@ if you can't beat them, join them! Your commentary here is always illuminating.

@ way to go, buddy!

@ said:

This question assumes the person has T-14 credentials. My answer is prefaced on a choice between T-14 sticker vs. lower-ranked full-ride.

Before law school I had a T-14 or bust mentality. After being waitlisted or rejected at the T-14 I took a full-tuition scholarship to a T-20 school. If I'd have got off a T-14 waitlist I would've been paying a lot more for my education and taking on debt. I had not anticipated attending the T-20 school before their offer, but something told me it was the right choice. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

My school is in a cheaper part of the country, so I pay bills with savings from post-undergrad work. My tuition is covered, so I don't spend all day thinking about debt. I know my classmates worry about this. I started school knowing that this school wanted me. They didn't treat me like I was lucky to have been offered a seat. I felt good being here. I knew that they thought I could succeed. I wouldn't have felt this getting off the T-14 waitlist. That difference, if only slight and marginal, helped me get good grades. I now have a 1L summer associate position at my first-choice firm.

When I applied for the SA role, I told them a compelling story about why they're the right fit for my career goals. I knew this through networking and law school events. I seriously doubt they cared about the prestige of my school. They cared about grades, work experience, soft skills, interveiwing abilities, creativity, personability, "fit" within the firm, shared goals, things well beyond the law school name on my resume. They didn't care about geographic ties either. A T-14 won't give you those skills any more than a T-20 will. If anything, a T-14 might hamper your chances at getting top grades (assuming they are more academically competitive, which isn't certain).

TL;DR - I think people underestimate the burden of debt. I think employers care more about grades and soft skills than they do the name on your resume.

Really great context. Appreciate you sharing this (your) truth @ ! Congratulations on the SA. As I understand, that's rather rare in 1L?

Cheers!

I feel your pain @ !!! I have commented on this subject extensively in the past. 7Sage might let you click on my handle and see those posts? I'm with you, sister! I guess the silver lining is that digital reading is more representative of the work lawyers do nowadays : /

Master's not included, sadly. I would love to hear from admissions professionals here whether schools will ever re-assess the relationship between CAS GPA (as currently figured) and law school and/or professional success!

Wow, great post @ ! I love data-driven projections, and will likely return after I've chewed on this later this weekend. STILL, just let me add a contraindication to my own zeal:

https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2021/03/your-annual-reminder-about-movements-in-the-us-newscom-rankings.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FKiyu+%28Brian+Leiter%27s+Law+School+Reports%29.

I appreciate Professor Leiter's perspective on the ever-looming rankings, as well!

@ said:

Has anyone else found their RC score dropped after they started taking online PTs? I started with physical LSATs, but switched to taking them online to simulate the flex layout. I feel like RC is much more difficult without being able to track viewpoints, tone, arguments, and main points directly on paper. Any advice for annotating on the digital LSAT?

Great point, and great reinforcement @

@ said:

Keep in mind the Yield Protect implications of retaking a 172. You are above or at all of these schools 75th percentile class scores I believe. If you retake a 172, schools may assume that you are gunning for HYS (who have medians above 172) and be more inclined to hand you a WL on the assumption that you aren't interested in them. People with your stats tend to fare better at schools like Michigan and Virginia than people who scored 175+.

I thought this was a good point. It relies on the assumption that the schools may not recognize other reasons someone would retake. Still, if yield protection is a strong impulse, I could imagine that assumption taking hold. My friend who went 174-->176 and applied Nov had not had an acceptance from T-14 as of February.

EDIT: Sorry, just saw the above. Good luck @ !!

@ said:

One of my biggest areas of weakness is the A/B Reading Passage. I know JY recommends starting with Passage A and answering every relevant question before moving to Passage B. Is this the best approach? I would love suggestions on approaching this section.

I found this approach interesting but too time consuming to offer benefits. If you are asking, I recommend keeping the main point and structure in mind for each and then going through the questions. Recognizing that the level of detail on A/B sets is often (not always!) lower-res than elsewhere was HUGE for me. I am sure there are specific RC sections where the method you referenced helps, but I have not found it to help consistently.

@ said:

I think once you are prepared for the Test, the results would take care of itself regardless of the format.

Begs the question...

