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Have you thought about what it would actually be like to be a teacher? Teach for America is definitely not something to do off the cuff, if you haven't seriously considered what you would be signing up for. If you haven't worked with kids, or this population, or aren't sure if you would enjoy teaching, I would recommend starting by doing something smaller, but involving the population you reference. You could volunteer at a Boys and Girls club or something similar to get a feel for if it is for you. My main point is that I don't think it's a good idea to do TFA just for an application booster, because it is a huge challenge and something to definitely be sure of. Just my two cents!

Yeah, this is actually super important. A lot of my friends had awful TFA experiences after college, and they were really committed to teaching and helping underserved communities going in.

At the very least, it'll get you fee waivers at almost all the T-14 schools - so that could easily save you thousands of dollars come application time. There are also TFA/Americorps/Peacecorps/Military service specific scholarships that you'd be eligible for at many of the T-14.

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What schools offer an in-person interview? I didn't think that was common anymore.

Among the top-15, UVA requires an interview of every admitted student. I tried to compile a list (got definitive answers on most of the schools) a few months ago here: https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/12009/which-t-14-schools-have-interviews

I wouldn't worry about it too much, I was in the same boat and reconnected with my main academic recommender (my second recommendation will be my current employer) when I visited my alma mater in May; after chatting for 30 minutes over coffee, he actually offered to write a rec unprompted. If you're going to homecoming or some kind of alumni event, that's a great time to reach out to profs and catch up - and then you can ask them for a rec either in person or in an e-mail afterward. If it's just not feasible for you to get back to campus, then a cold e-mail is fine - just include an updated resume and comment on certain things you'd like them to highlight.

154 diagnostic, 166 on my first take in December, 174 on my second take in June. 7sage was critical in getting me above the 170 mark; I'd used powerscore until around November 2016. Huge improvements are absolutely possible with dedicated study.

My center didn't have a clock in the room (and the proctor accidentally called an LR section 10 mins early lol) but I did have a very graphic depiction of Jesus' crucifixion directly to my left. I was unsure if that was a good or bad omen at the time (ended up being a good one).

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How can you tell what's important and what's not in an argument without reading and understanding the whole thing first?

map h4x that's how

I'm in the camp that believes taking 5 section-PTs is not necessary. I took the LSAT twice, and neither time did I feel that stamina/endurance or focus at the end of the test were issues. You'll be wired and full of nervous energy for the full 4-5 hours on test day. Doing 5 sections once or twice to get the feel could be useful, but I think it overcomplicates things and makes it tougher to score your own PTs.

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Hi all :)

In my timed PTs, I always tank the first LR section... a VERY poor performance. I think this can be attributed to my brain not being warmed up? As a solution, would it make sense to take a timed LR section prior to the PT?

If yes, a concern I have in implementing this into my routine is- test day. On test day, do I take a timed PT at home before driving to the test center? Do I do it in my car at the test center? Would taking it in my car freak me out too much right before the test? I do not want to finalize something into my routine and then derail it on test day, possibly negatively impacting my performance.

I could take a timed LR section maybe an hour before the PT and then maybe a LG or 2 right before?

Anyways, I would love to hear what you guys think. Thank you in advance! :)

I didn't do this when studying, but I did do exactly one logic game and around 5 LR questions before leaving my house for the center on test day. But I'm not sure how much it really helped, because there's just SO MUCH time wasted at the test center, and all the questions I got wrong were in the first two sections of the test for me anyway.

If it's a consistent issue for you, I would advise possibly bringing a flash card with some LR questions printed out on it, and read through those while you're waiting in the registration line - and then toss it out before entering the test room (there shouldn't be any issue if you just make sure to throw it away before they check your ziploc bag).

I always read the full stimulus, underline/bracket the main conclusion (I write the letter "C" next to it), then go into the answer choices. Make sure you read every answer choice, too. Way too many trap answers are placed right before the real answer to risk skipping answer choices, even when you're 99% confident.

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I did not like Georgetown's law campus much at all either. Although it is just minutes walk from the capitol, it is completely separate from the main campus and small. It's surrounded by business buildings so it feels very industrial and cold. Living near the campus would be ridiculously expensive, so commuting is a must unless you can live on campus (FYI they don't allow married couples to live on campus unless both are attending law school).

