The Road Ahead?

shdov426

Hi all,

For starters, I'm 21 years old and I will be graduating from college this winter. Over the past year, while going to school full time and working in the time not spent going to school, I attempted to prepare for the LSAT. I used Kaplan from around January '18 to June, and singed up with 7Sage in October. I took the LSAT 3 times; June, September, and November, and scored consecutively a 151,152, and 153. I don't know what I was expecting to happen as I was PTing in the mid-150's while hoping for a score in the 160's. Ultimately, my goal was always to score in the high 160's, putting me in a competitive position for Fordham & Cornell (I live in NY and will only go to NY schools).

After talking to many other students and reading tons of post on this forum, I'm starting to realize that delaying a cycle is not so bad at all, and is actually somewhat of a normal occurrence for many. In a couple weeks I will be finished with school, and can finally dedicate the kind of time to the LSAT that so many who have conquered the test have recommended. I plan on doing some extensive global traveling in February, but besides that I can devote a significant more amount of time to studying than I ever could have while going to school full time and working 21-28 hrs a week. So, it seems that I will allow myself the time between now and June to prepare for the June LSAT (and then again in July). I am about a quarter of the way through the CC, but because I have studied with Kaplan and self-studied after that, I am kind of out of order with my studying methods.

I'm wondering if anyone who has been in a similar position has any advice to offer as to a kind of daily/weekly schedule that would allow for the most improvement in the next 6 or so months. I have never been a full time studier before so the thought of devoting my self to one test, almost full time, is rather foreign to me. I know this answer can get very detailed and is specific based on the individual, but I was wondering what are the kinds of things that someone studying full-time would do to get a 165+ LSAT score, in addition to the 7Sage CC.

Thank you so much for any advice!

Ohnoeshalpme

First note: get a tutor to help you plan your next steps. I cannot stress this enough. Whatever advice you get here is going to pale in comparison to the personalized feedback that you could get from one of the 7sage tutors.

That being said, my advice to you is this: It takes 22 days to build a habit. Getting into the habit of studying 6 days a week is the first hurdle. You need to train yourself to have the same morning routine every day and start studying around the time you will eventually be taking the test. Make sure to exercise regularly, eat well, avoid too much caffeine and structure your sleep schedule around this test. Do this for only 22 days, and I promise you will have a much easier time continuing after that.

In terms of study material and structure of study schedule, I recommend that you begin with 1-2 hours a day and see how that feels for the first week. If you feel like you’re retaining what you’re learning and not getting burned out, increase it by an hour. Continue increasing and decreasing over the first month until you have a strong sense of your abilities to study for long periods of time.

I also think it’s important to reward yourself for studying. This test wears you down when you don’t see results as quickly as you would like. Find a food or activity that you really love to do and reward yourself with that at the end of a PT or at the end of a long week of studying.

Best of luck to you in your studies! Feel free to message me if you have any questions along the way