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Cost of applying to graduate school deterring some students

With fees of up to $150 for each application submitted, La Torre-Couch is trying to save money by only applying to the University of Hawaii, where she would receive in-state tuition.

Before current undergraduates can worry about the increasing cost of furthering their education, many students have to worry about finding the money to apply.

“I’ve heard of stories where students spend thousands of dollars but don’t get in anywhere,” said La Torre-Couch.

It’s easy to spend thousands of dollars to apply to a single school. In addition to application fees, applicants pay for entrance exams, test preparation courses and official transcript orders.

Taking the revamped Medical College Admission Test, MCAT2015, costs $300. And the price tag of Kaplan’s most popular preparation course is $1,999.

Other professional and graduate programs also have application processes that can cost more than a UNC undergraduate’s approximated personal expenses for an entire semester.

Registering for the Graduate Management Admission Test for business school costs $250, and its Kaplan prep course runs close to $1,500. The Graduate Record Examinations, a requirement to apply for most other graduate degrees, costs $195.

“The process of applying to grad school is a financial burden, and then the kicker is that you might not get into any of the schools,” said Swati Rayasam, who graduated from UNC in 2013.

On Sunday, Rayasam spent $20 for priority mail shipping to send in the last of eight graduate school applications for a master’s in public health. Each application came with a $70 to $90 fee.

Senior Sara Larcher is in the process of applying to law school and has spent more than $1,800. That’s $170 to take the Law School Admission Test, about $30 per application fee, $10 for each official transcript and $1,500 for a Kaplan course.

“(My score) didn’t improve very much,” Larcher said. “But I knew if I hadn’t taken the class, I would have been very lost.”

Larcher’s strategy was to apply to five schools: one reach, one safety and three schools where she is a competitive applicant.

She has to apply through the Law School Admission Council, which compiles all of a student’s letters of recommendation and transcripts to send to multiple schools simultaneously. That service costs $165 in addition to separate application fees for each school.

The American Medical College Application Service has a similar system that costs $160 for the first application and $36 for each additional school.

Larcher said she has tried to save money wherever possible. She capitalized on several schools’ offers to reduce application fees for students who attend admissions fairs or email the school, and she didn’t visit any of the out-of-state schools on her list.

But costs still added up, in more ways than one.

“There’s definitely the cost of time,” said Larcher. “Taking the LSAT class — I ended up putting my classes second to taking the exam.”

Kaplan spokesman Owen Farcy said the course comes with a promise of a higher score from a student’s original diagnostic test and a money-back guarantee.

He said Kaplan also offers a variety of classes at lower price points and gives discounts of up to 60 percent off for students who demonstrate financial need through FAFSA.

“We want to make sure that test prep is available to as many students as possible,” he said.

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That 60 percent discount still puts the price tag on most prep courses at $600 or more.

The Association of American Medical Colleges, which administers the MCAT, also tries to make test prep available to all applicants. The association recently partnered with Khan Academy to create a free series of test prep videos.

But the association does not waive test fees for low-income students. Instead, for students with a total family income that falls at 300 percent or less of the poverty line, it offers to reduce the fee to $115, which still may be out of reach for some applicants.

“I am not aware that we’ve ever had requests to waive the fee,” said Karen Mitchell, MCAT senior director.

UNC School of Law’s associate dean for student affairs Paul Rollins said he thinks applying to law school is accessible regardless of a student’s financial situation — though in recent years, the number of applicants has gone down.

The law school offers application fee waivers to any student with financial need, as well as some merit-based waivers.

“In short, we do not want any student to be unable to apply to law school here because they don’t have the financial resources to pay the application fee,” Rollins said.

But he said ultimately it is difficult to determine which applicants come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Applicants are considered financially independent from their parents or guardians, so most applicants report low or no incomes, he said.

As a result, no accurate data could be found on the socioeconomic backgrounds of students attending the law school or UNC School of Medicine.

Career services counselors try to help UNC undergraduates find sources of funding for graduate school tuition and for the application process.

UNC pre-health adviser Resa Anderson often directs students toward the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Fee Assistance Program. She said undergraduates eligible for aid can qualify for reduced fees.

Anderson also points students toward Princeton Review preparation courses subsidized by the University. Usually Princeton Review’s MCAT course costs $2,299, but UNC students pay $1,699. She also said the Learning Center has study groups that students can join for free.

“The application process is extremely costly,” said La Torre-Couch, “and then you get there, and almost everyone is taking loans out ... It’s expensive.”

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