How do I get law school application fee waivers?
Law school application fee waivers: the two kinds, and how to get them
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Applying to law school is expensive in a way that is front-loaded and easy to underestimate. There are two separate systems for reducing that, they work differently, and people routinely pay for things one of them would have covered.
LSAC fee waivers
Set that against the list prices — a $219 subscription and $45 per report — and an approved waiver is worth several hundred dollars before you count the test itself.
The critical thing is sequencing. Apply for the waiver BEFORE you register or subscribe to anything. It is a real application with a review period, and a fee you have already paid is not what a waiver is for.
School application fee waivers
Entirely separate, granted by individual law schools, and much less need-based than people assume. Schools waive application fees for a mix of reasons, and a large share of waivers go to applicants schools would like to hear from.
- Unsolicited, by email, after your score is released. Schools buy access to candidate search and reach out to applicants in their range — which means a strong score generates fee waivers on its own.
- On request. Many schools will grant one if you ask, and asking is a short polite email rather than a process.
- For attending an event, a forum, a campus visit or a webinar.
- Automatically, with an LSAC fee waiver, at some schools.
The consequence worth acting on: check your email, including whatever folder it is being filed into, in the weeks after your score comes out. People pay application fees to schools that had already offered to waive them.
Ask, and ask early
There is no downside to requesting a fee waiver. It is not recorded against you, it does not signal anything about your seriousness, and admissions offices field the request constantly. The worst outcome is a polite no.
Ask early in the cycle, though. In a rolling cycle you want the waiver in hand while you are still applying early, not after the calendar has already cost you more than the fee would have.
Sources
Counsel is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Law School Admission Council. LSAC publishes the authoritative description of the LSAT; where this page and LSAC disagree, LSAC is right.