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An introduction, and are the pencil threads a joke?
stevencamendola
Alum Member
Salutations!
So when I first saw the pencil threads here and at TLS my impression was that they were jokes entirely. But as a result of them I did notice that the videos of folks trying the logic games here do show an expensive pencil, they say Staedtler Wopex on them and I happen to have heard of that brand. In contrast all the pencils I have here do not have a brand that I've heard of because they were less than ten cents each, and not being a graphite artist or technical sketcher I've never had a reason to have quality graphite.
So, it did make me curious, does 7sage just happen to have oddly artistic grade pencils around or does a high quality pencil actually give you a bit of precious extra time on bubbling? I asked 7sage directly but the staffer there said to ask here, and encouraged me to become socially involved here as well.
I'm taking the January '19 LSAT incidentally so it will still be scantron. This is incidentally the only one I can take, postponement is impossible. I've had only the three months before to prepare and I just have 7sage starter. I wish I could postpone but I was displaced from my industry and home in California wine country by the Tubbs and Atlas Fires. I've been living with my parents and fiance since, trying to find a new, less flammable career. It only occurred to me in mid-October, my grandfather was an attorney, how might I do on the LSAT? So I took a practice test to see how I might do. Although my overall score was only 160 I did get -0 RC, and I really loved taking the exam, so I've been crunching 7sage videos at 2.4x and logic games ever since. I've never had any previous exposure to conditional logic, except, as I realised in retrospect, in my grandfather's sense of humor. Learning it since has been one of my greatest pleasures thus far. I've always been rather good at argumentation but conditional logic is a whole other level of perception, my experience of the universe has been altered irrevocably.
After noticing I was still confused (thank you Eliezer Yudkowsky) about certain principles of the examination in spite of having covered all of the materials on Khan Academy I tried the free trial here. When JY Ping in his description of the Blind Review said "[. . .] Your aim is true understanding [. . .]" I became enraptured in the curriculum and immediately purchased the Starter package, the most I could afford. This in combination with 7sage's assertion that law school is a more difficult challenge than the LSAT itself has had me exhilarated. Sharpen my mind, O grind stone! Rend confusion from the fat of my brain, O great Socratic axemen!
But yes, unfortunately I simply must begin in the fall of '19 regardless of how it goes. My situation cannot wait. I'm doing logic games over and over again as prescribed by 7sage's Fool-Proof Guide to Perfection and noticing rapid improvement. After the New Year I'll just be doing as many Practice Tests as I can before the 26th without experiencing diminishing returns and fatigue, on this point I'm sure I can do more than average for a variety of reasons each of which are matters of protracted discussion. Then I'll just see how it goes.
I worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week at a winery in Napa and I've been studying that way since mid-November, but I've been crunching the fundamentals and the games. I haven't taken a new practice test to see how 7sage has helped me yet. I can't wait, though.
Existentially anxious, though! Since yeah, it's Fall '19 or bust and T14 or bust. I mean, I'll be applying to some safety schools since my overall undergraduate GPA was 3.15. Though my average for the last two years of it is way better, I struggled with severe depression and other health and mental health issues associated with an utter lack of structure in childhood, something I've made dramatic strides in since. I graduated in 2012 though and my work experience since then is a wild ride of exotic types of labor, so, hopefully that'll matter less especially if I can pull off a 173-180. Also as a school of theater some of the grades were entirely subjective. I'm hoping if I really ace the LSAT and write an interesting enough application I can sway Yale, but then of course there's the probability I won't get in anywhere in the T14. I know if I had done any college lately I'd have a 4.0 but, I haven't.
Although, as to how far down past the T14 one can go and still not be indebted to an unemployable degree, I don't exactly know. I'd love to know more about this since, obviously a safer range of schools and a wider variety of places to live is better.
One thing that might help my situation is my intent, I noticed a few schools have debt forgiveness for people working in human rights or the public sector. My fiance grew up in poverty and really knows how to live well on a limited budget and neither of us have any special material needs. In fact we've at times roamed penniless between agricultural volunteer opportunities in the most rugged conceivable conditions. I can trod through several feet of livestock effluent with a hay bale on my back so I can certainly make a modest salary.
So I may certainly be interested in something like that, the only difficulty there is that my basic intent is to do the greatest possible moral good I may, like anyone, and not having a great familiarity with the industry of law such as it is constituted presently, I don't necessarily know which parts of the field that is. International human rights sounds like it'd involve a lot of moral good but I don't know that. It attracts my interest because human rights violations internationally is one of the primary focuses of my vocational reading. I'm revolted by the great number and frequency of them, and especially how many of them are directly caused by the United States government, regardless of who is in charge. As to what I can do about that with a JD from one of many schools each of which educated several politicians, some of whom are directly responsible for much of these moral horrors is, unclear. So far I only know I love the process.
I don't know how this ended up sprawling so much, sorry. I should probably get back to logic games. Incidentally I notice a lot of people saying "Fool-proofing" as a verb, I think because of the document "Fool-proof Guide to Perfection on Logic Games." Interesting that it developed that way. The language instinct is fascinating.
