Some reflections during a troubled time (Posted on behalf of t-skyjade)

Theo - Student Service

(Posted on behalf of @t-skyjade)

First of all, I’d like to shout out to @Theo for publishing my thoughts for me as I’m currently unable to do so. This is my very first post after reading so many Discussion posts, and I’m here to seek resonance, advice, or any feedback you may have.

I’m Chinese born and raised, and I spent the past 8 years in the States for high school and college. I went to a very prestigious business school in New England and didn’t have the idea of going to law school until the end of my senior year. It’s been almost a full year that I have been studying for the LSAT full-time, and I started in the low 150- range. After going through all the Core Curriculum and taking more than 30 PTs, I’m now in the low to mid 160s, with BR scores that are in the 170 range consistently. As far as I’m happy seeing the progress, I feel like that I’ve been in the 160 bottleneck for too long and yearning to break it. I tend to miss 0-3 questions on LG, an average of 6-7 on LR, and 9 or 10 or sometimes more on RC…I know, RC is my weakest section and I have been reading additional, “extracurricular” readings on my own and redoing old RC passages from the past. In addition, I recently purchased the LSAT Trainer book by Mike Kim, and I honestly hope that I’ll get myself to the 170s before the October exam. If any of you have some advice on breaking the 170 curve, please, let me know what it is. Because all this time, I’ve been doing what I think is necessary to improve my score yet not knowing if it’s sufficient to do so.

At the same time, as you all know, the world is a volatile place due to COVID and China has canceled/not administered pretty much all of the LSAT exams from January to October. Even though pretty much other standardized tests are now back running, the country has canceled the January and March exams and I have received specific answers from LSAC that the October exam will not be administered in mainland China. I’ve been wishing to take the exam in other Asian countries, but currently, there’s the travel ban that makes it almost impossible to get your visa to travel abroad, let alone plane tickets. I’ve had my eye on a Southern Asian country and hoping the consulate will start taking visa requests soon this month so I can register for October exam prior to the deadline, but I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen if they don’t. I could wait until January, but I fear of losing the advantage of not applying early. The anxiety of having to wait for another application cycle eats me up, while every day I try to be resilient and cope with it by doing more studying. But I know I have to give myself an answer, which I’m unable to provide, and so the anxiety reappears.

Besides the feedback loop from hell, there’s some other thing that I would like to share. I keep my plan of going to law school very secretive and only a few of my closest friends know, as a way to protect my dream and I for a lot of people don’t understand why I want to overcome all the obstacles and become an American lawyer. People coming out of my undergrad college tend to go into finance, consulting, or other high-paying, fast-return jobs while I struggle getting my dream score on a standardized test. I tentatively told one person whom I thought was my friend of my law school plan and he belittled me to death. During quarantine this spring, he constantly told me “you are not going to make it”, “why aren’t you out there looking for real jobs”, “you still haven’t given up huh?”, “do you really think you could take the exam post-quarantine?”, and he even said “I’m treating you like this because you have not succeeded yet.” I cut that guy loose but those words traumatized me so much. Studying for the LSAT has been hard enough, and it’s really my dream of becoming a lawyer that makes me sit in front of my desk for 40-50 hours a week and do one PT every other day. It really hurts for someone whom you once considered a friend to trample something you cherish & enamored so much. It also made me realize that I need to protect my dream and shield it with my whole heart. A lot of times, I browse the “success stories” on the Discussion Forum with tears in my eyes, seek courage from people I’ve never met, know they’d understand me, and show me the benefit of doubt as time will prove my progress.

It’s been a difficult time as I get anxious and confused from time to time, but overall, I try to keep my composure and focus on what I ought to do. Luckily, I have noble friends that I can count on, very supportive parents and an extremely strong drive from within. I really have left myself with no backup plan. I don’t simply want to go to law school. I crave it. I dream of it. Every day, I hope there’s an easy way out for me and I could become a lawyer before I turn 30. Yet there’s nothing I hate more than victimizing myself despite that life gets tough sometimes. So it’s been hard reconciling with myself from time to time. Yet, I still try using other people’s words to encourage myself. One of my favorite quotes from the show A Series of Unfortunate Events is “how do we learn to give up in the face of all-powerful? We can never give up. You can never give up if you find yourself in terrible circumstances. You must keep struggling. You must struggle until you find a safe place to live. You must struggle until you find noble and reliable friends. Struggle. And struggle. Until the world can see who you really are.”

(And that’s when little Sunny comes up and takes down Count Olaf.)

I totally didn’t mean to use an analogy to compare myself to Sunny Baudelaire and the LSAT to Count Olaf.

If any of you is looking for a study buddy, please reach out to my email tskyjade@outlook.com

Thank you all very much.