@ said:

All I can say is I am very shocked. I applied to all my schools back in September, right when apps opened. I pretty much got into the schools I thought and was waitlisted at the reaches and rejected at a super reach. Except one school that I had as a safety. The 7Sage predictor had me at a 99% chance for admittance. I was first offered a waitlist spot just a week after I originally applied- which I found strange. My GPA was over .5 higher than their 75th percentile and my LSAT was at the 50th. I hadn't heard back from them so I emailed last week and sent them updated grades. I told them I was already accepted into several schools and that I was very interested still. I was really hoping for a big scholarship offer. Disclaimer: I have already decided where I'm going with a deposit but always want to keep opportunities opened. They emailed back and said they would review my application if I wanted. Ummm duh I want you to review it, why do I have to email to have that done? At this point I was pretty pissed off and decided it wouldn't work anyways. They told me I would have a decision in 2-3 days. 8 days later, I get an email that a final decision was rendered...I got rejected. I almost laughed out loud. Out of every school I applied to, this was pretty much my lowest safety. I am in no way mad, because in reality I was not going to go there unless they were giving me a full ride and a Tesla. Does anyone else find this scenario strange? Not just the decision rendered but the way admissions handled everything? I've checked Law School Data and based on the admitted students on there, I would have the highest GPA and top 8 LSAT. There is nothing weird or red flags on my application. Could they just be yield protecting since they knew I got into much better schools? Any insight would be nice.

They must have determined that you wouldn't get anything out of an acceptance. I think @ has the right advice for you, here. I encourage you to be grateful that the cycle went well. I wouldn't presume that a given admissions committee should definitely admit me, no matter how low they may be on my personal list.

@ said:

CAS UGPA: 3.68

LSAT: 172

Schools:

UPenn

NYU

Georgetown

Duke

Northwestern

UVa

Michigan (in-state; undergrad school)

WashU

Strong and unique softs (3 years working in DC working on a niche policy issue by the time I matriculate, lots of publications)

I think I could get a 174+ if I retook it in June/August but is it worth the extra studying time and the cost of the test and of more prep?

I would not, but it really depends more on what you'd be sacrificing in the rest of your life to retake.

@ said:

I have had 7Sagers reach out regarding LG and many of them are at the -4/-5 range. A common thing I am seeing is that they are not BRing like they were in the beginning. BRing take on another role in LG once we have been doing it for a while. Yes when you are many PTs in and you can do sequencing games in BR at 100% accuracy what's the point of spending the extra time? The extra time put in is to help you speed up and make inferences even faster and thus allowing more time on harder games. Treat the simple games like you would the more difficult because you can get faster and maybe you can shave 10 seconds then 30 then 40 seconds off the easy games by seeing them and working them over to get everything out of them. Maybe this comes from knowing pressure points better and being able to cross out answer before even trying them. Or just setting up 1 master game board and because you are so proficient at the game now you would not need to draw another game board and you can see the answers "in your mind's eye" and if there is time after completing the section you can do double check. Just because we can complete the easy games at the time recommended does not mean we should ease up on the intensity of the game. If it is a simple sequencing and all the rules make one chain and it only has 5 questions I can do it between 3-3:30 with 100% and this allows me to gain 1 full minute or more to work on the harder games to come, and sometimes the extra seconds and minutes we bank on the easy is the difference between -0 and -3. This is because the set up normally takes X amount of time regardless of the number of questions. For example you are in the last game and there are 6 questions left and you have ten minutes. Set up takes 4 minutes because its a hard game and you did a partial split, now there is only 6 minutes for 6 questions, not a bad scenario, until there is not a single question that gives you an extra rule to work with now those extra 2 minutes would allow you to get to the last 2ish questions.

I realize that is an extreme example but I hear it all the time, "if I only had 2 more minutes." Plus having extra time going into games allows us to relax and not make mistakes because of our test day anxiety and feeling rushed.

BR is even fun to BR in limited amounts!

@ said:

Hello,

I'm studying for the upcoming April LSAT FLEX. This will be my second time taking it. I haven't seen much improvement and Ive dug down hard on logic games for the past month.

To be honest I've not been studying as hard due to working on a couple races up until about a month ago, when I decided to take a PT and then drill through some of the intro lessons here and one of the other well known book on logic games (the LG Bible). I took another PT (82 to be exact) and found myself scoring much lower than I did when I tested a month ago.

