@ said:

When I walked out of the September test I had no idea what to think. On the morning of gray day I told my girlfriend that I was absolutely positive I had gotten a 169, and sure enough I had.

I had a similar premonition of sorts. I had a dream I scored x, woke up, thought, “wow, wouldn’t it be nice if I really did score x,” and sure enough my inbox later that morning indicated I scored x.

I think it depends largely on what sort of reader you are. I didn't miss any RC on the September LSAT, and I make sure to take my time reading and understanding every word. I know that's contrary to a lot of the advice around here, but it works for me. I still go back to consult the passage during some questions, but most of the questions I can answer without going back to it. The key to this approach is being present and focused 100% of the time you are reading. I know that when I read casually, I often read whole paragraphs without being present, and consequently haven't really read it. Needless to say that's a no-can-do on the LSAT.

So, if you're like me and you don't like to unnaturally parse and chop up these passages (a method that makes me more stressed; "do I do that when I'm reading the New York Times? No. That must mean this is special. Uh oh. Perform, perform!") deliberately and continuously reading every word, pretending you're reading something for pleasure that you're genuinely curious about might work for you. Obviously you have to be a good reader who can stay focused (which you probably are) for this method to work, and you've got to cultivate that focused curiosity in everything you read, which should be a lot, and include poetry (explanation below).

Again, I realize this is contrary to the advice 7Sage typically offers, and if it doesn't sound helpful, ignore it. But I'll leave you with some lines from Robert Frost that I've always tried to keep in mind when both reading and writing.

"The best reader of all is one who will read, can read, no faster than he can hear the lines and sentences in his mind's ear as if aloud. Frequenting poetry has slowed him down by its metric or measured pace.

The eye reader is a barbarian. So also is the writer for the eye reader, who needn't care how badly he writes since he doesn't care how badly he is read."

Totally non-scientific, but I got real bad vibes when I visited Georgetown last week. Granted, it’s a busy time of the school year, but students at the other T14s were much more chill and happy to talk. I spoke with 5-10 random students at each school I visited, and while one Gtown student was exceptionally warm, everyone else seemed confused and preoccupied and nervous. That makes sense, bc law school. But Gtown took it to a whole new level. It sounds dramatic but it felt like tension hung in the air.

Again, this is one person’s reading based on visiting for 2 hours with seven students. Happy to be disabused of this if others had different experiences.

844 hours

I went from a 163 in September 2017 to a 172 in September 2018. Studying a ton and not getting psyched out on test day were keys for me. With your score breakdown, it sounds like you could benefit from more leisure reading. How much time do you spend per day on non-lsat reading?

Congrats on getting in! I visited after I was admitted, but only because that’s the way my calendar worked; haven’t officially responded to their acceptance email and they didn’t say I needed to when I was there.

No advice for the interview besides being cool and relaxed and being prepared to talk about your resume. Good luck!

No way is a .04 increase in GPA going to matter more than a year in Oxford. Idk where your friend goes to school, but odds are Oxford would be more fun and better for him/her as a person, anyways.

Honestly the biggest thing that helped was taking the test twice. I felt much more confident, like I was on my own turf, the second time. Also reading Marcus Aurelius in the morning helps. There's a good reason so many Silicon Valley high performance types are getting into Stoicism. If you can actually convince a part of yourself on test day that the only things that are precious in life are dealing truthfully and justly, the test day nerves can subside a bit.