Was 7Sage Worth It? 160 -> 169, A Description of My Process and Lessons Learned

I wanted to write this post because it's something I would have loved to read when I started this journey of law school admissions. Doing this exam while working full time is hard. I applaud you for doing it if you are. You are competing against kids who study for this exam full-time. You will have to learn how to outperform them within your time and mental constraints if you want to score high. I will be as concise as possible and will detail how I studied and used 7Sage to achieve a 169 on the LSAT after a 160 untimed diagnostic score and despite working 60 hour weeks.

TLDR: The 7Sage Core subscription is worth it. 7Sage tutoring is a waste of time. Hard work and faith in a robust process will result in improvement, inconsistency and excuses won't. THE ONLY WAY TO IMPROVE ON THE LSAT IS TO TAKE THE LSAT. 7Sage AI is a great tool. 1 hour of studying on a workday can be enough if used well!

Context/Disclaimers: 60hour workweeks in an intense finance job. No kids. No accommodations.

If you are working full-time, this process will take longer than "normal". Ignore the kids who get a 170+ within 2 months. They have literally all day to think about this test and have substantially less pressure. It makes a massive difference. Work-driven skill atrophy is real, you will have to be incredibly disciplined and patient to fight it.

Timeline: 160 on untimed diagnostic of PT 141 in January. Studied 230hrs and scored a 166 on the June LSAT. Two weeks off. Studied another 100 hours and scored a 169 on the September LSAT. I took 20 exams* in total (18PTs, 2 real), dozens of sections and at least 2000 drill questions.

*Note, the old PTs are less useful. Newer PTs are harder and much more reflective of the real exam. They are making the exam harder, make sure you practice harder versions of it.

Method: I spent month 1 on the Foundations module (I wish I spent less time and drilled real questions instead during this). Month 2 I started drilling heavily and doing sections. Month 3-5 I took one PT every weekend on Saturday. I would BR it and review it the following day. The weeks were spent drilling. It was hard to balance drilling with my 12 hour work days and I definitely dealt with atrophy between PTs. You just have to be consistent, drill heavily, and review misses deeply.

Tutor: I got a tutor Month 5. Waste of time. They were a very nice and accomplished person but we just went over problems the same way JY does in his video review. You can completely replace a human tutor with AI and get a quicker, cheaper, and more personalized result.

Took June LSAT. The first exam always sucks, you will almost always do better on your second try.

Month 6 and 7 before the September LSAT were spent doing the same method. The time off helped dissipate the burnout I got from the trauma of months 1-5 prior. I only drilled priority areas and heavily used 7Sage AI, which had just come out, to tailor my drills and run my analytics. This made a difference. When you get to the 170+ level, you have to learn how to scrutinize a question for 20 mins and figure out why you get it wrong. Volume matters much less than before as you now have the ability to protect your floor and get most questions right.

Sept LSAT: Way less stress than take #1. Felt very easy in 3/4 sections but one section was extremely hard. I think it killed my 170+ chances. Be ready for anything! Research and take the historically hardest PTs (PT 140 experimental, PT 128 LR #1)

LSAT EXAM STRATEGY BONUS: Timing is everything. Intelligence and practice will help you use your time better.

LR: USE A STRICT 2 min BAIL RULE. When you hit 2 mins, guess, flag, and skip. Skip parallel questions unless they are before Q15. They waste a ton of time. If you can't get 4-5 star Qs right in 2 mins, you need to practice more.

RC: Use low rez summaries. Passages 1 and 2 should take 15 mins, 3 and 4 should take 20. If you stick by that rule you will finish every RC question every time.

Final thoughts: We are conditioned to think “173 or bust” to get T14 or T20. I think this is an overstatement. You can get into a good law program with a 25th percentile LSAT unless you have other truly poor elements in your app. Work experience matters in this new world where KJD kids get shredded by early Big Law recruiting timelines. I will give this cycle a shot and write a post in the spring outlining the aftermath. Hopefully, my theory is vindicated!