So I'm approaching an interesting quandary in my studies. I tested in June and got a 170, which I'm happy, but not content with. Reason being I hit 162 with my blind diagnostic in March and my study mainly consisted of PT, l look over my incorrect answers and compare to the correct choices. Admittedly I was a little lazy and mostly rode my knack for the material.

I'm planning to retake in September and have begun studying the right way. I'm going through CC now, then planning to begin Pts with proper, exhaustive BR.

However, going through the curriculum on grammar, subvocalization, etc, I'm worried that I may drown my natural ability in a sea of technique and strategy. I can visualize an eventuality where I approach a RC passage an analyze it's structure, perspective and grammar flawlessly, break down the prompt and ACs effortlessly, but fail to achieve the only thing that matters, correct answers.

Admittedly this is all hypothetical, and as yet unmanifested, but I thought it would make for an interesting discussion. Curious to hear from others who have experienced this, or testimonials proving my worries premature.

Spin-off: The idea of a course designed for naturally gifted LSATers. Maybe geared toward boosting scores from 165 to 175, leaving out some of the more basic breakdown. Not sure if that would be counterproductive, perhaps you truly need to build a base knowledge before attacking the curve-breaker questions, but an interesting idea nonetheless.

Alright, so I've been grinding for the last 3 months to prep for the the June LSAT. Done upwards of 30 PTs with Blind Review and I seem to have plateaued at about a 168-172 score under timed conditions. Wondering if anybody has any tips for the next two weeks that might help me eke out a few more points. I would be ecstatic with a 170, I know what an achievement that is, but the difference in scholarship money between a 170 and a 173 is probably tens of thousands... I usually ace the Logic games unless I run out of time, LR is usually -2 or 3 per section, and RC is toughest for me, averaging -5/6.

So I haven't gone grey yet. just keeping ya'll updated :)

So I finally got my nerve up to do blind review on the September LSAT, aka PT 82.

I got a 179, after a pretty lax review.

I made at least 5 mind-numbingly obvious mistakes, including one that I definitely just mis-bubbled.

I want to punch a wall. I could have reached Everest!!!! Aaaaaaaah!

Trying to spin this into, "in december, I won't make dumb mistakes, and I'll crush it!" But it's gonna take a minute.

Sorry for ranting, hope maybe anybody else in the same/similar situation can take comfort in knowing you're not alone! Next time friends!!!

Alright guys, I've been attempting to write my PS off and on for the last 2 months with no measurable progress. I've written two full PS's which I scrapped completely because they were brutally unpalatable. Any suggestions would be tremendously appreciated, especially in regards to topic brainstorming. I have gone through all the 7sage material available to me [Free account :(] and there are a lot of good ideas, but none that have unlocked my inspiration.

I got an email from duke on the 8th saying I was in priority track for admissions and would have a decision within 10 days. Well now the 19 is slipping away, and for you math wizards that's 11 days! And no contact from Durham...

Anyone have experience with priority track/ duke admissions in general? I should be a slam dunk admit, unless im being yield protected? 176, 3.56

Yale is a real long shot for me, as I'm sure it is for many of us, but I'm trying to have my application ready to go the instant I receive my December LSAT score. Just in case I pull a 175 or something :) Anyway, Yale asks for addenda describing extracurricular activity during college, including paid employment, and post-college activities. Both specify to include this info separately from a resume. Obviously a lot of that information is already included in my standard resume that I've used for other schools. Should I include my resume as is, leading to redundancies, or cut out such redundant info from my resume? Most of my significant work experience came during or since college, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I'm afraid cutting all this will make my resume look pretty pathetic...?

Proctors:

Friendly enough, spoke clearly and answered questions clearly.

Facilities:

The Test was downtown Grand Rapids, address clearly marked, easy to find from directions on Western's website.

What kind of room:

They split us by last name into 4 medium sized lecture halls on two different floors. Air conditioned, felt roughly 68 degrees, comfortable the whole time.

How many in the room:

35-40

Desks:

Continuous table with a space skipped between each test taker. More than adequate space for test booklet, answer sheet and gear. Chairs were adjustable and comfortable, more than satisfactory. Clearly visible clocks on either side of the room, Large enough to see hands and numbers easily.

Left-handed accommodation:

Yes

Noise levels:

Nothing from outside the room. I never noticed traffic, construction, train sounds, or anything like that. Just pencil scratching and occasional cough or sniffle.

Parking:

There's a free public parking ramp next door, which I only realized afterward Next building south on Commerce! :( Otherwise there is minimal metered parking on the street.