Im trying to score a 160 and I've consistently scored 154 since my last LSAT in August. As I said, I took a bit of a break from studying due to a hectic work schedule but it didn't seem to hurt my score. Today I scored a 147 (151 blind), and I'm stuck on what my next move should be.

Looking for #advice on how to go about my studies the next month or so, as well as honest feedback about potentially pushing my LSAT back to June.

Thanks all.

Push it back. I'm not sure of the deadlines, but if it's all the same you can wait until the day before to withdraw, just to have that added pressure on your studying. Sorry for the flat answer. but if you race, I am guessing you are deadline-oriented (also like me!). Happy to have a quick chat over Zoom if that helps.

@ said:

The font for the 7sage forum looks different or is just my computer?

Definitely, @ ! It's sharper at the edges. I can get used it, though.

I think you need to have a star to be a Sage. Sages have 170+ (like me--hooray), but also have that track record of posting serviceable information here.

@ said:

Hi I’m in need of some advice. I took the January LSAT and didn’t do very well so I am planning to study more and take it again in September or October to apply in the next cycle. My question is, should I do the entire core curriculum again? Any ideas or tips on how I should proceed are appreciated!

I see the LSAT as a test of decision-making, with something like 1,000 prompts per administration. It's all about building your toolbox and making the right decisions as quickly as possible. For this, I recommend joining a tutor or study group. I did not do this enough when I was studying.

@

Yeah! It would be interesting to see if the new test still tracks law school performance as well as the old. I understand that law school requires a measure of endurance, for instance, while the LSAT now requires less. Could it be that LSAC succeeded at maintaining scaled percentiles (ignoring a gaffe with the upper range of early FLEX tests) but lost some capacity to measure implicit capabilities?

To me, the fact that LSAC opts to issue statements like this

"Our questions and methodology will remain the same, meaning the LSAT will continue to be the most valid and reliable indicator of first-year law school success."

hints at a concern that the test may not be as sound as it once was. (Are questions and methodologies sufficient conditions to being a reliable indicator of first-year law school success? Haha-there seem to be many assumptions there.) If something is true, (-->) it's unnecessary to keep saying it.

Hi @

I have my own particular stance on this, which it would be easier to convey here: https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/27888/reasons-the-lsat-flex-is-harder-than-the-original-five-section-test

Thanks for asking, though!

@ said:

@ I love the spreadsheet idea. I have my own ridiculously complex version that compares my schools, the costs/benefits, and so on. It's a lifesaver as responses are rolling in (albeit slowly).

As far as the business of rankings goes... well, that's very complicated. Do I think it's possible to be successful as a lawyer despite not attending a T14 school? Absolutely. That said, your own personal goals play a big part in how you define success- what is successful to you may not be to someone else, and that's okay. It is important though, that you understand the risks and benefits of a particular school. Some schools are low ranked based on nominal factors like library size, but offer solid opportunities and have strong local ties. They continue to spiral in the rankings because low rankings make it difficult to bring in strong candidates and so on. Other schools are downright predatory. It's important that you have a realistic understanding of how much debt you may incur (with or without aid) and how much you will earn to offset that. Employment statistics are a great tool, so are first time bar passage rates. There are plenty of people who love working for legal aid or as public defenders- generally careers that are attainable with non T14 schools - but you do need to be able to pass the bar exam and pay your bills in the end.

I agree that shaming and attacking is entirely unhelpful and I've seen a whole lot of it lately under the guise of "I'm just trying to help." In fairness, none of this has been on 7Sage.

Honestly, I'm choosing the lowest ranked school on my list (by a lot). They've offered me an excellent deal that will likely lead to a good employment opportunity. I did my homework and I know it's the right choice for me.

Love it!

@ said:

lsac stated that the 3-scored section format will continue for a minimum of 2-3 years.

i agree with you that the 2nd lr section won't be too bad for me and some others.

but i dunno if i'll be counting on it to return in the near future.

The LSAT will have three scored sections and a fourth, unscored variable section starting August 2021. We plan to use this format for a minimum of 2-3 years, so it is the new LSAT format that candidates and schools can rely on.

https://www.lsac.org/lsat-august-2021-and-beyond

Disappointing, but thanks!

