I think you need to evaluate really critically how hard you've really been working to prep, and if there are additional steps you can take if you give yourself more time. Plenty of people study "on and off" for long periods of time but really aren't changing anything that they do between tests. To get a different result, you need different preparation. Most often I'd say that the sheer volume of sustained prep needs to improve, but there could be other things. I'd only give up if you really felt that you'd done all you can, which it sounds like maybe you haven't. True score increases require sustained practice, except for maybe LG, IMO.

I think most score drops are caused by fatigue, usually brought on by overtesting. If you let a score drop get to you, it might trigger additional re-testing (to "prove" you haven't dropped in skill) which would cause even more fatigue and a larger drop. If you take a break, you should be fine.

I actually think USNWR rankings are intelligent. They are designed to measure academic prestige, and this I think they do relatively well. I understand questioning why job placement doesn't matter more, but then, there is probably a way to correlate job placement with the USNWR rankings such that they would line up. Yale, for example, might not employ as many folks in firms, but it absolutely has the best overall placement power for firms and opportunities generally. I don't think anyone would dispute that, even if many Yalies choose non-firm routes. The problem with "job-based" rankings like ATL is that they were created by (and for) loan averse people. ATL ranks some middling T-14 schools above some T-3 schools because those firms' best opportunities are with firms. UVA, Duke, and Penn send tons of students into big firms, but can't propel students into government and other super-elite opportunities like Yale, Harvard, and Stanford, so they are favored. But in reality, the T-3 are still far and away superior. If you're loan averse and just want a biglaw job, Harvard is still going to be better than UVA or Duke. It is just going to cost more, and trying to bend the employment stats to make lower T-14s better is just capitalizing on people's insecurity. ATL thinks it is doing people a service, but what about the kid who takes a scholly to a lower-ranked school and then doesn't get the job? There are plenty of those kids, they just don't get talked about, and by and large they are a quiet group because although they have no job, they also have no debt, but is that honestly something anyone wants?

The big caveat to USNWR, of course, is regional firm placement. As soon as you stop thinking in terms of "national market" opportunities (basically large metro areas), then the placement power of highly ranked schools fades away. And even in large cities, top students from lower ranked schools, and other students from regional schools will still place into those cities, albeit potentially into different firms, although no one goes to those schools gunning for those positions necessarily.

At the end of the day, I think the concept of "going to law school to become a lawyer" is a weird post-recession idea that actually makes no sense. You go to law school to go to law school, and then there are different routes to employment as a lawyer after school. Law school has never, ever been a strictly pre-professional school like Dental school, medical school, engineering school, etc where the degree itself guarantees something. The jobs-based rankings are obsessed with trying to make it that way, but they're not going to succeed because at the end of the day, it costs a lot of money to run a law school, and not everyone is going to be able to attend an expensive school and get an expensive job—and there are always going to be enough people with enough money to pay for school without the guarantee of a job. It all goes back to people going to law school because they think it will make them money. Law school will not make you wealthy as a lawyer, even if you go to Yale or Harvard, period. Even if you go to a T-14 with a sizable scholarship and then get biglaw, you're not going to become wealthy long-term by being an associate in an expensive city. It just isn't happening. Where you go isn't enough.

@ awesome. I think you can really hack down on those wrong answers and make up a lot of ground. Just keep at it.

I don't think there is any set or correct way to figure this out. You have to develop an intuitive sense of what is appropriate given all the factors. Sometimes, you're going to be wrong, but if you're quick in diagramming, you should figure out pretty quickly whether or not you really need to do it. Just takes practice

I know this probably isn't what you're wanting to hear, but even someone starting at -3 average will need to probably do dozens of sections in order to really move to -0 (certainly the average student). Strategies are good, but in my experience studying RC, you develop strategies that work for you AS YOU GO—you don't pick one off the shelf and just magically apply it and start getting things right. You've familiarized yourself with the content through the CC but that is just the starting point if you're really trying to improve score. This is just my opinion, but RC (and LR) are not like LG. There is no gameboard that will add tons of points to your score off the bat. Everyone wants to believe there is a strategy that will improve their score, but IMO the work has to be done first, and then the strategies will emerge.

Those are amazing numbers. Congrats on scholarships to T-14 schools. Good luck at Northwestern!

