What happened twice at PennState?
@shirinshamloo1425 said:
Congratulations Steven!! can you kindly share your stats?
January LSAT 168 (A disappointment to me, but here we are anyway), LSAC GPA 3.12/3.06 (Lower than my actual transcripts say, meh).
Other factors include a long and impressive resume since school, an above average GPA addendum in that my reasons for not having a higher GPA are not typical and are understandable, and a felicitous talent with writing.
Neat! Penn State has my application.
Woo! With a scholarship too though they said they'd FedEx the deets so I'm not sure for how much yet. Of course I still need to hear from everyone else but I was thrilled that I really did it and got into a high enough ranked school because my UGPA is mediocre, my undergraduate school unheard of and I had a very tight study schedule for the LSAT so, I wasn't sure I'd get in anywhere while I was crunching the core curriculum, but, fuck yeah! I shall be an attorney.
Say, thanks! I got the question wrong so I took JY Ping's suggestion to create an analogous argument. After writing it I felt I understood far more clearly why the correct answer choice was correct.
Ah, neat! I love Pennsylvania.
Proctors: Between seven and ten
Facilities: Like the rest room? Perfectly adequate.
What kind of room: It was a vast, high ceiling conference room with retractable walls, all retracted, so we were in Navesink I, II, and III. Large windows facing a forested scene.
How many in the room: 60-80
Desks: Long, comfortable, widely spaced. I could stretch my legs in a V and my legs were still under my desk. Much more comfortable than what I was practicing on.
Left-handed accommodation: I don't think a left handed person would experience a problem.
Noise levels: Low. I heard almost nothing.
Parking: Parking isn't a problem anywhere in Monmouth County, NJ.
Time elapsed from arrival to test: Probably a full hour.
Irregularities or mishaps: I noticed several rule violations that there didn't seem to be an enforcement mechanism against. No one checked my watch and on the break I noticed at least six students had left their watches on the desks but they were LSAT Chronometers, and pretty clearly so. Just said 1-35 on the face. Kind of a relief actually, here I was worried a Palomnio Blackwing 602 was not a permitted pencil. Probably a problem intrinsic to large sessions in general.
Other comments: Very convenient coat rack offered before the door! Though I saw one guy get refused the opportunity to use the bathroom prior to the test just because he had presented his ID at the check in desk. Seems to me like they might as well have told him to leave. I don't see how he was "checked in" having not entered the room.
Would you take the test here again? Definitely!
Date[s] of Exam[s]: 1/26/2019
No one tells you how fun it is to take the test on the day! It was like way more fun than the practice tests, which were already fun. Just flew by. I had a stroke of luck at the beginning, I open the test booklet to Section 1 and it's RC with a comparative passage about the dramaturgy of Athol Fugard and Michel Tremblay in foreign nations and I have read their plays and was also intimately familiar with the analytical context of the passages. I mean, it was an easy section anyway, but it certainly started me off with the feeling that the day was mine. I just felt really happy the whole time.
Well the app does say to put the phone in airplane mode before initiating the proctor.
Some of my opponents have argued on moral grounds that the Armenian Genocide was unjustified. Instead of arguing that too many Armenians were brutally murdered and mechanistically eradicated without cause, my opponents should focus on the main cause of racial eradication and geopolitical violence in general: the fact that human beings cannot apply empathy to numbers of humans greater than they can readily conceive of, or the ability and tendency of human beings to prioritize self-interest over moral considerations, or the ability of Statecraft to obfuscate the true motivations, causes and consequences of any given action from any potentially concerned party to whom they may even theoretically be accountable. It is unwarranted, therefore, to suggest that I should not have instigated the Armenian Genocide.
#help On number 8, I chose D on the test, B in blind review, but my reasoning for switching wasn't terribly solid. I never usually struggle with this question type or RC in general, and having a high familiarity with the art world the passage's meaning and content were not a bit mysterious to me and I would say I understand it fully. But neither B nor D seem to have the correct emphasis as to the main point of the passage, and so the choice between them is not clear to me.
Are you referring to the rain? Sometimes while proctoring a test the sound of rain comes on and lasts throughout the rest of the exam. I was initially surprised by it since I confirmed I had 0 selected on the "Distractions" slider, so I assumed it was a kind of non-opt out distraction since of course it may rain on the day. Was I right in thinking so or is the rain not meant to play if Distractions are not selected?
The webinar yesterday was terrific! I missed the end of it though, did someone win the Edit Once?
That's interesting, I did anticipate A, "best-selling" has no meaning for me whatsoever. I always buy generics. Still got the question wrong because I forgot "speckled."
Could you please elaborate on "don't think faster, but sooner." I am having a hard time during timed section because I am either too slow (and run out of time), or too fast (nothing registers in my brain). What is "thinking sooner"?
The military expresses the same concept this way, "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast." Don't allow your need for quickness to cause you to go faster than you are capable of thinking. It takes far more time to repeat yourself than to take more time to get it right the first time. For me the concept of "sooner" rather than "faster" just helps me quiet an indiscernible, racing voice that takes up time in my mind's ear but doesn't contribute to the next question.
Got a 172 on a practice test this morning! I'm taking the LSAT the 26th of this month so I feel pretty great about that, hopefully I repeat that a few times before and on the day.
I was worried that my entire endeavor might be foolhardy as I was ignoring one of the curriculum's first pieces of advice, which was that three months is not enough time. I've actually only had like two and a half and one entire week was taken up by my entire home flooding and another by the liturgical season of Christmas and it's been like, damn.
But the same article that recommends that is basically warning against lousy and expensive prep courses and unrealistic expectations about your own behavior. Since I'm a bit older and I've already worked jobs where I worked at least 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, I already knew it wasn't unrealistic to assume I could study for 10 or more hours a day and in fact I have done just that since I began.
I just did the core curriculum in order and followed all of the advice precisely, save for the 3 month thing and the recommendation only to do 30 hours a week if you study full time, and the recommendation of diminishing returns on doing consecutive practice tests each day and close together. Since I can work a 10 hour day without any particular mental fatigue I just do the practice test in the morning and the blind review in the afternoon til night and I feel no worse for wear or over saturated with the LSAT the next morning. This morning was the third practice test I took since doing the core curriculum and drilling all LG from PT 1-35 repeatedly, and fourth overall, so I went 163-166-172 over the last three days.
Blind review really is an incredible process. One can feel themselves gaining greater mastery of the test's form while they do it.
If anyone would be interested in any advice from me I guess the one thing I'd say is a piece of advice they gave me in the theater. The context of this advice is that actors new to the trade tend to speak too quickly to be understood from the audience but also tend to pause too much in between lines because they don't know how to evaluate how much weight each moment needs and so they're in the paradoxical predicament of being told they really need to speed the hell up because the play is taking 2 hours and forty-five minutes and some members of the audience live in Brooklyn but also slow the hell down because no one can understand what you're saying.
The obvious piece of advice from outside of their perspective is, "don't speak faster, speak sooner." Similarly while taking a timed LSAT do not think faster, or fall to the trap of having a general impulse to rush that just feels like the subconscious thought process yelling an electrical impulse in the back of your head. Take as much time as you need to think precisely and according to 7sage's methods, just do it sooner. This is also related to the concept of mindfulness which is something I've benefited from a great deal recently. Listen to 7sage's methods and you will understand the fundamentals. After that the test taking experience really is psychological. There's no question you can't get right.
I adore the order in which you read the names of the Malvinas.
@philosopherstonez340 said:
Man you need to read Orwell's politics and the english language.
I have, nothing in my writing is contrary to his advice. Although I don't fully agree with him anyway. Passive voice is usually preferable to the active voice.
Thank you, though, your reference to conditional logic is very useful.
@8835 said:
This article by 7Sage sums up your T14 question pretty well:
https://classic.7sage.com/does-attending-a-t14-law-school-matter
Thank you! Where does one find articles on the site like this?
Thank you @ohnoeshalpme804 as well!
@drbrown2259 said:
@stevencamendola43 said:
I'd love to attend pretty much anywhere, though. I'm thinking T14 or bust because all of the information that can be found in a cursory search says a JD from essentially anywhere else may as well be your corpse
I think you have a lot to learn about law school, employment outcomes, and how to find reliable information about this field. A cursory search that suggests a degree from a respectable regional school isn’t worth pursuing is a total joke. It really doesn’t seem like you know what you’re getting into.
There are people here in this community that will attend regional schools and have amazing career successes, and there are others who would be offended by your characterization of a degree from schools outside of the arbitrary T14.
Best of luck to you in this process. I don’t mean to be combative, but hopefully you are able to make a better informed decision on law school (and the legal profession) because of the pushback here on the forums.
Oh I've had no pushback, it's been a perfectly friendly time! I mean, I guess you're referring to your own use of the phrase "total joke." That isn't accurate, but it also harms me none. Thank you, every assurance that the T14 isn't such a necessary benchmark is very encouraging.
Ha, sorry I don't know the reference.
I mean, William and Mary! 37! Do I have more causes for confidence in US News than I do in William of Orange and Thomas Jefferson? I mean, to hell with them too, but come on! Ha.
@leahbeuk911 In addition to anything that might be relevant in my last comment, would you mind telling me a bit more about your experience in the Pacific Northwest? I once lived in Eureka, California and the climate and culture there were exquisite. I only wished it was colder. If there's a fine school that will allow me to live and work in Oregon or Washington I'd be fascinated. Being a New Jersian I know nothing about the universities there.
@leahbeuk911 @8835 @micahbowden7710 @danielfloresmurga11 @ohnoeshalpme804 Thank you all so much for your responses and information! Very encouraging!
Big Law is not a particular goal of mine. My fiance and I have very little in the way of material needs. My primary objective is to do the greatest possible moral good, like anyone I imagine, but I have and can live like a king on $30k per annum and less, so, I have a bit more flexibility in this way I think. I noticed some schools mention that if you do public sector work they may forgive some debt, though I don't have a very comprehensive list of those terms yet, and I don't actually know if public sector work involves the accomplishment of any greater moral good than ordinary work since, not having yet attended law school I'm not terribly familiar with the industry.
My central motivation is related to a moral distaste for the make up of nearly everything. I'm regularly horrified by the foreign policy outcomes of the US and I think the essential moral philosophy assumed by most people is directly responsible. I wish to engage with the system of law and extirpate the causes, legally and philosophically, of the regular international human rights violations my country commits, which seem structural and unrelated to party. I'm not sure if I might best accomplish this by working for some kind of advocacy organization or if I should just go way deep into legal scholarship, do the LLM, Doctorate of Juridical Science thing, et cetera. I'm sure I'll submit to law journals in any case once the methods of legal research are made apparent to me.
Of course I'd love to have at least a $60k-$70k salary like anyone and not worry much about money, but it's not an absolute necessity. My father has always made quite a lot of money but my fiance by contrast grew up in extreme poverty, and is much more capable than me in several ways.
So I guess I didn't even realize some firms paid in excess of $100k right out of school. I don't need that day 1 or ever really. I mean, sounds nice, but my motivations are ideological, and I have and will trudge through literal fields of effluent for their sake.
I've been having a lovely discussion in another thread and I happen to be on a very strict time table that can't be altered so naturally the subject arises, to postpone, is that possible? Unfortunately I pretty much have to start in the fall of '19. Having started in October I'm taking the January LSAT and hoping I score high enough that a mediocre GPA with an excellent addendum and some exquisite personal statements and LORs and the moral purity of my intent will be enough to compensate for the lateness in the cycle. So naturally, maybe, but maybe I don't get admitted anywhere in the top 14. Then what?
I'd love to attend pretty much anywhere, though. I'm thinking T14 or bust because all of the information that can be found in a cursory search says a JD from essentially anywhere else may as well be your corpse, as our rarer monsters are, painted on a pole and underwrit, "Here may you see the effect of irrecoverable debt."
My desire for the T14 in this sense is entirely practical; prestige has no effect on me. Of course some of these places like Yale are dream places because of the rare opportunities they represent and how Harvard and Yale have a couple of the largest libraries on Earth. Yet the Socratic method works as well at any ABA school, does it not?
My grandfather was an attorney. For undergraduate he went to Columbia. For law school he went to Fordham, where he got his JD in 1950 at the age of 29. He went on to have a terrific career and life, and died a well loved old man. His command of conditional logic was a thing of divine elegance. However, 7sage says they're 29-37 on US News in the last few years. Could things really have changed so dramatically in only 68 years that I may as well not go to Fordham if admitted? Where would I find the data?
I mean, I figure, I'm legacy, they have a great location, my grandfather always spoke very highly of them and their requirements are marginally less strict than the T14. I don't doubt my ability to top my class at this point in life. Yet would this be to acquire a hopeless debt?
Where is the exact line past the T14? Seems like UCLA is sometimes 15. Being one below the T14 couldn't be a death sentence, could it? Also their admissions policy seem friendly to me for a variety of reasons. I'd prefer to be anywhere in Pennsylvania to North Carolina but Duke is 11 and PennState is 74! I mean, University of Pennsylvania, hope for a miracle, but, woof.
UW dinged me really quickly. I wasn't sure why when I've got in a couple of higher ranked schools. Oh well.