I'm not exactly sure what kind of answer you're looking for.

Yes, it makes up for it in the sense that both GPA and LSAT are important, so if one of them is "low" or below median, your chances at admission are helped considerably if the other is "high" or above median.

But no, it doesn't make up for it in the sense that below median is below median, and therefore would pull down a school's median LSAT just the same whether you are below median by 1 point or 5 points.

That being said, while schools are obviously hyper-aware of their numbers, I would have to think that their review of candidates is more sophisticated than simply thinking of them in "below median," "median," and "above median" buckets.

Sure

@304694 said:

Email the admissions office of the school. They all handle it differently.

^ yup

Either is fine, but I agree the second seems more natural.

I want to emphasize number 4. I got a 176, and I believe meditation played a large role. I think a lot of people might read through this list and see #4, think "huh that's interesting, maybe I'll try that sometime..." and then never follow through. But you'd be cheating yourself.

There are a bunch of insights to gain from meditation, but from my experience, there is one particular insight that I think is particularly helpful for LSAT takers (and it doesn't require several months of commitment to meditation, as many of the other insights do!): meditation helps you actively clear your mind. This provided me 2 main benefits:

1- I would meditate prior to going to sleep. Somehow, after a short 10 minute meditation, I found it much easier to go to sleep and not have LSAT-related thoughts and stress keeping me up. This is obviously beneficial for a lot of reasons, but it made working full-time and studying 2-3 hours consistently each night much more manageable.

2- When I was PTing, I noticed the ability to clear my mind for as little as 10-15 seconds would allow me to reset and continue on the test unphased, even if I just got rocked by a section or particular question. Of course, you might think you're "good enough" at doing that now. But I think most people who meditate regularly would beg to differ. Meditation makes this so much easier to do this.

It does include both assistance with brainstorming and unlimited revisions for essentially all of the written material you submit: personal statement, addenda, diversity statement, résumé & other essays.

It does not include scholarship negotiation, and I don't think it include waitlist negotiation. It's essentially everything up until you hit submit (for up to 10 schools).

I worked full-time (~50-55 hrs/wk) while studying for the LSATs but realize your schedule may be even more demanding than mine was. I think you actually may want to avoid a course with structured class days and times, assuming you cannot predict ahead of time which nights you will be staying late to finish work. Some weeks I managed to study for the LSAT for 1-3 hours each night after work. There were sometimes weeks where I barely got to study at all. Looking back, I valued the ability to vary how much I studied depending on my schedule, something which a structured course may not have allowed.

If you find yourself having difficulty setting aside time to study, try to organize yourself in a way to help you overcome this. I kept an 'LSAT journal' where I documented what I did – or did not – study every single day. Seeing a few lines in a row that said 'no studying' really put my feet to the fire and explicitly held me accountable, making it much less easy to let an entire week go by before realizing 'dang I really need to get more studying done..' (though, of course, that happened very occasionally)

The poll only had yes/no options, but there may well be a third option: write your personal statement partially on battling anxiety. I wonder if you could use the details of your battling anxiety as a substantial part of a broader theme, such as overcoming challenges, etc.

My understanding is that the overall average will hold the most weight, as that is what will ultimately be considered by USNWR rankings.

@mhkalinowski204 thanks very much, i'll check out those sources

@dansykes942 said:

There will be a recession.

Honestly thinking of postponing to Fall 2021.

High chance the damage will peak in 2-3 years

I have heard a few people mention that they expect the damage to be much worse in a couple years than it is now/later this year. Is there a good reason to think this other than just going off of what we saw after 2008?

Another question I have is if people expect the impending legal recession to have a strong impact on those graduating from a T14? How about T6?

Relatedly, can anyone provide links to recent articles that talk about expectations for the legal market in the near future, beyond simply "hiring is down"?

Thanks.

I went back and forth initially, unsure which method was better for me. Then I decided to pick one and I read the stimulus first for nearly two months actually. Then I revisited this and switched to reading the stem first and felt that (after one PT to get used to it) it clearly helped me work more quickly through the exam. So you'll likely want to pick one, but don't be afraid to revisit this decision later

> @davidbusis895 said:

> Hey everyone—I can speak for @jsolomon759602 when I tell you that this advice from six years ago is no longer valid.

>

> The writing sample matters.

>

> Some admissions officers read all writing samples as a rule; some only read it for certain applicants under certain circumstances. Regardless, it matters. If the admissions team might read it, you have no choice but to act as if they **will** read it.

Wondering if you can elaborate on this -- if you have already done a writing section when it was included as part of the paper exam (and most likely did not craft a particularly effective essay...) do you recommend we do it a second time (I also took the June 2019 exam, and have yet to take the associated electronic writing section) ??

Another strategy, which you might want to do in conjunction with, rather than instead of, the one you mentioned, is to really nail down simple games. Hard games get relatively easier when you have more time to spend on them. So getting to the point where you can consistently crush simple sequencing games, for example, in 4-6 minutes rather than 7-9 minutes, will also be very useful for you.

No need to really overthink this, but I'd personally sit down and write the '07 essay even if you are familiar with it, just give yourself a few minutes less to do so (since you've already 'brainstormed' essentially). If that goes poorly, then maybe you had better practice another essay or two. But if it seems to go fine, then just go ahead and take the assessment (knowing that you will have to spend a few minutes up front brainstorming).

