Self-study
As the 2020 admissions cycles comes to an end, I wanted to hopefully provide some inspiration to those preparing to take the LSAT and begin their admissions cycle. I started studying for the LSAT in September 2018 and sat for my first take a year later in September 2019. Like many others, I didn’t score as well as I thought I could’ve or enough to be competitive, so I sat for the next test in October. Thankfully, I scored enough to be competitive and get some scholarship money, although I’ll still need to take loans.
Like you all know, preparing for this exam will eat up your time and demands that you give it serious attention if you want to do well and get into top schools….likely in the process, it’ll mentally fuck you up, but depending on how bad you want, KEEP AT IT! I remember when I initially started studying, I listened to a discussion from one of the Sages about how she scored a 174 or something like that, and the mentality she developed…she said she prepared for the test like a top athlete does, and that really struck a tone with me, considering some of role models are Cristiano Ronaldo, Novak Djokovic, and Lewis Hamilton. What is one of the strong assets of a top athlete? Their incredible mindset and mentality. I cultivated that trait and decided to keep plugging away.
Of all sections of the test, LG was my biggest weakness, but eventually I got to the point where I was consistently scoring 17,18/25, although my strategy is one I wouldn’t necessarily recommend…I focused on 3 games, making sure I’d get almost all of the questions from those 3 games right, that gave me ~15 points right there, and guessed on the remaining, thereby getting on average ~2 more questions correct.
One of the best advice I can offer is that you shouldn’t look for a short cut or a quick fix and spend time figuring out your learning style, doing the BR process, mastering the LG timing through foolproofing, and MAINTAINING A POSITIVE MINDSET. My diagnostic was a 141, and I ended up scoring enough to land me at a T20 school, Boston U with a decent scholarship and possibly NW (waitlisted), still waiting to hear from a few others. It’ll take work, a lot of mental stress, and a high amount of focus, but like others have achieved, it’s possible to do well on this exam…RIDICULOUSLY WELL! You just need to be committed, trust yourself, and keep your eye on the prize. Daily running and hanging with friends every Sunday was massive for me, so I’d advice finding a hobby you enjoy that’ll replenish you and fill you with positive energy, you’ll need it for this exam.
Lastly, just like how you put a lot of effort into preparing for the LSAT, you’ll need to put even more into your apps. This caused the most stress for me tbh. Make sure your app is airtight, write a banging ass personal statement and if possible do all supplementary statements, the more the admissions committee knows about you, the more you stand out from the rest. Try to make it as personal as possible and really think about why you want to attend law school, tie in your interests and things from your life and how that helps you contribute to whatever school you’re applying to. Regardless of how scary this process is, admissions committees are still human, so don’t get in over your head about this. I even wrote about running in one of my statements.
Keep plugging away, believe in yourself and ability, cultivate positivity, joy, and resilience and trust the process. You’ll also be where you want, and remember, just getting into law school is an achievement in of itself, NO CAP! I know it can be intimidating seeing other folks getting into Stanford, Columbia, Yale, etc…but keep things in perspective, and if this is truly what you want to do, you’ll succeed.