I was also disappointed at first that Georgetown Law Center was not at the iconic main campus overlooking the Potomac River. But once I visited GLC, I realized its location as a separate law campus is much better situated for what law students need: walking distance from the seats of power (whereas the main campus is isolated by DC standards, way too far from Capitol Hill). As for size, I thought it was huge for just a law school-- none of the facilities are shared with any other student body. It has its own fitness center and pool, just for law students! I think the architecture is regal and inspiring, not industrial nor cold. (note: I have no other T14 schools to compare it to.) So much is subjective!

Georgetown housing: there are lots of pockets of (relatively) affordable housing near the DC metro. Of course if it's "student housing" you're after, the university is likely to steer you toward top of the line luxury apartments aimed at "rich Georgetown" students. That said, I can see how it would appear there are no affordable choices to a newcomer, especially if the school doesn't help with that angle. DC is still exploding with gentrification. So you may have to expand your viewing area beyond Capitol Hill to find a decently priced apartment-- and yes, that means commuting, but I highly suggest not commuting by car if you can avoid it. So live near transit.

It's very possible to live in Capitol Hill affordably. I lived in DC until last week, in a beautiful corner row house two blocks from Union Station, and only paid $755/month. Before that, I lived in a crappier row house in Bloomingdale (near Shaw, and a 10 minute bike ride straight down to capitol hill) for $825/month. You just have to be willing to do a lot of searching and visiting on craigslist. The good thing about DC is that it's very geographically small, and you can bike from one end of the city to the other in 30 minutes max.

If you want a 1BR apartment (which only makes sense if you're married/moving in with a partner), then yeah, that's going to be rather expensive (1600+) no matter where you look. But if you are married/with a partner and splitting the costs, you can find options that would come out to around $800-900 per person in Capitol Hill.

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So excited about your future!! Whenever I saw your name or heard your voice, I knew to pay serious attention to learn from you & my instincts were right on. You worked your tail off and it was exciting to be a part of your journey!

Appreciate our time together and hope you will let me know what happens during the admission cycle...

All the Best:)

Tyler

Thank you so much Tyler!! I'll definitely be in touch throughout the rest of the process. I know you're going to kill it in September, you're so close to freedom! :smiley: (3(/p)

P.S. And thank you to everyone who has reached out on this thread or individually! I really appreciate it.

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What's your modified version of the foolproof method? Please share @

Hey Surfy, sure thing - below is what I wrote to a few people who asked.

Thanks a ton! I'd be happy to share. It's not that different from the foolproof method tbh, but I drastically reduce the amount of takes and change the timing up.

I printed out 3 copies of every LG from PT 1-50 (once I got into the 50s, I started intentionally choosing LG sections that were rated as "Hard" on 7sage or had miscellaneous games). Then I just started going in order with 1 clean 35-minute take for each PT'S LG section. I marked approximate times at the top of each game, and if I ran out of time at the end, I'd note that, start the stopwatch, and finish the game - then mark down the extra time I needed.

After that, I'd score the entire section (without BR, because I don't think it's super helpful for LG), and if I got worse than -2 or -3 overall, I'd watch JY's explanation videos for the problem games and highlight them in my excel sheet (I used the Cambridge LSAT Logic Games tracker, which you can download for free on their website) for a retake 4 days later (I didn't always stick to 4 days exactly, but I wanted to give it enough time that I wouldn't just be able to reproduce the inferences from memory - I know that's the 7Sage method, but it's always seemed really dumb to me, and an easy way to unintentionally avoid mastery of concepts). If on my second take, I still was getting -3 or worse, I would highlight that entire PT in bright red in my spreadsheet.

I started my foolproofing about 3 months before the test, so I made sure that I was doing and reviewing at least one full set of LG every day (as in, one PT's worth of LG). I tried to save re-takes for weekends so I wouldn't be too exhausted after work every day, but I didn't exactly stick to a perfectly spaced schedule (like if I had a date or wanted to get a drink or whatever, I'd just skip that day and literally double down the following day).

By the time I got to the 50s, I was consistently getting -2 or better on even the hard sections, and well within the time limit, which used to be my main issue on LG. I then started hunting for miscellaneous games and "Hard/Harder/Hardest" rated LG sections, since that was what had thrown me off so badly in the December test. After the June test, I almost wished I hadn't spent so much time on miscellaneous games, because there ended up being none on my exam, but it obviously worked out alright!

In any case, if you stick to a pretty tight schedule, and put in at least 1-2 hours every day on LG, you can definitely get down to a -1 or -0 by September.

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Hi @ , this is the common advice I have heard, but I was wondering if there were any studies/data out there to prove this? Would it change if someone was in the 25th/50th/75th percentiles (for instance, someone in the 50th percentile in September and then 75th in December?

