@ Thanks for your words of encouragement. I still haven't decided but it really helps to hear everyone else's experience.

If it makes you feel any better I have definitely plateaued - my score has stayed consistent for the last1.5 months in spite of additional studying. It happens but I don't have specific tips for you. Have you gotten significantly worse?

@ , Do you feel that having taken it once put more pressure on you going into a retake? Or was it nice having already taken it?

One situation that complicates this even further is that if I take it in February I will be at a different test center than I would be in June, so it wouldn't really give me insight into how things go in a particular testing center. Long story short I live in New Orleans and the exam in Feb is the weekend before Mardi Gras, so I was afraid that there would be too many distractions (I have a roommate and he's having tons of guests over) and I decided to fly to my parents' house in Ohio to take it. The fact that I organized a trip around this test makes me cancelling even more absurd, although I did get the flight with "award" miles that I can get refunded if I don't go.

But yes, it would demystify it which might help. One complicating factor with my score is also that although I've taken full timed tests with no extra breaks, I've never really "simulated' a test center - I have a fake proctor but I take it at home in a comfortable spot with my pajamas.

Thanks to everyone who has chimed in, I know my post was very long. I've now shared this same post on reddit and facebook...ahahahah oh man, my misery is deep right now. I've been obsessively googling "should I postpone" for roughly 48 hrs now...

Still don't know what I will do. I guess I'm deeply afraid that I'm putting it off because I don't want to deal with the pressure. Since I've already postponed, I worry that this is a psychological hurdle that I'm dealing with, and it would be awful...I mean truly, truly awful - if I somehow made it to June and encountered the same anxiety about not being ready.

That said, LSAT scores don't lie. I've seen an improvement of 9 points in the last 4 months, and there is no reason to believe I can't master those games. If I can simply improve by 5-6 points on the games, I can more than meet my goal of a 165, and it seems stupid to just take the test if I know full well I'm not there yet - especially since I'm not applying until December 2018.

I dunno. My mom is going to murder me (and...I'm 34. Go figure, my mother still has this much influence over me). She's definitely convinced it's "better than I thought" and that I'm just "scared." I don't think she understands that you can't really accidentally do much better on the LSAT than you thought you would.

Thank you both. I really don't know. I know that if I go into test day in 2 weeks, I will go into expecting to score between 158 and a 162, and I will go into it knowing that I will panic during the logic games section.

At the same time, if I postpone, I will go into it thinking "if I don't score above a 165 now, my entire year has been wasted."

I just don't really know. One thing that's relevant to know about me is I'm not actually fixated on going to a top 12 or top 20 school. I would like to get into Ohio state. 162 is in their 75th percentile, but since I have a somewhat lower grade point average than most people here, I want to knock the LSAT out of the park, because I cannot afford to pay a lot for law school and I will only go if I can get significant financial aid. I met with friends and colleagues with a similar background (nontraditional student, worked after law school, less than perfect GPAs) that went to both Ohio and to Wisconsin (similarly ranked) on full-rides, and all of them got between 167 and 170 on the test. I figure that that is what I need if they are going to consider me for significant funding, so my reasoning is coming from there.

I also don't know how those schools regard 2 lsat scores and I"m afraid it will count against me since I will be adding an addendum about one year of my undergraduate experience.

Ok guys! thank you for all of your suggestions. This helps. I did not think about the difficulty of reviewing in that amount of time - seems like I should do one full test per week but then do timed sections as well.

I've got undergraduate degrees in history and political science and a master's in international development studies. And I've always worked for non-profit groups or organizations designed to help the "little guy" gain power. Started out looking at land policy in developing countries when I was living abroad, moved back to the states and worked for a union, and then ended up as a manager at a legal aid non profit. The common thread in all of these (save the land policy place, where I was really an intern) was...lots of admin and management duties, some grant writing, some project support... the work is fulfilling insofar as I work for organizations I like, but I want to have a specific skill set that is truly useful (and intellectually stimulating). I have seen what a critical role lawyers have to play in every single one of my jobs, all of which have served low income people with no access to legal counsel, and I want to step into that role. I'd be happy doing a lot of different kinds of law, either in a direct services role (IE( as a lawyer) or in a more systems based role, for example as a policy consultant. I think for the latter I may need to get a dual degree though, or get some research/ statistics classes under my belt.(/p)

As many have stated, no - I'm 33 about to turn 34 and I'm considering putting off applications another year to study more for the LSAT.

haha thank you.

Hey @ Have you checked out law school numbers yet? I think some people with 2.5 GPAs do get into Loyola, but as other people here have pointed out a lot will depend on your LSAT score.

It sounds like you've got your heart set on entertainment law but Loyola is great for public interest law if you are planning on staying in Louisiana/New Orleans area. I work for a legal aid organization here in Nola, I know a ton of people who went there. PM me if you want me to put you in contact with some of them.

@ Thanks for the encouraging words!

I ended up withdrawing before I saw your comment! I'm gonna postpone because I'm not planning on applying until next cycle anyways, so I figure there's no rush- even if I don't get the score I want in June there's always September and December of 2018 (and July now too, right?)

I told people around me and got some flack but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Only I can know when I'm ready, I guess!

Anyways, this forum has been of great help. It's so nice to be able to get support and food for thought from people who are familiar with the process.

If it makes you feel any better, I wrote the same question on this forum about a week ago and I ended up withdrawing and postponing until June. I'm only about 3-5 points from my target, but I am not applying this cycle regardless so it just seemed like it was probably worth waiting.

This said, I really don't think there's any harm in taking it if you don't mind having two scores. The general consensus is postpone, but it's not going to seriously impact your applications if you have one lower score and want to the test now. But I doubt your score is magically going to go up by several points if you've never scored that high on a practice test (although this is of course possible)!

With logic games, I'm mostly just running out of time - I skipped a whole game in my last timed test. I agree that I need to review the fundamentals, I worked my way quite quickly through the 7 sage course and now I'm going back and realizing that I really didn't master some basic things that I should have. So I have help.

With LR I guess I will just need to spend more time on it. Since it was my strongest section I entirely stopped studying it; I really haven't focused much on it all. I guess I am mostly just confused b/c I have gotten worse; that is not something I anticipated.

I don't think it's the year/ number of the test though - the only PTs I've done are between 30 and 40.

Thanks for your input - I am going to have to spend some time really studying what's going wrong in logical reasoning.

One question for you - the hardest questions for me in LR are the conditional logic ones and parallel flaws. I have heard that after PT 60 or so, there is actually less conditional logic in the LR sections. Have you found that to be true?