Did anyone receive an email with an application fee waiver? I received one on December 22, 2011, applied, and still waiting on the Admissions Committee decision.

Application fee waiver email:

"Dear Mr. [XXX],

Greetings from Cornell Law School, in Ithaca, New York, USA.

We are delighted to learn that you are considering LL.M. programs in the United States. Year after year, our program at Cornell is one of the most popular in the world. Last year, we received close to 1,000 LL.M. applications for the 70-75 seats we have available. In a typical year, our LL.M. students represent as many as 30 different countries.

Our students tell us they are attracted to Cornell by:

- Our beautiful location in Ithaca, New York

- Our affiliation with an outstanding Ivy-League university

- A faculty renowned not only as leading scholars but also as great teachers

- A broad and deep law school curriculum that allows maximum flexibility for LL.M. students

- A top J.D. student body with which to interact and develop connections

- Excellent preparation for success on the New York Bar Examination

- Superior career counseling and advising

- An extensive LL.M. alumni network (our LL.M. program has been in existence for over 80 years)

- Low cost-of-living and a safe, family-friendly community

If any of this sounds appealing to you, we hope you will consider applying. If you are planning on being in the States, wed be happy to arrange a visit. For more information, go to www.lawschool.cornell.edu. You can also take a look at our LL.M. program brochure at http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/cornelluniv/lawschool_llm2012/. Or, we would of course be happy to hear from you via e-mail or phone.

Once youve had a chance to get to know us better, youll understand why so many make us their top choice for an LL.M. degree.

Sincerely,
[XXXXXXX]

P.S. Were even waiving our application fee in your case. So why not give us a try?"


For all of you who received a CRS waiver (from any Law School), you will probably find the following information useful:

Q: I received an unsolicited fee waiver from School X encouraging me to apply does this mean I have a higher chance of admission?

A: The response by law schools is generally no, though this doesnt tell the whole story. Certain schools, such as The University of Michigan and Duke University, both cite higher acceptance rates for applicants who receive fee waivers. Many others, on the other hand, annually reject a number of fee waiver recipients. Generally speaking, there seem to be two major reasons underlying such rejections:

Selectivity boost: A portion of the score used to rank law schools is determined by how selective a school is that is, the percentage of applicants accepted in a given year. Fee waivers generally encourage candidates (both financially and emotionally) to apply to a given school. By issuing fee waivers to candidates unlikely to gain admission, based on their LSAT and GPA, schools can boost their number of rejected applicants, thus increasing their selectivity. An unsolicited fee waiver definitely does not equal guaranteed admission.
Yield Protection: While the above deals with candidates who are under qualified, occasionally overqualified candidates who receive fee waivers due to their impressive statistics can be rejected or waitlisted as well. In addition to selectivity, schools are concerned with matriculation or yield the percentage of admitted students who decide to attend. For this reason, some schools will waitlist or occasionally reject candidates whose statistics suggest that they will most likely be accepted at and choose to attend schools of higher rank or prestige.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/guide-to-fee-waivers.html

I will keep you posted on Cornell's decision.
Decision: Waitlisted (5/14/12) "There's still hope..."
Rejected (August 2012).
Re-applied for the 2013 LLM Program

Interesting experiment you had going on there. I would not have expected that Cornell would send out fee waivers. Though it does somewhat dissapoint me if schools actually do this in order to boost their selectivity...

I also registered for CRS, however at very late stage. Unfortunately I received fee waivers to schools that I actually had no intention of applying. Ranking wise probably the best school was Vanderbilt from which I received a fee waiver.

Did you receive a fee waiver to Cornell this year as well? Or was the waiver still valid to be re-used?

Has anyone else applied to schools with a fee waiver? What was the result?