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joyu915

Joined: Apr 2025
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Admissions · Any Law School News

joyu915

Wednesday, Mar 28 2018

@ said:

Waitlisted at Harvard this morning. LSAC GPA 3.81. LSAT 180.

@ said:

Waitlisted at Harvard this morning - 175 LSAT 3.9+ LSAC GPA. It's been... An okay-ish cycle for me so far? I was accepted to Columbia but have been waitlisted at Northwestern and Michigan. Haven't heard anything else for months so... :neutral:

Wow - these are some phenomenal numbers being wait listed here. I'm curious as to what point in the cycle you applied in?

Yeah, I did apply fairly late in the cycle (went complete mid to late January). Also, am a KJD and I don't really have a good "why law" aspect in my apps so I guess that's why I am getting waitlisted like crazy. In case anyone here's interested, here's what's happened so far:

Yale: No response

Harvard: Waitlist, no JS1

Stanford: No response

Chicago: No response

Columbia: Admitted

NYU: No response? Got the hold tight email a couple of days ago

UPenn: No response

Duke: "Priority Reserve" aka Waitlist

Michigan: Waitlist

Northwestern: Waitlist

Berkeley: No response

Georgetown: No response

So yeah, lots of waitlists... Haha. :smile:

Admissions · Any Law School News

joyu915

Tuesday, Mar 27 2018

General · .

joyu915

Wednesday, Jan 17 2018

Hey there - my diagnostic was a 159, and after preparing for about 3 months, I took my first LSAT in September last year. I scored in the mid 160s, and I retook the LSAT in December last year. I was much calmer and I scored a 175 on that retake. Confidence is key - I remembered panicking during the September LSAT for the logic games section (it was my first section) and it felt incredibly difficult. Second time round, I panicked a little for the logic games section as well, but I had a sense of deja vu and I eventually finished the section with 5 minutes to go.

Bottom line - you can do it!

General · Did every single preptest? My journey from 160s to 175

joyu915

Thursday, Jan 11 2018

Hey there!

I wished I moved to the West Coast - bloody East Coast always freezes over for some reason hehe.

My diagnostic was 159. I did it under timed conditions and it was the June 2007 LSAT, you know, the free one.

I am going to predict what you want to ask next, and that's the rate of improvement - I was averaging about 165 for a long time, maybe about 1 and a half months, and then I was in the high 160s to low 170s range for a month or so. Obviously I got my butt kicked in the September LSAT, so it was back to the drawing board and for the remaining Preptests that I had I was able to score in the mid 170s to high 170s.

Hope this helps, and don't let the LSAT beat you! It's a piece of trash so just throw it out and stuff it in the garbage can... :)

General · Did every single preptest? My journey from 160s to 175

joyu915

Thursday, Jan 11 2018

Hey!

When I first started, my RC score range was in the -8 to -12 range.

RC is that one section that's always quite variable. Even towards the end of my prep, I was having performances on RC ranging from -5 to -0, and it was that one section where it decided whether I was a high 160s to low 170s or a solid 170s.

I think a lot of RC prep boils down to practice - it is one of the few sections where you might not remember what you read and the questions that tricked you, and so redoing former preptests was quite useful. After 80+ passages, I was able to predict where a passage was going and oftentimes getting the gist of what the passage is saying is sufficient to do well on RC.

Oh, and don't be shy about drilling passages on topics that you always seem to mess up on - mine was art passages. I am not a very artistic person, and I distinctly recall getting almost everything wrong on the Noguchi passage in one of the preptests. I would make it a habit to keep looking at passages that I am weak at. Sure, you can hope that something you don't like doesn't appear on the LSAT but that is leaving too much to chance, methinks.

I also think that there is a serious bias against older preptests, and while that might be justified for certain things, RC isn't one of them. I recall the RC in the Preptest 29 to 38 range being pretty challenging and no less harder than the recent ones that are supposedly a lot harder.