Time elapsed from arrival to test:

Check-in was at 12:30, I was in my car at about 5:45 So about 5 hours. Took a long time to get everyone check in and start the test, but once we started the proctors didn't waste any time.

Irregularities or mishaps:

NA

Other comments:

Would you take the test here again?

Certainly, planning to come September unless my score is shockingly high, haha

Date[s] of Exam[s]:

June 12, 2017

Alright guys, it's crunch time for me and HYS. I've been furiously reworking, editing, and tuning my PS for the big boys, and I think it's ready! The only thing preventing me from submitting my apps is whether or not to submit a GPA/LSAT addendum, and ewhich will help my cause more.

Background: 3.56 GPA from a highly-rated private college in Mechanical engineering, a very tough program where I was in the top 10 percent, but unfortunately my school does not keep records of class rankings, so I can't prove that :( I also had a very rough first semester (2.7) and very steady improvement for the next three years

I took the LSAT 3 times as some of you know, June '17: 170; Sept '17: 170; Dec '17: 176. I know Yale for sure is going to discredit my 176 slightly because of it being my third attempt, probably S and H slightly or not at all. I didn't have a meltdown or issues on first two takes, just improved gradually over months of study and my 10000 hours came thru in Dec, but I did score regularly in 175-178 range since June, so it was by no means a fluke.

Softs: nothing that will help my case. 2 years of WE in an unrelated field, a little volunteering

My question is if it could possibly do any harm to submit an addenda if it is well-founded and well-written, which I feel both are (I have written a separate addendum for each situation). I am worried that my GPA is prohibitively low, especially for Yale if they give any weight to my multiple LSATs. If I went to UofM and majored in anything other than astrophysics I'd have a 3.9 minimum, but can I convince admins?

I'm thinking the GPA addendum would be stronger and probably addresses a more apparent red-flag in my apps. Validation? Opinions? Advice? A Time machine??

I'm wondering how lenient/picky schools are when it comes to giving out app fee waivers. I plan to apply to many of the T14, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, UofM, Northwestern for sure, perhaps others. Paying $300+ just for apps is really going to hurt my budget. My background, I have about 25k debt from undergrad, but its not documented (loan from grandparents), im currently making about 40k yearly while paying off car loan, the aforementioned college loan, and of course daily expenses, rent etc. Also, is there any way to add an addendum to waiver applications? I would like to explain my undocumented debt etc but there's nowhere to do so in most forms I've seen.

Northwestern offers an interview to all applicants, and they "strongly recommend" scheduling one. I'm considering opting out, wonder of anybody has input/knowledge whether this is monumentally stupid, or no big deal.

I'm above their 75th for lsat, and just below median for gpa. It's not in my top 3 dream schools, but probably 5th or 6th. I suck at phone/Skype interviews, so if definitely have to travel there (3 hours each way from w michigan)

Originally i was planning to interview on a Monday and then take that day and maybe a Tuesday to tour Northwestern and UChicago. But im hesitant to burn my precious vacation days...

Any thoughts welcome :)

Grey day has come and gone taking my dreams of a 175 with it ? Yesterday I was distraught, today I am resolved. I'm planning to retake in December and finally get a score that matches my PTs!

I have all but finished several applications, just need to sign and finalize my essays. My question is how the process of updating an app goes. Is there an advantage to applying now with my sept. score, and then updating when hit a 178 (lol, as if) in december? Or should I wait to apply until January?

Financial aid is a big concern for me, so I badly wanted to apply early, but I realize that a 2 point bump would help more than a 3 month wait. Advice? Thoughts? Comfort food suggestions? Haha

Curious if there's any rhyme or reason to the length of time between an application becoming complete and getting a decision? I'm operating under the assumption that admits will hear back soonest, then maybe they wait a little longer to waitlist and even more reject based on more incoming apps. Is that accurate or Is it more mystical and shotgun??

After giving the ultimate + package a shot, I just don't think I can justify 750 bucks. I'm trying to canvel.my subscription, but having a hard time getting an answer from @"Dillon A. Wright" Everybody else feel free to ignore this post :)

Working on some apps last night, and realized that lsac shows my application fees for numerous schools (Columbia, NYU, Penn too name a few) as waived, even though I haven't received paper or electronic mail notification!? Curious if this is common and legit, or an lsac glitch. If its real, dope, i just saved 400 bucks as i plan to blanket the top 14 with applocations!

What up gang, 6 days til D day, who's pumped!!!???