@ said:

Hey everyone,

I took the November lsat. I went through the whole application process and have some solid options for fall 2021. I am wondering if anyone has any advice on picking a school. Deposits are due April 15 so time is winding down :’) I received a full ride to a “lower ranked” school and substantial scholarship at some sorta higher ranked schools (nothing T1 the LSAT wouldn’t allow it:’)))) I am on the wait list for my top school (T2) which I knew would be a reach anyway due to my lsat being below their median.

I know more goes into this decision than rankings (I hate them!!!) I wasn’t really able to visit many places due to COVID - a lot of schools are still virtual or hybrid or just not doing in person tours. Hard to get a feel of where I could see myself for 3 years. I have been looking at employment outcomes and bar passage rates and where alumni are located. I’ve lived in Pennsylvania my whole life and I am perfectly happy living here and practicing law here. I’m not aiming for BigLaw - I really don’t see the point in selling my life away to be knees deep in debt at a job I hate?!?

Would you take the full ride to the lower ranked school? Or would you pay 100K + more for your top choice if lifted from the waitlist? My top choice is in PA, my full ride school is in Ohio. I am confident I can find employment in PA even though I went to school in Ohio. I have professional connections here (I took off some time to work full time before applying to law school).

I guess I really just want to know if anyone has any thoughts - this decision is huge I know. The financial freedom that comes with not paying any tuition is extremely appealing. I have worked and saved and I may not take out a loan for living. Debt free for grad school?!? Ahhhhh!!!!

Thanks in advance

@ I've been thinking about this recently. After reading a very cynical book about law school from after the recession, my approach was to make a spreadsheet comparing anticipated finances to my best available alternative. The point the author made well I thought was that independent of passion, experience, or anything else, law school has to make financial sense. In my case, I realized that it would take 12 years to break even financially. (This is without weighting differential free time at all.) All this depends on what professional options you anticipate pursuing in school and afterwards. Let me know if I can help by explaining this over Zoom--I'd been happy to!

@ said:

wow! This is great everyone. I think what I'll do is set up two standard times for folks to crash in and do a 3rd Blind Review. I have taken the most recent PTs, so we will likely start in the 30's and do two a week. So let's say that this coming week, we can do test 30 and 31. I'll do a third BR for PT 30 on Thursday night at 8PM--message if you want to be on that one. And I'll do PT 31 on Sunday at 8PM (CST all of these).

If you'd like, please PM me which group you'd like to be in, and I can send out an invitation for a zoom or google hangout. I'd rather not run a discord, but if someone else wants to, please go ahead.

This is going to be very business like and tight. I'm looking to spend 2 hours max doing a third BR.

Yay! Looking forward to this and to have some accountability partners.

Good leadership, @ ! I will send a private message. A little late for me but I'll show to Sunday eventually.

This cycle winding down for me. Still possible I might get a qualifying offer, but please keep me in the loop starting in May. I got a 172 but may need to boost it over new medians if I am to get into T-10 with scholarship.

I guess I missed this, since the rankings seem to have come out yesterday? I think the changes are in the right direction in general. It's easy for me as an armchair analyst, but the one metric I wish they would adopt in lieu of loans and % in debt is avg debt three or five years after graduating. The quibble is that the metrics as outlined could push status-conscious schools to accept more well-off students, since their families would be able to help both the % of students in debt and the average amount of that debt. Relative figures after a stint in the legal workforce would be more telling. Reducing the impact of admit rate is welcome since that is easily gamed.

The changes to the rankings were small and likely took the magnitude they did to avoid any drastic changes. Still, I thought Northwestern, UC Berkeley, and Duke would rise in the rankings. Also, thought George Mason might rise due to its low cost of attendance. Did not see UCLA breaking the glass ceiling. Also, harbored a thought that Stanford might pass Yale. Because I think Yale's employment/bar passage stats aren't that great? Would love to have an ear on the conversations going on at GULC right now... Also, a lot of ties further down the list, which must be frustrating as I imagine those in that middle part of the Top 50 care the most about rankings.

I think these are the new rankings:

Yale

Stanford

Harvard

Columbia

Chicago

NYU

UPenn

UVirginia

UC Berkeley

Duke

Michigan

Northwestern

Cornell

UCLA

Georgetown

UTexas

Vanderbilt

WashU

USC

BU

....