Credential Assembly Service Instructions
There are 3 parts to this document:
1. Instructions for using the LSAC’s Online Applications
2. Letters of Recommendation and the Credential Assembly Service (CAS) [p. 4]
3. Transcripts and Applying to Law School [p. 8]
First, note that before you can actually submit material or apply to any law school you
must register and pay for the Credential Assembly Service—the law schools require it—
no exceptions. This fee is IN ADDITION to the fee for the LSAT, and once paid the
registration is good for five years.
However, you can do quite a bit to organize and set up your CAS file before you pay this
fee! We suggest you create a free account NOW and get started. Register here:
https://os.lsac.org/Release/Logon/SignUp.aspx. Then try out some of the procedures
below on your computer.
To pay the fee when the time comes, click the tab at the bottom left of your free
account’s home page (i.e., after you register for or create the free account) entitled
“Learn about Credential Service”. On new page that then appears click the tab at the
bottom left, entitled “Pay for CAS.”
I.
Instructions for using the LSAC’s Online Law School Applications
Introduction:
The Credential Assembly Service drastically changed its online procedures in August of
2011, and has been more-or-less constantly updating and tweaking them. While these
instructions are as accurate as they can be at this point, unexpected problems and
“bugs” may well emerge. Please let HPPLC know of any issues that come up. If we don’t
have a solution already, we would like very much to know where the problems are. Just
email a brief explanation to hpplc@indiana.edu. Thanks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note: about 18% of schools ask for a “Dean’s Certification” form. If your major is in the
College of Arts and Sciences, take a hard copy of this form to the Academic Assistant
Deans’ Office in Kirkwood Hall 012; telephone (812) 855-8245; Fax: (812) 855-2060. All
others should take it to the Office of Student Ethics, 705 E. 7th Street, phone # 812-8555419. Both will send it to the law schools for you.
FIRST STEP in setting up your free CAS account: Be sure your popup blocker is turned
off for this site! For Internet Explorer, click the “Tools” folder. For Firefox, click
“Tools,” then choose “Options,” then go to the “Content” tab, and uncheck the first box
(entitled “Block pop-up windows”).
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Before you can apply to a specific school, you must first add the name of this school to
your “School List.” You can add or delete schools from this list at any time, and you do
not have to actually submit applications to any of the schools you have put on this list.
Nothing will be sent to a law school, and no information will be able to be accessed by a
school, until you actually submit the application. This will happen much later in the
process. It is clear when this happens. There is no chance an application will be
submitted accidently.
1. Log into your account as a “future JD Student” with username and password.
2. If you have NOT yet selected any schools to which you will apply, go to the
section entitled “My Law Schools/Applications, and click the “School Search” tab
(If you already have a list, skip to #5 below).
3. Select your schools by clicking on the appropriate tab. If you know the schools
you want already, click “Add Member Schools” to choose from an alphabetical
list of every ABA-approved US law school.
4. After you “check” your schools, click “Save Selections to School List.” Your list
will appear.
5. If you already HAVE selected your schools, click “View School List.” Your list will
appear.
Once you have a list, you can start to fill out the individual application for any particular
school. Simply click on the name of the school: three short columns under the school’s
name will appear. Under the middle section entitled “Apply/My Applications”, click the
dark blue box called “Start/Continue Application.”
It’s pretty self-explanatory from there. First, you will check the semester for which you
intend to begin your studies—usually the fall of the following year. Then “Select one
method to apply.” Most law schools prefer that you “Apply and Submit Online,” which
is the default selection. If this is your intended method (it is for 95+% applicants), click
“Apply”.
A very large “drop down” menu will appear under the name of the school with the
following three numbers under the “Applications” column:
1. “Step One Complete application forms.” Click the “Application” tab. You will see a
rather long list of application subject items, such as “Instuctions” “Biographical,”
“Demographics,” “Employment,” etc. First, be sure to read the instructions
(COMPLETELY, CAREFULLY, AND BEFORE YOU PROCEED!)! You will be asked to check a
box at the bottom of the page stating “I have read and agree to the application
instructions,” or the equivalent. Once you have done that, fill out each individual
application section.
NOTE: when you fill out the application for your NEXT school, information that you have
provided on this first application will magically appear in the proper place. Thus you will
have increasingly less information to fill out as you complete more applications. Just
make sure that all questions have appropriate responses.
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At the bottom of the list of application items will be links to click in order to upload
required and optional attachments, such as the personal statement, resume, diversity
essay, etc. Note that the system can only upload Word documents, not PDF’s.
When you click on each item, you will have the option of including either: 1). an
existing document that you have previously uploaded for a different school [click
“choose an existing file”], or 2). a new document [click “upload a new file”].
You will then “describe the file” [e.g., “resume,” “personal statement,” “personal
statement for New York Law School,” etc.].
Next, you will be asked if you would like to make this particular document part of your
list of common files for potential use in subsequent applications. If so, check the box
labeled “add this file to My Common Files List.”
Finally, you will “Attach (the) file” by clicking the tab labeled “Attach.”
NOTE: Many schools will also have a category for “Supplemental Material” or some
similar catch-all category through which you can upload miscellaneous documents such
as letters of addendum (e.g., history of outperforming standardized tests, serious illness
in a given semester that distorted your cumulative GPA, personal issues, etc.). However,
many do not have such a category. This does not mean they do not want to receive
addenda. It merely means they forgot to include it. If you have supplementary material
to submit to these schools, you must call their individual admissions offices and ask for
instructions. Virtually all schools welcome such material.
2. “Step Two Preview application”. Be sure to take a look. Make sure EVERY question
has a response. Proof your material carefully. Assume that some admission officials will
not tolerate even a single error.
3. “Step Three Pay fees and submit”. You will be able to click “Continue” to initiate this
step only when the application itself is complete. It begins a series of final steps by
which you pay the CAS Report fee, pay the individual school’s application fee or provide
the code for an application fee waiver, and sign the application, for example.
A few schools ask for a “signature page” or “certification page,” which you are to print
out as a hard copy, sign, and mail under separate cover to the law school. This page will
usually appear only AFTER you submit the application itself (it contains the date and
time you applied—and it can’t know that until after you have actually submitted the
application). Thus you will not be able to find it before you click the “submit” button.
But once you do it will appear on its own immediately afterwards.
That’s it! Congratulations!
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II. Letters of Recommendation and the Credential Assembly Service (CAS)
Introduction: Each letter of recommendation (LOR) in your CAS account must be
accompanied by its own CAS LOR form when it is sent to the LSAC. Each form will
contain the name of the writer of the letter to which it corresponds. These forms can be
transmitted as hard copies or electronically via email. You will need a separate LOR
form for each of your writers: e.g., if you have 3 LOR, you will need 3 forms—one for
each writer. The form will have the name of the recommender on it. Below are the
instructions on how to obtain them. [Note that occasionally there are problems printing
out these forms on a MAC computer].
Preface:
a. [IF you have a LOR file with the Health Professions and Prelaw Center
(HPPLC) office, you must bring (or fax: 812.856.2770) these CAS forms to the
HPPLC receptionist in Maxwell Hall 010 and s/he will put them in your HPPLC
LOR file. With a HPPLC file, you do NOT give these forms to your writers.
When you later forward your letters from HPPLC to the Credential Assembly
Service, the secretary will make sure that the proper CAS form accompanies
each letter. (Note: you will still have to give each writer the yellow HPPLC
“waiver” form that they will return to HPPLC with their letter.) And note as
well that HPPLC will not automatically send out your LOR. You will need to
complete and sign the short “Request For Recommendations To Be Sent”
form—available at
http://hpplc.indiana.edu/pdf/rs/Request%20for%20Recommendations%20to
%20be%20Sent.pdf. You can do this in person or by fax.]
b. [IF you do NOT have a LOR file with HPPLC, then you must give or email this
CAS LOR form to your individual LOR-writers. If they send hard copies, they
MUST mail their form together with their letter in the same envelope to the
Credential Assembly Service. The address is on the top left of the form. We
suggest that you provide a pre-addressed, stamped envelope for each writer.
