Apologies for being blunt, but you are at a significant disadvantage if your LSAT score is below the school's median given your GPA. In the case of NYU, that means at least a 172. Your "softs" (everything non-GPA/LSAT) seem great, but even an LSAT of 170 gives you an incredibly small chance of being accepted (~5% I'd say). Looking at Law School Data website, there were only two people accepted with a 170 or lower (with a GPA ~3.6) in the 2022-23 cycle. This increased by only three people if we moved the LSAT score to 172.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't try your best or not apply! Your softs are great (T3/T2), and law schools seem to increasingly favor Non-Traditional students over KJD's (though this can vary from school to school). With some great essays accompanying a good LSAT, plus your professional experience in non-legal roles, you'll definitely have some amazing result!

Interested! Taking in November and January :)

Interested as well!

What Clemens_ said, focus on increasing your GPA as high as you can make it. then worry about lsat

Hey there! Unless you are absolutely set on taking the April LSAT, or are already scoring well/meeting your goals with your scores, I'd recommend taking the test at a later date. Working a fulltime job not only takes up lots of time, but mental energy as well. Sometimes you only have enough energy for one hour of really high quality studying. Its also important to note that you're likely not going to be improving a ton in the last week or two (usually due to stress) meaning that the effective time you have to study for the test is two weeks shorter than you think.

While working full time I've taken the LSAT 3 times (159, 161, 170), and only for the last one did I give myself a TON of time to study. This isn't a lot of time in a single day though. Weekdays were 1 timed section + review. Weekends were one 4 section PT on Saturday, and a full review on Sunday. I did this for 6 months and it paid off.

A common piece of advice that may apply here is to only schedule your test date once you are getting the PT scores you are satisfied with. Good luck o7

This got longer than I intended...

TLDR:

Don't be discouraged by a low score, you're just starting! Blind Review (BR) = actual cognitive ability to understand the ideas being tested. BR suggests that you have much room to improve via practice. Create better automatic reasoning by 1. Breaking down questions/stimulus into their fundamentals to stop flawed automatic reasoning 2. Through repetition, rebuild automatic reasoning suited for logic/LSAT question types.

Disclaimer, I'm not a tutor, but would like to offer a perspective and general study approach that you might find helpful, as well as some additional ideas! First off, your 130's are not the end all be all of your LSAT journey. Consider them a snapshot of your current ability under timed circumstances, they're not meant to scare you away. They don't represent your future potential and can be used as a starting point to inform future studying.

I think a great indicator of this is that your Blind Review is in the 160's! This untimed review represents your actual ability to cognitively understand the material being tested, so I would hazard a guess that with some practice, the reasoning skills that got you your BR scores will show themselves in your actual score.

You might be wondering how to get from point A to point B, and although its generally a lot more of a bumpy ride with a few ups, downs and plateaus (regarding your score) following seems to be a generally effective way of studying/approaching questions on the LSAT.

STEP 1

Your current automatic reasoning got you the 130's, but your slowed down non-automatic reasoning brought you into the 160's. So, the goal is to rebuild your automatic reasoning. First step is to break down your reasoning.

a) Focus on fundamentals like the question TYPE (ie. is it asking what Must Be True, or Could Be False?) and question CONTENT (LG: Game Sketch/Rules, LR: Stimulus, RC: Passage)

b) Put the pieces of the question CONTENT together to create a prediction of a potential answer choice that would satisfy the the question TYPE.

c) Attempt to match your prediction to an answer choice.

d) Regardless of whether you got it right or wrong, during BR be sure to take time to understand why four of the questions are wrong, and what makes the right answer choice correct.

STEP 2

The second step is just repetition. At some point you're pattern recognition that you won't have to consciously break down the parts of the question TYPE/CONTENT to get to the right (less re-reading as well). Your pattern recognition will slowly return to being automatic, but this time being better tuned with greater logical sensitivity. Answering these questions more quickly then, and having a better mind for recognizing the patterns of questions on the LSAT, will help a lot with the harder questions!

To start step 1, definitely consult the 7Sage Syllabus! It isn't required that you do every single lesson, but you can if you feel the need. Otherwise it is a great tool to supplement your studies when you find yourself struggling with a certain question type. Definitely try untimed drills of the same question type (ie. 5-10 Necessary Assumption for LR) for as many question types and as many times as you think you might need. Once you are feel somewhat comfortable with each of the different question types start on untimed sections of LR, LG, and RC to better see where you've improved and what to focus on next, and then timed sections. When doing timed sections, people generally focus on mastering the Logic Game section first, as it is much more attainable to get 0 to 3 missed questions as compared to Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension.

At this point, depending on your score, goals, etc. I would definitely recommend scheduling a free meeting/session with a 7Sage tutor. I have had one and it made a very significant difference for me (a lot of what I mentioned here was what I did/learned from my tutor!) They are able to better direct your studying to effectively address problems that might be harder for you to identify. If you've read this far, then congrats! Seeking out information is crucial for developing your study plan, and I hope that this has offered some helpful insight (without being too overwhelming lol!).

Good luck friend! :smiley:

Definitely interested, similar split (LG 0-1, LR 1-4, RC 3-6)! Averaging around 168 currently, goal is 173 for April test!

Can you add me as well? Thanks! :smile: