Advice from a 3 year journey to 170 and a T-14 acceptance

lethal_bacon

Hello!

I won’t be offering any tips or tricks on the mechanics of the LSAT as that’s been covered ten times over and I don’t think I can add anything of value that hasn’t been said before. I’d love to lend a few words to everyone on here though because you all have helped me immensely in what has been a very long journey. I’ll try to keep it relatively short. First off, THANK YOU to this community, you have been a beacon in some really frustrating and quite frankly hard times. You’ve provided worthwhile advice and some levity to a really intense and drawn out process.

One thing I’ve learned in retrospect (and from my always poignant and thankfully non law school gf), that I think we all should hear…

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in this process of studying and admissions. In fact, I would venture to say that everyone in this community is an over-achiever in some way. You all care immensely about your future and that’s wonderful and what will ultimately make you all successful in your own ways. With that though comes a huge amount of pressure, whether external or self-imposed. So, if I could offer one final piece of advice, it would be this:

Breathe. Find time, as best you can, to live life outside of the LSAT/admissions bubble. It’s a fantastic place with truly amazing people trying to help one another, but you have to find the time to take your dog for a walk, to go on that date, to call your mom, to watch your favorite movie, to smile at the sunset. The moment that I really started living my life again in conjunction with thoughtful, intentional studying, was the moment that I started performing my best on this test (not that that should be the main motivation for doing it).

So hustle, study hard, put in the time, but it’s equally important to exhale, to think about something else, something silly and inconsequential, to put away that prep book, to allow yourself to ignore the newest medians for a day, to close that reddit tab and remember that there’s more to this world than the LSAT and law school.

Don’t let life happen without you while going through this journey because I promise you, nothing is worth losing yourself, even for a moment. This test and process are truly a give and take, and sometimes the harder you force it, the more it will push back against you too.

I hope this helps even a little bit and thank you all again for providing a great space for the past few years!

Oh, and big shout out to Chris Ngyuen and jmarmaduke for being great tutors and guides, as well as EmmaJean Holley for being a fantastic and lovely writing coach.

-Best,
David

Catherine-12

Thank you for sharing and congratulations on your acceptance! Best of luck at law school