If you email the form to your writer, they will be sent a message giving them
the option of either uploading their letter directly to your CAS account or
mailing a hard copy. (Note: if you do NOT have a HPPLC file, you would NOT
give your writers the HPPLC “waiver” form referred to in the previous
paragraph.)]
Instructions: You will build your own individual “master list” of potential letter-writers
on your CAS LOR account. This list can be as long or as short as you like. Note that just
listing a person does not mean that you are committed to even asking this person for a
letter, let alone sending their to any particular law school. Law schools will never have
access to this list. Only you will see it.
At a different point in the process, you will also assemble a list of law schools to which
you will be applying (see Part I to this document, above). For each individual school you
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will have to assign specific letters to be sent to it from your “master list”. Thus you will
decide later which letters will go to which schools.
As you enter the LSAC site and follow the instructions below, the procedures should
become increasingly intuitive. It’s just a bit clunky at first, so hang in there!
===========================
1. First, log onto your LSAC account with your username and password:
https://os.lsac.org/Release/Logon/Access.aspx.
2. Be sure your popup blocker is turned off for this site! For Internet Explorer,
click the “Tools” folder. For Firefox, click “Tools,” then choose “Options,” then
go to the “Content” tab, and uncheck the first box (entitled “Block pop-up
windows”).
3. On the next page, see the section entitled “Credential Assembly Service.” Click
the second link under this section, called “Letters of Recommendation.”
4. You will be taken to your own personal “Letters of Recommendation” page.
5. Click on the first blue box on the left side of the page, called “Add/Edit My
Recommenders/Evaluators.” (found under the link for “My Report Status).
6. Click on the tab marked “Add NEW Recommender/Evaluator”
7. Choose whether your writer is a “Recommender” (meaning that they will be
supplying a traditional hard copy of a LOR); or “Evaluator” (meaning that the
writer will fill out an evaluation webform available online and will not submit an
actual letter); or “Both”.
For complete accuracy’s sake, however, I should add that there are a small
number of schools that will let you “sneak” in an extra letter or two if you
designate some of your writers as an “evaluator”. For example, a given school
might state that it will “accept up to 3 Recommendations and/or 3 Evaluations
for a total of no more than 6.” Thus if you have 5 writers, for this school you
could designate three as “Recommenders” and the other two as “Evaluators” -and thereby submit all 5.
On the other hand, many schools will not accept Evaluations at all.
Normally an applicant will discover if it is useful to designate a writer as an
“Evaluator” only after your list of schools is finalized. The good news is that you
don’t have to decide now. It is fine to designate writers as evaluators later, and
only if necessary in the rare case that you discover that one of your schools
allows this type of extra input. Therefore, at this early stage, for 90%+ of
applicants, designating your writers as “recommender only” is the way to go.
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8. IF you do choose “Evaluator” or “Both,” the writer will automatically receive an
email instructing them to go online, create an LSAC account for themselves, and
fill out a webform on your behalf.
9. Fill out the information that appears next—it mostly consists of contact
information for the writer (NOT YOU!).
a. IF you have a LOR file with HPPLC, you may use HPPLC’s address,
telephone, and email address in this section (it simply tells the LSAC who
to contact if there is a problem with the letter). Use the writer’s own
name, of course.
b. IF you do NOT have a file with HPPLC, use the writer’s work address, etc.,
not home address.
10. “Number of letters from this recommender” refers to the number of versions of
a LOR that this writer will supply. Most writers (98%) provide a single LOR that
will be used for all law schools. For them, check “1.”
