Ok I'll put my 2 cents in.

For context, I grew up in Orange County, and plan to say in Southern California for schools. My top choices are LMU, USD, Chapman, Pepperdine in that order. I've spent a ton of time researching specifically USD and Chapman.

To me, the clear choice is USD. They are ranked higher than Chapman, but at this level rankings matter way less that the relationships the schools have with the local job market. Since USD is located in a bigger city, they have a clear edge. They have a good bar passage rate and good employment statistic, but they give out conditional scholarships, so be aware. Anecdotally, the conditional scholarships seem to be easier to retain than at Chapman, and I have read about a few bad experiences with Chapman students ending up in stacked sections, which makes it really tough to beat the GPA median and keep the scholarship.

I have stalked a few Chapman grads on LinkedIn and they still send students to large firms and cool jobs. They are well know for sports law and entertainment law, so if that interests you I definitely recommend checking them out. The main downside of Chapman, at least for me, is where it's located. It is a beautiful campus, but Orange County is not a big city, so job opportunities will probably present themselves differently. If you want to work in SD you'll be competing with USD grads and if you want to work in LA you'll be competing with UCLA/USC/LMU grads. But, if you're looking to practice in Orange County, especially in real estate law, this is the school for you. I see lots of grads working in real estate law coming from Chapman. It'll be a tough market but again, they definitely set some students up for great careers. I even saw someone who was in house council for Apple who was a Chapman alum.

My advice: study hard and get a good LSAT score. If you have a decent GPA and can score above 160, or ideally above 165, you'll most likely be able to choose between either school and get scholarship money for both.

@ said:

It seems really unfair that extra time on an LSAT isn't noted in any way. Just read an article about the socioeconomic disparities among students diagnosed and given "504" status which gives them special accommodations - it's bad. If someone gets a 174 with extra time and I get a 174 in the initially-allotted time, there should be a record of that, if we're competing for the same spots in law school.

We're studying for the LSAT, but you can't see why your argument is flawed?

"504" status? Are you talking about Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act? I looked at studies that had to do with Section 504 and socioeconomic disparities, and nothing is even close to relevant to your argument that time accommodations on the LSAT are unfair. You just read an article that talks about lower income children and their access to special education and that relates to your gripes about LSAT accommodations how? What is actually unfair is, every year, many students are disproportionately penalized by the LSAT because their brains are wired differently, potentially costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars or untold career opportunities. Im sure every single person who legitimately qualifies for accommodations would rather not need them, these disabilities don't just manifest during the LSAT, these people have had to deal with these learning difficulties for their entire lives.

The use of the word SOME in answer choice B is killing me.

Most gold coins on Spain were minted with gold from West Africa...

AC. B - The source of SOME refined gold from which coins were minted was UNREFINED gold with less than 92% gold content......

So an insanely confusing way of saying most of the gold came from West Africa, SOME came from somewhere else. I'm not sure how im supposed to catch that under timed pressure :(

#help

Is anyone else getting these tougher questions correct while timed and then wrong under BR? I keep second guessing myself in BR...so frustrating.

Requested to join!

Imagine only missing the one question that was marked as being insanely easy? I don't have to imagine.

You won't be disqualified for sure, I've read about lots of students who got accepted in Feb, but it will be more difficult and potentially less scholarship money. It's also highly dependent on what schools you're targeting. If you're looking to go to a T14, your experience will be tougher than someone looking to go to a smaller regional school. Penn State Dickenson and WUSTL started handing out acceptances and scholarships in early October, but some of the regional schools near me haven't admitted anyone yet.

It feels like the strategy for answering 150-160 level questions is different from answering 170 level questions. 150-160 level questions have answers that more often than not have indicators or enough specificity that you can pick them out from the rest, even if you're under timed pressure.

Some of these more difficult questions seem like you need to be able to dance back and forth within your mind to decide what level of vagueness is acceptable for an answer choice. Choosing the vague, ambiguous answer that feels like it takes too much liberty on a 150-160 level question will often see you get it wrong. But on these most difficult ones, the most imaginative and presumptuous questions keep turning out to be correct. Annoying.

Dang. I totally missed that the stimulus says resistance to pesticides, and choice A is talking about an aversion to glucose.

I initially chose C because of the fuzzy implication of government oversight. During BR I chose E because it reveals the assumption that I hadn't thought about concerning the objection: that there isn't a 1 to 1 relationship between people who purchase and the market. Therefore, you can't rely on the market to make decisions on energy since some of the people participating in the market are not necessarily making decisions with with their personal energy efficiency in mind.

Another example would be someone who owns a rental car business. If they had to decide between a fleet of cars that was less expensive, but also way worse on gas mileage, compared to a fleet that was more expensive but way better on gas mileage, the "market" would dictate that they purchase the fleet with bad gas mileage. They aren't paying for the gas, whoever rents the car will be paying. Therefore, we can't rely on the market to make energy efficient decisions.