aspects of their candidacy in their application. 

You can sign up for a free one-on-one consultation with jdMission by submitting the form found at http://jdmission.com/consult.php.

For more information on this topic, listen to our podcast Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation: Where to Begin?

Our latest podcast, Mastering LSAT Logical Reasoning: Strategies to Ace the Toughest Part of the Test, is out and it focuses on the Logical Reasoning section of the LSAT. Some say this section is the most important part of the test. That’s because there are four scored sections of the LSAT and two of them are logical reasoning. Since these questions constitute half the test, you’ll really need to excel in these sections to get a high score.

This is the collection of questions that has a bigger effect on your overall LSAT score than anything else.” That’s Glen Stohr, Senior Project Developer for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. You’ll also hear from Noah Teitelbaum, the Managing Director of Manhattan LSAT and Matt Riley, owner and LSAT instructor with Blueprint Test Prep, as well as our guest, LSAT student Ranika Morales, who is a paralegal with a large law firm in L.A. and wants to go to law school to build a career in corporate law. In this show, you’ll learn why there are no short cuts in studying for this part of the test, why it’s worth your investment to begin practicing these questions at least two to three months before your test and what key strategies can help you master the material.

Listen to the full show!

As we close in on the October LSAT, I thought I would share our usual tips to keep you on track as game day draws near. What’s that you say – you’re not sure if you are ready, willing, or able to take the October LSAT? Before you go pushing the panic button, make sure you are making all of the proper considerations about which test administration you should take.

If you’re full steam ahead for the October exam, here is some advice for the final hours from Manhattan LSAT’s Managing Director, Noah Teitelbaum.

1. Focus on the main event. Right about now we see on our LSAT forums lots of questions about unimportant topics and students freaking out about the hardest LSAT questions in written history. Rare question and game types are rare! If you find them tough, that’s not a big deal. What is important is that you are able to get the easy and common ones correct without wasting too much time, leaving you enough time for the rare question or game. And, games are generally more consistent today than in days of yore, so don’t freak out if you think CD game or the Zephyr airlines game is hard – they were! Focus on capitalizing on your strengths, not trying to do an emergency patch-up of a minor weakness.

2. Clean up your act. Time to switch to O’Doul’s for the next 10 days, and start exercising (exercise has been linked to neural growth). And, create a schedule for yourself. Most people should be doing just 2-3 more practice LSATs in the last 10 days, though there are some strange people who do better doing an LSAT every day until test day. Think about what generally makes you stay on the top of your mental game, write out a schedule, and execute. For most people, this means a steady diet of 2 section practice sets, deep review, replay of tough questions, and a full, 5-section practice LSAT sprinkled in here or there.

3. Go mental. Before an Olympic diver takes a dive, she imagines the whole process, from start to finish. That way, the dive is simply an execution of a plan, not something that’s being invented at that moment. Same thing for you. Consider how you’ll take this test – what you’ll do when you face a tough question, what you’ll do if the proctor screws up. Practice envisioning this before each practice test. Then, do the same thing on test day morning.

On test day:

4. Keep it real. There’s something magically disastrous that happens on test day for many people. Let’s say two people are both getting 160-164 on their practice LSATs. When Mr. Proctor says begin, Mr. 164 now is possessed with the idea that he might be able to get a 180. This is a problem. The truth is that Mr. and Ms. 164 will NOT GET A 180. Ms. 164 does a better job of controlling her passions: she aims for a 164, knowing she can get about 18 questions wrong. When she comes across a ridiculously tough question, she makes an educated guess and moves on, saving time for other questions that are tough, but doable with a bit more time. Mr. 164 instead spends 2.5 minutes on the first impossible question he faces, still gets it wrong, and is now trying to catch up. In short, go in there and know how many you want to get wrong, and get them wrong.