Occasionally you will encounter a writer who has attended one of the law
schools to which you are applying. If possible, and if the writer agrees, it may be
useful for such a writer to compose one letter targeted specifically to their alma
mater, and a second, general letter for all other schools. For such situations
check “2.” Each LOR will need its own LSAC LOR form. Therefore, if you do
check “2”, two descriptions will immediately appear—see next step below—and
you will need to provide unique terms for each. You will later have to print out a
unique form for each letter to be provided by this writer].
11. The CAS also asks for your own “Description” of the letter—note that this will be
seen by the law schools! Do NOT change this description after you have given
the form to the writer. You only have 30 characters available for this
description.
Normally you might mention the writer’s name, and “for all law schools” if the
letter will be sent to multiple schools. Consider “for Acme Law School” if the
letter will be sent only to Acme Law.
As mentioned above, although it is rare, it occasionally makes sense for a single
writer to submit one version of the LOR for multiple law schools, and another
targeted towards a specific school. Again, each letter must be accompanied by a
unique CAS LOR form with a unique description.
12. When finished, click the “Submit” button.
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13. You will then arrive back at your “Letters of Recommendation” page---but the
“Recommender Name” column should now contain the name of the writer for
whom you just filled out the contact information. The “Letter ID/Description”
column should also now contain your description of the letter. There will be tabs
on the far right column that say “Print” and “Email.”
14. When you click either tab, a page will immediately appear asking whether or not
you will waive your right to read the letter that will be written by this writer. The
Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) gives you the right to
read any letter written on your behalf, but you can waive this right. Law schools
generally prefer that you waive your right. But the choice is completely yours to
make. If you do waive your right, however, you will never be able to read this
letter. After you make your choice, click “Continue.”
15. If you clicked “Print,” a copy of the LSAC’s LOR form should finally appear! You
can now print a hard copy of this form.
16. If you clicked “Email,” an confirmation page will appear upon which you should
double-check all information displayed. If the information is correct, click “Send
E-mail.” If any information is incorrect, click “Edit.”
If you are using the HPPLC LOR service, be sure to provide a copy of this form
to us. You can either PRINT and hand-deliver (safest), or EMAIL (but be sure to
enter recserve@indiana.edu as the email address when you list the writer’s
contact information—see #9 above—and confirm this address per #16) the
form. Again, you will need one form for each letter in your file. And note that
your writer does NOT have to sign or even read this form—so you can submit it
directly to us in Maxwell Hall 010.
If you are NOT using the HPPLC service, give the form to your writer (either by
printing out a hard copy or by emailing it—and if you choose email, the form
will be sent to the address you specified when you entered the writer’s contact
information, which will be noted in the lower left portion of the form itself). If
using hard copies of the form and LOR, the writer MUST either send both (in
the same envelope!) to the CAS (the address is listed at the top left of the
form). If you are sending the form electronically, an email will be sent to your
recommender requesting him or her to upload a letter for you. Note that as of
this date, writers can only upload Word documents, not PDF’s!
Eventually (this can be done much later)---you’ll select a tentative list of law schools to
which you’ll potentially be applying, and this list of schools will also appear on your
“Letters of Recommendation” page, underneath your list of LOR writers.
To begin the process of assigning specific letters to be delivered to individual law
schools, you’ll first have to click on the “Add Term” button for each individual school on
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the list and then select the “term” or semester that you’ll be applying for admission (the
term you want to actually begin your studies at the law school—usually the fall).
After you “submit” this information, you’ll be able to designate which of the letters
listed on your LOR page (your so-called “master-list”) will go to which law schools. You
do this individually for each law school by clicking on each school’s “Assign” tab (this tab
will suddenly appear in the far right column only after you click the “Add Term” button,
etc., above). After you click the “Assign” tab there will be a short explanation of that
school’s LOR requirements and policies (for example, the minimum number of letters
required). Then just click on the letters from the drop-down menu on the next page,
click submit, and the “Letter ID” (“L1”, “L2”, “L3” etc.) column on your “Letters of
Recommendation” page will now indicate your LOR assignments for that school. You
must go through this process for every school!
Note: most applicants will send the same letters to all schools (the one variable would
be the number of letters that each school will accept).