If your goal is to reach biglaw, I think you have to put aside fears of debt and make a decision that best serves that goal. Obviously no one wants to be in debt with no job, but GULC does provide a generally accepted biglaw hiring advantage over BU/Fordham. If you save the money but don't get biglaw, are you going to be happy that you planned for the possibility of failure? Or are you going to wish you had had a little more firepower to climb into a $190,000 career cockpit? Fordham and BU are strong schools in great cities. If you don't get biglaw, you can probably work your way into a comfortable role there, especially Fordham since it sounds like you're focused on NYC. Given your goals, I'd say Fordham is probably the close second if not a tie with GULC because it has the regional strength (in addition to national hiring strength it will afford its top graduates) in the city that you like. I think folks are correct in warning that the prestige of GULC can be overblown. But I don't think you are "caring too much about prestige." I think you're using prestige as a rough indicator of biglaw opportunity (which, statistically, it is). Whether the extra opportunity is worth the money is a personal decision.

I think the key is to do shorter bursts of work. It just isn't like college where you get 3 hour blocks to knock something out. The more efficient you get, the less painful it will be to knock out a section. No one—not even the full time study-ers—have unlimited time, so everyone has to make judgements about what to do. Even they can feel like they could be doing more.

Man I see people ask about RC all the time, and usually it is after the CC and they don't see improvement. I've yet to meet anyone who has disagreed with me on this, but RC is probably the least formulaic of all the sections, meaning learning any given "strategy" will probably have less effect on RC than on LR or certainly LG. You just need to pound away. There are plenty of people on this site who will take up your time telling you what works for them based on the practice they have done. But you can't even begin to know whether a strategy is effective until you've been doing sections for a while.

Agree w basically everything said. If I had to guess at whether it was connections or a unique person I’d say a unique person for sure. As someone else pointed out, you can’t discount what a bunch of yale professors will notice in an application, and they do have so many sky high scorers they have room for unique applicants. Props to them.

If you have any concerns about the photo being in color, print out the part of the website where it says you need a photo. If it doesn't say it has to be color, you're probably fine.

Unless your PT scores of 170+ weren't under realistic conditions, the 169 is just one point off, and the LG issues could 100% be because of nerves. Once you settle into the test tomorrow, you'll probably respond tremendously well.

My take on this kind of thing is that for institutions that are that high up, you can never eliminate the connections factor where a certain student is "encouraged to apply" with some sort of implicit assurance that they will have a shot. Of course, that is assuming that the admissions process itself doesn't already do that to a certain extent, which it might be possible to say is the case. I honestly don't think there are that many 151's applying, but of course we will never know because if they don't apply, who can judge how many would get in. Ugh.

Can anyone point me to official language from LSAC clearing us to discuss what was described as fair game above? Or at least put forth an explanation for how the criteria was deduced? I can see how there would be gray area, but am looking to avoid any gray area, and I have seen other rules moderating these types of discussions online. Thanks.

SWAG —hitting the 75th percentile of your stretch school. That is a beautiful concept that should probably be named after you.

The name LSAT Wrecker is well-deserved.

Hey Everyone, thanks for the points.

I am trying to decide whether to take, and yes, the biggest point I think is the +/- 3 assumption. @ just so I get your analysis right, you're basically saying that, at least setting aside HYS for the moment, if my lowest recent PT score would reasonably get me into a school of my choice, and my average or higher end score is also a score that would be enough to get me into a school of choice (presumably this is true if my lowest score would be enough), then take? That makes sense to me. It seems like the conservative route.

@ I think this is a good point, and I think it is the strongest evidence in favor of retaking —even if you might only go up 2-3 points —IF you have already taken the test. However, based on reading the websites of schools, none of them say they won't factor # of takes in, which means it could potentially be a factor and therefore tests should not be taken cart blanche...which I'm not saying is what you're saying, but is simply a reason not to think there is no cost to having multiple tests.

Ultimately, my analysis is this: the degree to which a retake affects admission depends on the (1) the selectivity of schools with respect to # of LSAT, which is dependent on the number and quality of applicants, basically (how picky will can they be); and (2) the separation between scores; and, maybe, (3) the extent to which your study time correlates with lack of activity in other things (work, extracurriculars, volunteering, etc).

I think (1) really goes to the point about the ABA....in down times, schools may reasonably be expected to fall back on minimums to keep their scores up. But I think it is illustrative that schools are careful not to say they don't just take the highest score; presumably this is because they want to retain the right to analyze.