5. Admit it, it is hard. Unless you’re scoring well-below the national median, chances are that if you think a question is hard, most everyone else in the nation does too. There are always some geeks out there who won’t, but if we stick to thinking about the mortal population, let’s keep a cool head. It’s a tough question, lots of people will get it wrong, the question is whether you’ll get it wrong and waste a lot of time on it. Notice that this is the same advice as #1?

6. Warm-up with a warm-up, not section 1. Your brain is a muscle, and it probably isn’t used to working on Saturday morning, so bring a tough game that you’ve mastered, maybe an LR question or RC passage, read it outside the LSAT center as you sip your usual morning beverage (don’t over caffeinate!) and then crumble it up as you walk in and toss it triumphantly. Better that than using the first section as your warm-up…

7. Even if you’re going to cancel, take the test like you won’t. Keep on trucking through that LSAT. It’s always good to get the practice, and perhaps that section you bombed was an experimental one. . . And what if everyone in the nation thought that the third RC passage was completely baffling – maybe your feeble performance was better than most people’s. Give yourself the time to think things through after the LSAT – you have several days to cancel.
After test day:

8. Remember your application. Is everything else ready to roll? Better to focus on that then hitting refresh on Gmail, waiting for your score report.

9. Geek out. We’ll review this LSAT on Wed. October 26th – so if you’d like to use the LSAT as an opportunity to learn something for the December LSAT, join us.

This post is provided by Manhattan LSAT, a leading LSAT-exclusive test preparation provider.

To hear more from Manhattan LSAT, you can listen to these great Law School Podcaster shows:

• The LSAT: Everything You Need to Know About the Test
• Conquering the LSAT: Tips for Tackling the Test
• Mastering LSAT Logic Games: Tips to Beat the Toughest Part of the Test
• Cancelling or Retaking the LSAT: What To Do When Test Day Doesn’t Go as Planned
• Mastering LSAT Reading Comprehension:  Strategies to Improve Your Speed & Accuracy 

Good luck on Test Day!

Just how important is a letter of recommendation (LOR) to your law school application? 

Strong letters are a must; lukewarm or negative letters can be fatal. 

But don’t just take our word for it.  Get it straight from the experts, including top deans of admissions, admissions consultants and prelaw advisors.  Here’s what they said in our podcasts — read why strong LORs can help your application and how to get them (then click on the links below and listen to the audio shows for more great application tips).

TIP 1 – Admissions committees want LORs from people who know you well, not from people with important titles.

 “The key to recommendations are not necessarily what’s in them, but that they are from people who know the candidate well, because letters from people who barely know the applicant are usually not very helpful in assessing the kind of attributes [the admissions committee is evaluating].”

˜Vanderbilt University Law School Dean of Admissions, Todd Morton in our podcast, Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation.

TIP 2 – Academic LORs are the best as they provide insight into how you will perform in the classroom.

 “I think all law schools have a 1^st choice and that would be people who have taught you at the university level, whether it’s a TA (Teaching Assistant), a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) or a professor.  Those are the very best letters, because we are looking for a 3d party’s candid assessment of your potential to study law.  The 2d best sorts of letters will come from colleagues at work, internship supervisors or your supervisor in a job, especially if they can, in their letter, talk about any kind of legal-related, writing-related or research- related experience.”

˜UC Berkeley-Boalt Hall Dean of Admissions, Edward Tom in our podcast, Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation.

“I think the most important thing is, how are they in class and what are they going to contribute to this academic environment? So we look, for example, when I look at letters of recommendation, I often will look for two things in particular. One is how they behave in class. Are they active? Are they participatory? Do they treat others with respect when they have different opinions? And also, how do they write when recommenders write that the person is a wonderful researcher and writer? That is something that obviously counts very heavily in favor of the applicant.”

˜Jason Wu Trujillo, Senior Assistant Dean for Admissions, University of Virginia School of Law, in our podcast, Avoiding Application Pitfalls.

TIP 3 – Skip the lukewarm recommendation. It can only hurt.