That’s it!
=============================================
If the above procedure doesn’t work, call the LSAC directly at 215.968.1001 (push 0 to
speak to a human being). They should be able to walk you through it.
But please let the LSAC (and HPPLC) know about any problems you encounter.
Meanwhile, do not hesitate to send us your questions!
III. Transcripts and Applying to Law School
The Credential Assembly Service (“CAS”---formerly known as the Law School Data
Assembly Service or LSDAS) needs original transcripts from every undergraduate
institution you have attended. (All IU campuses are covered by IUB’s transcript, and any
study abroad programs only require transcripts from the domestic sponsoring
institution. But otherwise, EVEN IF your courses and grades have transferred and
appear on your IUB transcript—you MUST get an original. They are very strict about
this—if you don’t, a hold will be put on your applications.). To obtain transcripts, you
will need to give each institution its own individual “Transcript Request Form”.
First, you must register and pay for an account with the CAS. This is NOT automatic
when you register and pay for the LSAT, or when you create an account with the LSAC.
You must specifically register for the CAS and pay an additional fee (note that
registration with the CAS is absolutely required of ALL applicants—no exceptions). For
instructions on how to pay, see the top of this document.
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Note as well that you can obtain LOR and transcript request forms without paying or
registering for the CAS. But you cannot submit either of these documents, nor apply,
before you pay the fee.
Here’s how to obtain a Transcript Request Form:
First, be sure your popup blocker is turned off for www.lsac.org! For Internet
Explorer, click the “Tools” folder. For Firefox, click “Tools,” choose “Options,” go to the
“Content” tab, and uncheck the first box (entitled “Block pop-up windows).
Next, log onto your LSAC account with your username and password:
https://os.lsac.org/Release/Logon/Access.aspx.
This will take you to your CAS “My Home” page.
Look for the section on that page entitled: “Credential Assembly Service”
Under this will be a link: “Transcripts”. Click on that.
At the top of the page that appears, take a look at the beige strip that contains a link
that says something to the effect of “CAS Overview to add institutions”. Click that link.
On the resulting page, under the section entitled: “Bachelor's Degree-granting
Institution,” click the tab entitled “Add Institution.” Enter the information for IU.
If you have attended any other undergrad institution go to the section entitled “Other
Institutions” and click the “Add Institution” tab there. [For overseas study only list the
domestic institution, if any, that sponsored your trip. If you directly enrolled in the
foreign university on your own, only add it if you attended for one year or more—if you
attended for less than one year they will not accept the foreign transcript. Contact LSAC
at 215-968-1001 if you have any questions about this.]
When you are finished adding institutions click “Continue.” The resulting page will list
the school(s) just entered, and at the bottom of the left column will be an icon for the
“Transcript Request Form” for each school. Print out a copy of this form for each
institution.
For IUB transcripts, take this form to the Registrar in the Union Street Center, 408 N.
Union St. Bloomington, Indiana 47405. Phone: (812) 855-0121. Email:
registrar@indiana.edu. Have them forward your transcripts to the Credential
Assembly Service according to the instructions and address on the form. The CAS will
not accept transcripts sent directly from applicants!
Note that at peak times it may take the registrar several days to process your request. If
the delay is too long, you can jump to the head of the line by paying for a FedEx mailing.
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If you are outside Bloomington, you can still arrange for IUB transcripts to be sent to the
CAS. Go to the IUB Registrar's website at http://registrar.indiana.edu/.
If you need help, call the Registrar’s Transcript Information Line at (812) 855-7505.
You will need to similarly arrange for original transcripts to be sent from every
undergraduate institution you have attended that is outside of the IU system, EVEN IF
these grades transferred and appear on your IU transcript! For study abroad programs,
you will only need the original transcript from the domestic sponsoring institution, not
the foreign university.
If you encounter any problems with the above procedures, call the LSAC directly at
215.968.1001 (push 0 to speak to a human being). They should be able to walk you
through it.
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