Last Updated: June 30, 2009
May 2009
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Individual Applicant Fee Waivers:
A New Tool to Support Recruitment Activities
By xxxx

LSAC now offers the capability to provide individual fee waivers in person or electronically. Your prospects can redeem these waivers when they apply to your law school through the electronic application (e-app) process.

Types of Fee Waivers

You can assign fee waivers directly to individual prospects or create unassigned fee waivers for distribution at recruit events or through other recruiting activities. Your ACES² security administrator can assign user permissions for both types of fee waivers within the User Manager section of ACES².

An unassigned fee waiver is a fee waiver generated by ACES² that is not linked to a specific prospect. Unassigned fee waivers are generated through a new utility option that allows you to specify the number of fee waivers and an expiration date for the waivers you wish to generate. While the unassigned fee waiver can be given to a specific person, it can be used by any applicant to your school, but it can only be used once.

An assigned fee waiver is a fee waiver created in ACES² that is linked to a specific prospect. These fee waivers are issued to prospects who may or may not have an LSAC account number.

Fee Waiver Redemption

Prospects can redeem their fee waiver using their LSAC.org account when they submit their application through the electronic application process. Depending on the type of fee waiver, and whether the prospect already has an LSAC.org account, the redemption process is either automatic or requires the prospect to simply enter their fee waiver code.

During the Application Fee Payment and Certification step, applicants who received an unassigned fee waiver, or those without LSAC.org accounts when their fee waiver was assigned, will enter their fee waiver code number in the entry field provided. LSAC will validate the fee waiver code number to ensure it is a valid code issued by your school, has not expired, and has not yet been redeemed. Applicants with assigned fee waivers who had LSAC.org accounts at the time their fee waiver was assigned will automatically have their fee waiver applied during the payment step.

Electronic applications submitted with individual application fee waivers will be indicated as such in the Fees section of the applicant's record in ACES².

Reporting on Fee Waivers

Law schools can also create and run reports on prospects who have been assigned fee waivers, and applicants who have redeemed them. Although ACES² provides reporting capabilities, it does not track fee waiver redemption other than storing redeemed fee waiver codes with applicant data. Reconciling redeemed fee waiver codes with unassigned fee waivers or those assigned to specific prospects will be the responsibility of the law school.

We hope your school will find individual applicant fee waivers to be a flexible and useful addition to your recruitment program. As always, don't hesitate to contact a member of your regional support team with questions or feedback.