Anyway, I trying to drill Logic games tonight and tomorrow, wondering if anyone has a list or some examples of "The forgotten few" as Powergames calls them. Those are Pattern, Circular Linearity and Mapping Games. I'm going to start looking through my past tests for examples, and I'll post the PT number and section of those I find for anyone interested, but thought some crowd-sourcing could save us all some effort :)

So I'm in Philly today visiting Penn, and holy cow this city is a dump! There are overturned cars, smashed windows, lightpoles riped out of the ground and strewn around. Beer cans and bottles and other seeming remnants of some wild party throughout the downtown area.

It looks almost post-apocalyptic. If I didn't know better I'd think some epic battle occurred last night and the victors proceeded to pillage this normally beautiful community.

Is it always like this, or is it only once every 58 years or so??

So I just took PT 64 under timed conditions, with a experimental section and everything, and I scored a 176!!!!!

Which is should be, and was, extremely satisfying and encouraging with D day less than 2 weeks out.

However, I missed 4 questions on the same logic game, which is all that separated me from the holy grail, a 180. I haven't yet looked back at the game to find out where it fell apart, but obviously that's priority numero uno. I'm guessing that I'm misread a rule, or diagrammed something incorrectly, because surely I couldn't have made such gratuitous errors in the midst of such a smashing performance. Right?

Anyway, just humble-bragging for a second, but also I shall update once I've identified my betrayer and can make an informed plea for assistance in avoiding such traps in the future.

Eat, Drink and be Merry, Happy Labor day Americans!

So I'm on 9 waitlists right now, wondering when they start moving typically? My understanding is that may 1 is a big day for deposits, so lots of schools are getting an idea for who's committing or not and therefore, in theory, should be letting some waitlisters in soon?

Has anyone gotten in off a waitlist yet this cycle? Or have experience from past years and want to chime in??

I recently emailed back a forth with the admissions office at UofM, and I thought the correspondence might be useful for those of us retesting in December.

Tldr; Apply as soon as you can, if you improve your score they will reevaluate you for both admittance and scholarships.

Me:

My question is about the process of applying now and then potentially updating my application if I do in fact raise my LSAT score. I would like to apply as early as possible both for admission and to put myself in the best possible position for scholarships. Is there any disadvantage to applying and then updating vs simply waiting to submit any materials until my application is complete?

UofM:

Thanks for your e-mail and your interest in Michigan Law. I would encourage you to submit your application as soon as you can. If you submit your completed application before the December LSAT scores are released, because you have a score from a previous administration, we would consider your application to be complete and we would begin to process your application and place it into our queue for our reviewers. It's possible that our reviewers could be ready to consider your file before a December score became available. If our reviewers were inclined to admit you, then they would do so without waiting. If they were considering a negative decision, then they would know to wait for your December score before finalizing that decision.

Me:

I do have one follow-up question. When would scholarship allocation be decided? At the same time as admittance/denial, or later? Would this follow a similar system of being evaluated initially based on my score on record and then adjusted later if my December score becomes relevant?

UofM:

All our admitted students are automatically considered for merit-based scholarships, and yes, this does typically occur a bit after the admissions decision is made (scholarship decisions generally start rolling out in January while admissions decisions have typically started coming out earlier than that). We do also have a mechanism to consider any updated LSAT scores for scholarship decisions, even if we made a previous determination.

I have a partially formed theory that word choice in personal statements and admissions essays in general, is important.

It seems to me that as a law student and then lawyer, it's crucial that you speak with clarity and specificity. So it seems like admissions would at least notice whether your writing achieves these goals.

Ie. The distinction between "Tennis fueled my competitive nature" and "Tennis awakened my competitive nature" is huge. 1 implies that the competitiveness existed and was increased, while 2 suggests that a dormant condition came to prominence.

@"David.Busis"

@"Cant Get Right"

Others?

First congrats to everybody who got into their dream school, received the massive LSAT score you all deserve, or just survived another week at the job you can't wait to leave behind!

I'm curious about whether it would be wise to submit a late addenda to the effect of a Why School X essay. I applied to Virginia at the end of November, have been UR1 since mid December with no word since then. Virginia is one of my top 3-4 choices and I'm a splitter, so I could reasonably fall into the admit, yield protect, or ding categories, especially in this volatile cycle. I've heard advice saying a late Why School X essay can help convince a school that you're serious about them, but also caution against. The reason against being that if I were wait listed next week, I wouldn't have much material to write about. I'm also curious if such a late addenda would delay a decision?

I guess any advice, hearsay or personal experience would be greatly appreciated!