Just curious because this was always the wisdom I've heard but I was wondering exactly where it came from and if it would depend on the specific percentile your September/December LSAT scores were in.

http://admissionsbythenumbers.blogspot.ca/p/model-1-waitlists-included-model-in.html>

Alex doesn't like this study, but I think it's really useful for answering those kinds of questions. The guy who runs this blog has run a ton of regressions on candidate data to estimate how much a 1-pt increase in your LSAT score, or applying 1 month earlier, can boost your chances of admission at the top schools. He also has done some interesting analysis of how much weight certain schools put on being URM. The short version is that a 1-pt increase in your LSAT score will boost your chances about twice as much as applying one month early at top schools; so in the scenario you outlined of applying with a 150 in September (50th percentile score) vs applying with a 158 (~75th percentile) in January (since that's the earliest you'd be able to apply after the December test), applying in January with the 8-pt increase would be significantly better for your chances than applying early with a 150.

I agree with pretty much everyone in this thread. While you should make an effort to do every LG the LSAT has released and you have access to, I almost completely ignored anything before PT50 when it came to LR and RC. Not only do newer LSAT tests have the comparative RC section, but the LSAC has started using a lot of new tricks in LR on newer tests, too. They do a much better job of hiding the overall conclusion and using intermediary conclusions to trip you up on identify questions, for example. And finally and most obviously, they almost always throw in a miscellaneous game at the end of LG sections now (for those, the old PTs 1-35 are actually very helpful).

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This is a great question. Been stuck in the 169-173 range for months. I'm sure a tutor could help, but I've heard of a lot of people who score that high and just self-study.

It sure is a hard plateau to break.

Where are you missing those last few points and what is your BR score at?

The best metaphor for my situation is it feels like I'm playing wack-a-mole. It seems like it is always a different section that gives me trouble and keeps me from breaking my plateau, but probably most consistently the games section (grouping games in particular). RC occasionally gives me trouble too though.

I don't really score my BR. That being said, there's really only a handful of LR or RC questions I get wrong with unlimited time (LG is the easiest to get 100% on with unlimited time). The last BR I scored was a 178, but I stopped after that because that was way unrepresentative of how I actually do.

Fool proof the games if you haven't already. If you're losing any points on logic games, it's like throwing away free money. Since you're already scoring in a high 160s-low 170s range, perfecting the games could be all the boost you need to get 174+.

If you have foolproofed 1-35, then use the 7sage tool to sort the other LG sections by grouping games and focus on the PTs with lots of In/Out and grouping games. Once you can consistently get to -1 or -0 on LG sections, then you should move on to shoring up LR.

Maybe this is just me, but I didn't think it was a particularly challenging RC. Got -2 on the section on test day, which is about what I expected. But honestly, I think I just got lucky that there was no art passage (hallelujah), since I consistently found those the most challenging and time-consuming (having less than zero prior knowledge lol).

Fpr 2, the answer is almost always yes. As for the other parts of your post, I was similarly torn between a JD vs MPP vs joint degree for a long time. But for many of the reasons Alex listed, unless there is something specific that you want to do after school that an MBA/MPP/whatever would significantly add to your toolkit and ability to succeed in that job, then no, it's almost never worth it.

I haven't looked into any of the financial aid stuff (need to actually apply first), but I'm in a very similar situation with my parents so I'd be interested if any prior applicants or people that have already applied this cycle have more info.

At this point, I think it's better to apply within the next few weeks instead of waiting until January. You don't really know that you'll do better in December, even with intense preparation - at that end of the curve, just a few mistakes can make all the difference. And you'd have to score a 175+ for it to be worth the two month delay.

With a 3.5 and a 172, that will get you into probably almost all of the bottom half of the T14, with a solid shot at all non-HYS schools. Even with a 175, you still wouldn't have a great chance at HYS, and it wouldn't significantly change your chances at the rest of the T-14.

Hm, foolproofing LG alone was probably 100+ hours. 20 full PTs is another 90 hours just taking them, and then the time spent actually blind reviewing... I'd guess I spent at least 300 hours total spread out over 9ish months? Ended up with a 174 FWIW.

Would also love to do a PS/Diversity Statement swap with some people this week. Send me a DM if you're down.

Does anyone STILL not have their score... or does LSAC just hate me

I rarely eliminated all 4 ACs in any section unless I was really struggling between two choices. In LR especially, I made a big jump when I was able to more confidently and quickly choose an answer choice on that "gut instinct" you described.

how was I in the last batch of scores in December, and apparently I'm also in the last batch this time around?? BS, the game is rigged