Negative letters of recommendation aren’t the only letters to be aware of. “The lukewarm references can be sort of really bad in the sense that the recommender might harm the candidate with their ‘faint praise.’ So that’s always a thing to look into as well.”

˜Ann Richard, Associate Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid, George Washington University Law School,  in our podcast Mitigating Weaknesses in Your Law School Application.

Tip 4 – Establish good relationships with your professors from the onset, so that when you ask for recommendations in your senior year, they already know you.

“Certainly, as a freshman, you don’t need to walk in to your professor’s office and say, ‘I’d like a recommendation for me,’ but certainly you should be talking to your professors at that time. You should be meeting them, getting to know them – getting so that they know you in a good way, right, or that they’ll remember you in a good way. And so, once you have established these relationships with your professors, first of all, it’s going to help you get better grades, but second of all, it’s going to make requesting a letter or an evaluation a lot easier when the time comes. 

˜Rebecca Gill, prelaw Advisor at UNLV, in our podcast, Planning Your Law School Application Timeline.

Tip 5:  Ask a recommender directly if they can write a great LOR.  If possible, ask in person and at a convenient time.

“Ask them up front, say something like ‘law school is important to me, I really need an enthusiastic letter. Are you comfortable writing a really strong, detailed and enthusiastic letter for me?’ And then you need to gauge their response.”

˜Paul Bodine, author of Great Personal Statements for Law School and Perfect Phrases for Law School Acceptance, in our podcast Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation.

“On my timeline, I suggest that you talk to your professors at the very beginning of the senior year. I say either the week school starts or perhaps the week before school starts. As you know, some professors, just like students, the beginning of the semester seems rosy and there’s time and all of this stuff, and as the semester continues, duties get piled up on us and it gets more and more difficult for us to be able to turn around letters of recommendation quickly. So, it’s best to get your professors at the beginning of that semester. I also recommend against just sending an email to a professor, requesting a letter of recommendation. If you send an email, you can’t see the look on your professor’s face. And, you really want to know if you – you want to be confident that the professor you’re talking to really is going to write you a positive letter or give you a positive evaluation. So, what I recommend is that students send an email a couple of weeks before school or perhaps even at the end of the last semester of the junior year and on it say, ‘I like to meet with you early next semester about the possibility of you writing a letter for me.’ But, you certainly want to ask that question in person.

 ˜Rebecca Gill, Prelaw Advisor at UNLV, in our podcast, Planning Your Law School Application Timeline.

Tip 5 – Be organized. When asking a recommender for a letter, do it as early as possible, and provide proper materials:

“They should give the recommender a couple of months notice and they should come to the recommender with a resume, with any kind of documentation that the recommender is going to need. If it’s an online recommendation form, then the URL for that recommendation, the questions the recommender is going to be responding to, anything that can possibly help the recommender. The student presumably will have researched the school and will have some idea of why he or she is applying to the school and that should not be just the ranking. It should be something within the program and the philosophy of the school and then the student should also give the recommender a brief synopsis of both reasons to applying for that particular program and highlighting their interactions and the student’s achievements.”

˜Linda Abraham, Founder, Accepted.com, in our podcast Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation

“And then when you show up, it’s a very good to have a really quick memo to the professor, here’s what classes I had with you, here is what I did in your class, and here are the skills and characteristics that I hope you’ll be able to emphasize in your evaluation, then you’ll want to include an unofficial copy of your transcript. If you have a copy of your personal statement, which you should have a draft by this time, you’ll want to include that and if you can, it’s always a good idea to attach a copy of whatever paper you turned in for that class, especially if you can turn in the copy that your professor wrote comments on that, [that’s a] particularly good thing to do. All of these things help your professor to write really good, really targeted and personal evaluations of you.”

˜Rebecca Gill, Prelaw Advisor at UNLV, in our podcast, Planning Your Law School Application Timeline.

Tip 6- For applicants out of school for several years and who cannot obtain recommendations from faculty, you can still boost your application with solid LORs from those in a supervising capacity.

“If a person who graduated 15 to 20 years ago and still the faculty members remember him or her, that’s obviously a plus. On the other hand, after 15 to 20 years, most faculties would have forgotten many of the students. So if we don’t see letters of recommendation from the people who have been out of school for a decade or so, we’re not – it doesn’t hurt, but if we do see letters from people, that often, that’s a positive, so I think there’s a plus.But I guess what we look for are letters of recommendation from people who have been in some supervising capacity who could speak to the person’s intellectual or academic ability.  So obviously, the best ones are the college professors they have had but also their jobs in which there is a great deal of intellectual firepower that’s necessary. And if the supervisor could speak to that, that’s very helpful to us in making those decisions.”

˜Frank Motley, Assistant Dean for Admissions, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, in our podcast, Non-traditional Law School Applicants

 “For a nontraditional student, where there may be questions of what their motivation is for going to law school, there may be questions about their recent collaborative experiences and team work. There may be questions about their maturity and academic focus.These are areas where someone who writes a great letter of recommendation can really help answer those questions.”

˜Veritas Prep admissions consultant, Adam Hoff, from our podcast Non-traditional Law School Applicants.

For more information on this topic, listen to the following podcasts:

• Law School Personal Statements & Letters of Recommendation
• Planning Your Law School Application Timeline
• Avoiding Application Pitfalls
• Non-traditional Law School Applicants

Anyone who is even thinking about applying to law school will discover it’s not cheap.  And we’re not talking tuition. Application fees, LSAT fees, LSAC Credential Assembly Service (CAS) fees are a strain for most student budgets. 

The costs for applying to law school add up quickly.  First, there is the cost for each administration of the LSAT, which currently rings in at $139. 

Second, application fees for individual law schools can run anywhere from $70 to $100 and, if you apply to several schools, . . . cha-ching! 

Third, the LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service fee is $124.  This fee covers the following:

Don’t be discouraged from applying if these costs are beyond your budget; there’s a few strategies that can help reduce costs.  To start, some law schools send out fee waivers by email or snail mail to potential applicants, some have their own special applications for them (available online) and some you just need to ask and they will waive the fee.  Some law schools offer fee waivers based on financial need, and some offer fee waivers based on impressive LSAT scores.  So you should ask once you’ve received your score within a month after the June administration.  Check the website of the school you are applying to and take advantage of this if you qualify.

That’s the advice our student guest, Aminta Kilawan, a 2L at Fordham Law School gave in our recent podcast, Planning Your Law School Application Timeline: What to Do & When to Do It.  Kilawan had a couple of tips that could help you save money when applying.  “Sometimes, there are fee waivers. So, what you could do is ask your prelaw adviser who would have more information about this, whether or not the school offers fee waiver. I received a few of these based on my LSAT score. Some schools sent me fee waivers, which meant that I did not have to pay the application fee. They just wanted me to apply, and so oftentimes that’s the case. Other times, you can request that from the school if you are really in a bind and need to save money — that you can ask the school if they would be willing to waive the application fee which is not cheap. It’s $70 generally per school which adds up, ultimately. And, if you can find a way to get out of the application fee that would be helpful to buffer the cost, so it would be helpful to reach out to the school and find out if they offer fee waivers, what their requirements are. Maybe, sometimes, there are salary requirements or things like that, but oftentimes, they would be willing if you reach out them. So, a simple question can never hurt.”

The LSAC also offers fee waivers for the LSAT and for the Credential Assembly Service (CAS).  LSAC established the fee waiver program in 1968 “to assure that no person is denied access to law school because of the absolute inability to pay for the LSAT and other essential applicant services.”

An approved LSAC fee waiver is good for two years and entitles the recipient to:

So, if you are suffering from a case of “fee fatigue,” check out whether there might be a waiver available and get right on it.  It might just save you some money before you go to law school!