@deancvenpin520 said:

@lexxx74569 -10 each its shameful. I tried to pace myself yesterday and go slower and ended up with -7. That count includes the last two questions which I didn’t have time to look at.

It's bad, sure. Not shameful.

Would you go to a gun range and try out speed shooting before you're even able to hit a single, stationary target with reasonable consistency? Probably not. A decent speed shooter is skilled enough such that he would (almost) never miss a single stationary target.

Why don't you go much, much slower, and do a few sections completely untimed (even if it takes you an hour)? See if, under those circumstances, you can get down to -5 or better per section. Until you get your "accuracy" up, there's no sense in worrying about speed. Hopefully the shooting analogy makes more sense now.

The point is you need to get more comfortable with quickly and effectively applying the fundamentals, both with respect to logic as well as the exam itself. And one problem with your current strategy is that, after completing a section, you don't really have much to go off of in terms of improving your fundamentals. In fact, your mental advice to yourself may simply take the loose form of "Wow, I suck and need to get a LOT better." How useless is that?

What we really want to know is how you would have done on those last two questions if you had time to look at them; whether or not you simply misread or had a substantive misunderstanding on that question where you quickly and confidently circled the [wrong] answer and moved on; what aspect of that question caused you to burn so much time, when the answer, upon reflection, seems glaringly obvious? Etc.

So do a few sections' worth of questions without worrying about time, and reviewing a question immediately after completing it (as opposed to at the end of the section). Take note of what you did particularly well, and/or what you did particularly poorly (yes, actually write it down). This is useful in that it forces you to treat each question seriously, allows you to review yourself when your memory of the question is as fresh as can be, and ultimately you will end up with a list of your strengths/weaknesses that, moving forward, you can review before doing any set of LR questions (ever catch a mistake while reviewing and think "dang it, I keep making that mistake" ? This should help with that).

After doing that and consistently achieving higher accuracy (let's say consistently -5 or better), then on to speed shooting; i.e., doing timed sections (though there is no shame in giving yourself 40 or 45 minutes a section to start, gradually reducing that to true 35 minute sections).

Though this strategy seems very tedious, you may be surprised at how quickly it allows you to improve. It has worked quite well for me and others.

I definitely think "folding paper to use it as a ruler" seems like the wrong way to go about focusing your time and effort.... Are they so illegible that you find them confusing yourself? Are they big and sloppy that after drawing a few you've taken up most of the blank space on the pages?

I'd suggest you either just try to internalize JY's methods of charting/diagramming or spend some time after each question thinking about ways you could have diagrammed quicker or more neatly. A (very) small tip I discovered was that each time I'd write out " __ __ __ __ " for a sequencing game, I didn't have to restrict myself to placing letters above the lines/spaces. It's perfectly valid to place them below. Even better, you can place letters below, and letters above, and treat them as separate boards. Thus, each time you draw one board you have essentially created two new boards for you to use.

Perhaps an elaboration on exactly where you find yourself struggling most would allow for people to provide advice more tailored to your situation.

Since there is a discrepancy between your title (RC) and your comment (LR), to be clear, you are referring to LR section right?

I’m not sure if this is relevant to you, but also make sure you are reading at a fast but comfortable pace. Many people read too quickly, or are focused on the fact that they are taking a test, etc., and don’t go into the answer choices knowing what they are looking for because they were distracted. So then they’ll eliminate one or two answers, then inefficiently be going back and forth between the stimulus and the remaining ACs.

This is a terrible strategy. If you find yourself doing that, then try some untuned practice and go as slow as you need to such that after1 read of the stimulus and stem, you know what you are looking for (obviously this may not hold for very long/difficult questions, and question types like parallel pattern of reasoning, etc.).

Ultimately, for at least a quarter of the questions, you should know exactly what you are looking for, and for another 1/3 or so you should have a very good idea of what you are looking for. Much time can be made up by reading slowly but efficiently, rather than quickly but ultimately haphazardly.

Not sure exactly what you're asking -- of course, many questions will seem much easier when reviewing it. That's natural - you aren't under a time constraint, are less nervous, etc. I think many many reps can help you get over this. Also make sure your practice test days are as similar to the real test day as possible - adhere strictly to the time limits, take your PT at the same time as the exam (which will be ~1 hour later than the listed exam time, as it takes a little while to get started on test day), eat the same breakfast, etc.

Another slightly different tip that is likely much more powerful: rather than focusing on ensuring you don't make any mistakes on test day (unlikely), focus on identifying and correcting your mistakes in a calm, quick manner (easy to do with practice). For example, if you completely misread a rule on a LG and didn't notice until the end of that question, calmly and quickly start over, knowing that any minute cursing yourself is a minute not well spent. I found that seeing yourself recover from mistakes in a test-like environment goes a long way towards reducing test-day jitters.

I don't think there is any issue

@mhkalinowski204 said:

...ED at Northwestern comes with a scholarship.

Wow this was news to me but yep, comes with $40K/yr

Do admissions officers really consider the fact that you visited campus when making a decision?

@mhkalinowski204 I don't think there are certain dates - you're free to take it on your own time

Almost all the sources I've seen think that the exact position of the LOR's author is not very important and more or less echoes what @mhkalinowski204 said above.