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Tuesday | Nov 29 110am-4pm
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• tour our new glass studio
• giassblowing demonstrations thoughout the day
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Thursday f Dec 1 110am
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Oregon Daily Emerald
g The independent campus newspaper for the University of Oregon
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LSAT: Testmasters.com vs. Testmasters.net
Continued from page 1
with consumer awareness, and that
although he doesn’t feel the Texas
company is fraudulent, he wants stu
dents to know the difference.
“It’s not our impression that
they’re running a scam,” he said.
“We’re just trying to make people
aware, which the company is not
doing a good job of.”
The Texas company owns the do
main www.testmasters.com, while
the California company owns
www.testmasters.net.
Clint Woods, who does public rela
tions for the Texas company, said the
California company has seriously
overstated claims of fraudulence,
adding that the company has always
had students sign a form that clearly
notes they are separate companies.
“We’ve revised this to be even
more thorough, and honestly we
wish they’d do the same,” he said.
But Sorenson said the wording of
the agreement that students must
sign before taking the Texas compa
ny’s prep course was misleading. The
document previously read, “I am
aware that there are other companies
that have a name similar to Test Mas
ters, and that these other companies
have no affiliation with us. ”
“When they use the word ‘similar’
in describing the other company
name, it’s not similar, it’s identical,”
he said. “To use the name of the Cali
fornia outfit is somewhat misleading
and not fully informative.”
The company’s revised agree
ment reads: “I am aware that there
are other companies that operate
under the name Test Masters.”
Several students who filed state
ments said that after hearing about
the California company from
friends they logged onto www.test
masters.com, not knowing that it
was a different outfit.
Sharon Naim, the vice president and
in-house counsel for the California
company, said the company’s troubles
started in 2003, when a Texas court
ruled that the Texas company had the
rights to the name in the state, but
she added that the case was decided
on a technicality.
She said that after the lawsuit the
Texas company expanded their of
ferings — previously only the SAT
and engineering tests — to LSAT
prep in an attempt to cash in on her
company’s good name.
Since then, the California compa
ny has been contacted by several stu
dents who mistakenly thought that
they were enrolled in TestMasters,
only to find that they were actually
in Test Masters.
Naim said in a telephone inter
view that the Texas company has a
history of scheduling classes only to
cancel at the last minute, leaving
students unable to enroll in another
LSAT prep course.
“It’s a disgrace,” she said. “A lot
of students are getting their lives de
stroyed. ... They have to travel be
cause there’s not enough instructors
to teach them.”
She also was upset by the Texas
company’s 10-point score increase
guarantee, which she said does not
function as a guarantee should.
“To most people, a guarantee
means you can get your money
back, but not with these people,”
she said. “It means you get to take
their stupid course again. ”
James Shrader, who is in his sec
ond year of master’s work at the
University of Chicago, mistakenly
enrolled in a Test Masters course af
ter his friends recommended Test
Masters. He said in a phone inter
view that after his scheduled class
in Philadelphia was canceled, he
was forced to drive to New York to
attend the classes at Hunter College.
He found the classes “sub-par”
and was “immediately disillusioned,”
but he didn’t find out it was a differ
ent company until a classmate came
in and announced that it wasn’t the
real TestMasters course.
“Then the instructor, whose
name was Sean, said, ‘No, no, we’re
the real Test Masters; they’re the
fake TestMasters,” Shrader said.
Shrader said many of the students
stormed out and some looked
"shell-shocked.”
“One girl was crying in the comer,
because the LSATs are so important,”
he said.
Although the company refunded
$600 of the $1,100 he paid for travel
expenses because of the cancellation,
he wants the balance of $500 back.
“It’s put incredible stress on my
life and has been one of the worst
things that’s ever happened to me
lately,” he said.
Woods said the allegations of
class cancellations are false.
“Ninety-five percent of the class
es that are scheduled go through,”
he said.
He said classes are only canceled if
fewer than six students are enrolled.
He said the California company is
now waging a public relations war
against his company.
“We have won in court twice, and
he’s trying — because he can’t win
in court — he’s trying his case in
the media, and the people that lose
are the students,” Woods said .
Sorenson said he doesn’t feel this
is a clear-cut case of a company
acting unethically.
“It’s not entirely the fault of the
Houston company,” he said.
“These students might have done
better in checking this out, getting
to the bottom of it. But they, like us,
were surprised that there were two
companies out there with the same
name.”
Contact the higher education
reporter at
kbrown@ daily emerald, com
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