How to get money/loans for application costs?

[missanxiety]

Hi everyone, hoping someone can help! I was sadly not accepted into law school last year so I'm in the deep dark depths of re-applying. Applications are ridiculously expensive and I need a $5k loan to cover my expenses (I am also redoing my LSATs, so I need money for tutoring and applications consulting), but everywhere I look on loan applications, it requires you to be enrolled in a school in order to get a student loan. Are there any kinds of loans/bursaries that you know of that I can apply for since I am not enrolled in any school right now? Or would I just need to go to a bank and apply for a regular loan? Any help/advice is much appreciated!! 

[Renerik]

Family member who works at a bank: 

"They wouldn't qualify for a student loan. They could come in and talk to someone about a regular loan but they're likely going to need a cosigner if they have poor finances. They should just beg their parents for cash if they're still around."

I'm assuming you have cash flow coming in from employment. If so, why not just wait a month or two for when you get your pay and use that to pay the fees? Applications are still open for some time.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Renerik

[cherrytree]

In case you don't have parental support, employment income or enough savings or any combination of these three sources that would help to cover the $5K costs you're quoting, I would recommend doing two things: look into scholarships that you might qualify for and see where you can slash-and-burn in your costs to reduce that number. If you're already getting 160 on your LSAT, further improving your score might be less of a matter of hiring a tutor and more of a matter of changing up your studying strategy, pinpoint your weak points and zero in on how to get better. I've personally never hired an applications consulting service before, I'm not sure how you can verify and have confidence that the high prices typically quoted by those consultants are actually fair and reasonable. Banks aren't stupid, an applicant who doesn't have enough existing assets and source of income to put together $5K is not a good prospect to lend to, not at a low interest rate anyways. If you have a credit card you can look into the option of getting a cash advance from your credit card company, but those interest rates are usually exuberant and you'd be at risk of digging an ever-growing hole for your financial situation if you don't have a robust plan of paying it back in time.

[Yogurt Baron]

This is a tough one.

I'm not aware of anything you'd qualify for. When I first applied to law school, I dropped well over a thousand dollars over the course of two years, between applying to almost every Canadian school and a bunch of U.S. schools. I was dirt-poor at the time (precariously housed in a roach-ridden hellhole, living on ODSP). I came up with the money via creative techniques like "only eating food every third day". I don't recommend it.

In terms of the application fees, look into whether any of the schools offer fee waivers for low-income students. I know that's very common in the States; I can't remember if it's a thing up here.

Just due to some predilections of my own (I wrote the LSAT absolutely cold and got a score in the 160s, and I don't understand anyone who can't do that), my temptation is to go a tough-love route here. I'm skeptical about whether there aren't diminishing returns when you spend five thousand dollars on an LSAT tutor and applications consulting. "I need five thousand dollars for an LSAT tutor and applications consulting" sounds, on one level, like the most first-world thing I've ever heard. If you're a very competitive applicant, you can get into law school without spending a dime beyond the cost of one application to one school. If you're not a very competitive applicant, then I wouldn't suggest you go down the same road I went down of pissing away money on applications that won't succeed.

But.

There's no question that the wealthy, and even the not-poor, piss away money on things to make their applications more competitive. LSAT tutors. Tutors when they're in school to help with their GPAs. (And, sometimes, "tutors" when they're "in school" to "help" with their GPAs.) Voluntourism to count as an EC. Applications consulting. There's no question that this happens. And it pisses me off that some rich guy, let's call him "Chauncey", could be exactly as qualified as you but could use his wealth to game the system, while you can't. It's unfair. I empathize with that 100%.

Take a breath. Figure out what you actually need, what's affordable for you, and what you can make happen. If there's one purpose I serve here (hey, look, I said if), it's as proof that someone can desperately want to go to law school, not get in, and move on to do other things with their life. There are a million rewarding things that you can do, jobs that are just as remunerative and satisfying as law, that your own natural aptitudes can lead you to without help from an applications consultant. I know anxiety, and I know this specific form of anxiety, and I think you'll be fine.

[CleanHands]

It should not cost $5k to apply to law school.