@ I think this is a really interesting point, and I think it might be another reason to take the test again once you've taken it, although I don't think spending a lot of time studying is something I'd talk about personally in an interview or in a personal statement or in general. I also think this goes back to the score jump. A 170-172 could be luck. A 165 to a 175 almost certainly is not.

@ I definitely dream of the day I get to study for a pass/fail test. My mindset is definitely that I want to eventually end up with a top score. Based on what I have read on websites, there is nothing in the official policies to suggest that scores other than the top scores are never considered, so I am not totally sold that it won't matter. But, I don't think it will be make or break for the majority of schools.

@ thanks for pushing me in that direction. I had kind of assumed that things were linear, but now that I'm looking, every school does have something to say about it. Thanks!

@ and @ thanks for the feedback. Is Yale the only that people know of that averages scores? That is definitely something I thought of. But, for schools that don't average, a 170 would be something to hang the hat on and maybe call it a day with.

UVA is a better school. But you'll pay to play. Gotta decide if what UVA provides is worth it for you. If you're going to leave biglaw after 3 years, it might not be worth it. That is just paying a lot to make a lot to pay a lot of loans etc.

Can you give us any more information on whether you need an east coast city placement? When I think of ND, I actually think its unique value is that it is Catholic (the people I know who went there all went at least partially for its Catholic-ness), although it is still definitely a tier-1 school if not T-14 with ties in the midwest (ATL puts it very close to Georgetown). GWU definitely has pull in DC. One thing to potentially keep in mind is that DC biglaw is narrower than NYC biglaw. So while GWU does have regional pull in DC, it has regional pull in perhaps the most selective biglaw market. Even at a school like Georgetown, you still have to be excellent to receive DC biglaw from what I know. I am not up to date on the GWU discrepancy in ATL/USN rankings. Can anyone flesh that out? Are GWU students getting weird Fed jobs that hurt them somehow? Personally, I'd try to find a way to squeeze money out of ND and go there, and then try for great grades.

I think studying is too much when it harms, or you feel its harming, your overall effort. A deep sense of burnout may be a sign that this is the case, although of course this will look different to different people. I know people who, in the 2 weeks prior to the exam, successfully took two full, timed exams PER DAY (they were not working or in school) and felt they were immensely helped by that amount of studying. It goes to show...there is no one amount of studying that is going to be right. You have to think ahead, plan how much time you're going to have to the best of your ability, and try to stay balanced as you go forward. It really is a long-run game.

@ hahahah...guess I'm done for the day.

My answer is an emphatic yes (but that you should take it sooner). I think there is a huge misconception in test prep whereby people feel they are only ready if they can "average" a given score over a period of time. I certainly won't disagree that it is IDEAL to be able to establish a pattern of a certain score, and that it is certainly reassuring to have this. But I think it is very easy to get unnecessarily discouraged when you pursue this route, specifically because I think the very thing that drives us to establish an average—taking lots of tests—may also drive us to burnout!

In short, you absolutely can get a 165 because you gotten close to that before. If what you're asking is, "can I average a 165 across 4 PTs before taking the exam," well, just consider that lots of things, especially burnout, can influence what you get. I've driven myself and my scores into the ground so many times from trying to establish a "pattern" of high scores, and it is so pointless. I'd get a 170 and then try to replicate that over and over, but what is the point of that? Once you've established you can get something, then you can get it. At the end of the day, you only need to get one 165 to get that score. The key is how to best position yourself for that.

I think its possible there are some people out there who just have the mental capacity to take PTs every day and get these ridiculous patterns going. That was never me personally. The more I studied, the weaker I got, after a certain specific point, because after a while the LSAT is just boring (to me). You've got to figure out where that point is and maximize it before the real test.

I'm not saying practice isn't worthwhile. I'm just saying practice that tires you out—which it sounds like might be happening with your score drop—is definitely not worthwhile. You'll get stuck in this everlasting loop where you get a high score on a PT, and then the very attempt to heavily replicate will drive down your score. You can spend 3 years figuring this out, or just figure it out now. That's my two cents.

Also...I will add that you have already established a pattern of 164-ish scores. Dear god. I think you need to rest up, and approach the next soonest test with the mentality that it will be a PT you are taking. And then take it. Seriously—like, in July.

I realize that, as stated, you want to convinced that you made the right decision to delay. I don't know all of the details, so maybe it isn't burnout. I'm just saying, if it is burnout, then you're just going to be spinning your wheels. I could see delaying to December to shoot for a 170. But I think you know what you're capable of.