Finally, there was one key difference between my September LSAT and December one when it came to RC - for the September one, I underlined my passages and it really took up a lot of time. The worst thing about that, however, was that you get tunnel vision from it and so for the December one I simply didn't underline anything and just read things more carefully and appreciated the gist of each passage. 7Sage's Memory method works, but if you are looking for a high score on the LSAT, it must become second nature to you.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

General · Did every single preptest? My journey from 160s to 175

joyu915

Wednesday, Jan 10 2018

Same to you! God I hate those application essays. Haha. :)

General · Did every single preptest? My journey from 160s to 175

joyu915

Wednesday, Jan 10 2018

Hey there,

Yeah, it was the most crucial mistake I made in my prep for the September LSAT. I was literally doing 1 PT per day for about a month prior to the actual September LSAT, and it does foster an unhealthy obsession with your preptest score. I mean, yeah it's great that sometimes I can score 170+ in a preptest but what does that prove?

I really wished that I had read more about this back when I was preparing for the September LSAT, but I guess I made up for that during the December one.

Good luck for the LSAT if you are taking it! :)

General · Did every single preptest? My journey from 160s to 175

joyu915

Wednesday, Jan 10 2018

Hey there!

I would pick up a Preptest and retake it in the morning, and I would do that once every 2 or 3 days. The point of the retake is not to calibrate your score and what not, but to thoroughly look at what's causing you problems. Sure, I can remember what the correct answer choice for Q25 of the logical reasoning section for Preptest 77 is, but can I explain it? More often than not, I found myself lacking the LSAT vocabulary/awareness to answer it and so I would type out my explanations on a computer. It was hard to start at first, but over time, I found myself getting better at eliminating wrong answer choices and getting to the correct ones.

Also, if I am not retaking a Preptest in the morning, I would be doing 2 logical reasoning sections, 1 reading comprehension section, and 1 logic games section in the morning. I would use the afternoons/evenings to work on the explanations. I chose to devote the bulk of my time and effort to looking at Preptests in the 62 to 82 range as I think that the test has changed somewhat over time and the more recent ones seem to be more relevant.

The explanations are more for the logical reasoning sections - I don't think writing explanations was that helpful for RC sections as, well, it's RC. :( I also chose to focus on questions that were harder, so I wouldn't write explanations for Q1 thru 25/26 for the LR sections, but I would look at 4 to 5 questions for each LR section and really think about how I can do better next time.

Finally, do check out 7Sage's list of flaws, here's the link: https://classic.7sage.com/19-common-lsat-argument-flaws-that-students-overlook/ You would have to do the hard work of sorting questions according to that yourself (that's what I did anyways), but it helped me a lot so it's something that I would recommend looking into.

P.S. English is not my first language, so apologies in advance if this post isn't clear. Also, in case you are wondering, I took the September LSAT abroad, and that is why I called it Preptest 82. Hehe.

General

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Wednesday, Jan 10 2018

joyu915

Did every single preptest? My journey from 160s to 175

Hey all,

Long time lurker here. Now that I am almost done with apps, I figured that it would be nice to give back to the community for once.

So, my background:

Took the LSAT in September, got a score in the mid 160s

Was left with only Preptest 82 and Preptest C2 for my December LSAT

After I received my September scores, I was scared - I mean, I have literally used pretty much every single preptest (except for those two mentioned and yes, I managed to get my hands on the so called unreleased ones as well), and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to have the necessary practice for the December LSAT.

Guess what? It has been said many times before, but I will say it again - reusing preptests works.

The difference between how I prepped my September LSAT and the December LSAT was that I spent the bulk of my time writing explanations. This might not work for you, but it worked for me - I began to see patterns and if you can explain something in your own words, chances are good that you would know how to tackle something similar to it.

Anyways, on to the day itself. I am not a good standardized test taker, and I freaked out for the logic games section as I was unsure of how to proceed with the first logic game. That said, I looked at it for 2 minutes and I moved on. Probably saved me as I went back later and it was actually a really simple game. Finished the section with 5 minutes remaining. I ran out of time for the logic games section on the September LSAT, and a large part of that was down to NOT SKIPPING GAMES when it is time to move on. So, I would say that skipping is key, and I know that that is something that JY says in his logic games videos a lot, but please, do yourself a favor - skip when necessary!

Phew, long post, but if you made it this far, thanks for hearing me out. I will answer questions on this thread if you guys have any, and for those of you taking the LSAT, good luck and remember to take out the trash (LSAT, I am looking at you)!

LSAT Garbage Man