Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

LSAT prep courses prey on students
by Anne VanderMey
Michigan Daily (U. Michigan)
05/08/2006

(U-WIRE) ANN ARBOR, Mich. — University of Michigan senior Lindsay Farrell is three months into what will be eight months spent rigorously preparing for the day she knows could make or break her career. The day she takes the Law School Admission Test.

Students will do and pay almost anything for a decent score on the grueling test that plays an integral role in most law schools' admissions processes — making for an extremely lucrative and competitive market for test preparation courses.

But before facing the test itself, a student must first tackle an arguably greater challenge: finding the right instructor and making sure they're honest.

University students currently enrolled in LSAT preparation courses with a company called Test Masters Educational Services in Texas may be in for a rude awakening when their class — scheduled to begin Saturday, is cancelled.

Haku Israni, founder of the company, said he is not aware that his company offers any classes in the area, noting that he probably would have been informed if it had branched out.

Sharon Naim, an attorney for Robin Singh Educational Services, alleged that Texas Test Masters cancels most of its courses at the last minute, forcing students to either scramble to find another course or travel out of state where a Test Masters instructor will teach a subpar lesson at a slightly discounted price.

Naim says the Texas Company is leading students to believe that their Test Masters is TestMasters — a nationally recognized test-prep powerhouse technically called Robin Singh Educational Services.

For more than seven years, the two companies have been locked in a bitter struggle over the domain name testmasters.com, currently controlled by the Texas Test Masters. Both sides have dirtied their hands in the fight. The U.S. district court in Houston called the California company's litany of lawsuits against the Texas Test Masters "a campaign of terror."

The New York State Consumer Protection Board has also warned the public that the Texas Test Masters is attempting to defraud students using Singh's reputation.

Corporate deception is not the only thing students need to watch out for. University students often fall victim to false advertising by private tutors as well.

Mayssoun Bydon, founder of the Ann Arbor-based 180 LSAT Company said one of her students went on to teach several courses by impersonating Bydon, who charges $250 an hour for private lessons.

"There's so much of this fakeness," Bydon said. "It's astonishing. It's everywhere."

Bydon said that in her 11 years working in the area, she's seen tutors use false references and test scores and had friends pose as references on the phone.

Bydon estimates there are about 25 private LSAT tutors in the area, but said she would only consider hiring three of them.

"(While shopping for a prep course) we recommend students truly do their homework," said Mariella Mecozzi, a senior assistant director at the University's Career Center. "It's just like buying a car. You want to check all their sources, preferably more than once."

Dineil Diaz was a student at Pace College in New York when she enrolled in the Texas Test Masters course under the impression it was Robin Singh's TestMasters.

Diaz said she learned of the difference between the two companies after she had attended the class for several days and it was too late to get a refund. Upon completing the course and retaking the test, her score stayed the same.

Diaz, who has since enrolled in TestMasters, abandoned her hopes of attending New York University School of Law and will be enrolling in the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in the fall. Diaz recently received a letter from the Attorney General of New York informing her that the Texas Test Masters has accused her of espionage.

"It's been a process that's been very expensive," Diaz said. "I just wish I would have known."

But, it can be difficult to check every fact about a potential course or instructor. Rich Klarman, a local LSAT tutor said he might not want to teach a student who insisted on checking every fact about him.

"On the one hand, you want to be careful in life, and on the other you don't want to become a paranoid freak," Klarman said.

In the race to achieve the perfect score, some students overlook the possibility of self-teaching, Mecozzi said.

"I'm not saying preparation courses are not necessary, but that shouldn't be a starting point," she said. "It's not something where somebody has to necessarily hold your hand."

Mecozzi said some of the best scores come not from the smartest students, but those who were disciplined and motivated enough to study and teach themselves. She also said that students who work extra hours to pay for increasingly popular and expensive one-on-one tutoring may sacrifice hours they should be preparing for the test.

In Ann Arbor, most group classes cost between $1,000 and $2,000, while private tutoring costs range from $35 to about $250 an hour.

Most instructors consider a difference of five to 10 points out of a possible 180 a success story. Although the importance of LSAT scores varies with each law school admissions policy, the scores are often given greater weight than grade point averages.

Nearly 1,200 University students and alumni applied to law school in 2004-05. Twenty-two percent were rejected from every school to which they applied.

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