Oh, random thing! I had a previous thread about my confusion with "or." As someone very language oriented I had always understood or as biconditionally exclusive and it was screwing me up. I've since found it helps to think that "or" in natural language is not generally equivalent to the inclusive disjunction A ∨ B in formal logic, but that on the LSAT, it is.
Comments
Hey you'll get better replies if you work on cutting down on the words and separating different concerns into different threads.
Thank you! Though this was more of a general social introduction than a request that any particular wonder or concern be answered, save for the pencils, I'd very much like to know about that. You're right, though I could probably make a thread for each thing I mentioned I had been wondering about.
Not a joke. There are a lot of people who prefer pencils over pens in other note taking endeavors or use them for work and thus they shell out for expensive high quality pencils for quality of life and performance purposes. If you spend 200+ hours with a pencil in your hand it isn't really outrageous to spend $15 on Amazon to get the best pencils you can.
That is an amazing diagnostic. Make sure you are doing timed sections. If you were able to go -0 on RC in 35 minutes (leave time for bubbling) you have a big advantage. Don't be surprised if the score (overall and within each section) fluctuates as you learn the test. Just work as hard as you can. January is too close to take the entire course, so just drill as many logic games as you can. Learn the question types and try to put together a few recent PTs---fully timed and proctored using the 7sage app---with thorough review before the January test.
This is the right attitude. Focus on how you've grown instead of making excuses for poor performance. The 7sage admissions course has some really powerful resources for the rest of your application materials (which will take a long time to put together), and mental health is a difficult subject to bring up to an admissions committee. You seem to own your past and if you realize that you are better because of the challenges you have overcome, that will come across sincerely in your applications.
You can't count on a 173+, certainly not a 180. 173 is top 1% of all test takers, and the vast majority of test takers will have done significantly more than you to prepare for the test. Just do your best and evaluate your options. There are some amazing schools out there. Yale is a pipe dream even for people with 4.0 GPAs and top LSAT scores. It sounds like you have some interesting and compelling life experiences, but so do all the other people who are applying to the top schools. Unfortunately admissions is a numbers game. That is not to say that getting into a top 3 school with a 3.15 GPA is impossible, but you are putting yourself at an even bigger disadvantage by applying this cycle. Your chances of admission to any school are generally better at the beginning of the cycle. You may not even make the application deadline for some of the top schools with a January score. It takes a while to get your score back, and you also have to upload your transcripts (1-2 weeks), LORs, Personal Statement, addenda, and additional essays for the school.
Long story short, I think you need to spend some time with this test before you start speculating about what your outcomes could be this cycle. January is literally the latest possible test you could take, and you will have the worst odds of admission and the lowest amount of scholarship funds available from the schools. Also, you are putting an enormous amount of pressure on yourself by limiting yourself to one shot at this test.
I am sorry you were displaced from your job and your home, but you seem to be setting yourself up for the bust scenario if your decision is truly T14 or bust or Fall 19 or bust. If you found a way to delay a cycle, you could take the test in March, June, July and September. You will be better prepared, you will have more time to write admissions essays that will help you overcome a low GPA, and you will benefit from applying early in the next cycle. I wish you all the best and hope you are able to exceed all your expectations.
Boy, thank you for your response @drbrown2! I've already taken the entire 7sage course so I'm just drilling logic games and will be starting to drill timed practice tests just after Christmas. Naturally I'm not counting on a good score, but trying to achieve one is my primary focus right now. I have always tended to fall in the right sliver of Gaussian distributions so that hope is the basis of thinking it may be possible to go to law school at all.
Unfortunately yeah, I just don't have anywhere I could be in the fall of '19 unless it were a law school, though I'm aware of all the benefits of postponement. I do have all the transcripts and LORs into LSAC already and I'm not worried about admissions essays as I have a natural facility with writing. There's a lot I can say in a GPA addendum, too.
I guess if I actually got in nowhere I could take the test again and apply for the next cycle but I'd have to figure out what I was doing with the entire calendar year in between, which there really isn't a solution for.
And yeah, I guess I'll get some fine pencils!
I don't work for Ticonderoga's marketing team, but their pencils are great. Get a pack of them at CVS or Amazon, it'll be worth it. Also you have some valid reasons for the GPA addendum so I would presume that will help quite a bit. Unfortunately as others said, Law school is mainly a numbers game and your 3.15 undergrad will make it a very difficult uphill battle for certain schools like HYS and Chicago. Yale's class profile ( https://law.yale.edu/admissions/profiles-statistics/entering-class-profile) shows that the lowest GPA in the incoming class was a 3.48 and Chicago's was a 3.13 (https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/Admissions Profile Card 2018 FINAL.pdf).
Your LSAT diagnostic is amazing. Getting a -0 on RC is great and glad you are already fool-proofing LG. If you do get a 170+, you should definitely toss apps to UVA, Penn, Northwestern as they're the most splitter friendly schools. With that being said, @drbrown2 advice is very sound and you should plan on applying next cycle and maybe work a job in-between as a February app will possibly end any chances of scholarship money even if you do get in a T14.
Pencil thread is very real, though I doubt many of us believe it has a real impact on our score. It's just a tool we end up using so much, preferences are bound to arise. I've never found a better pencil than the Staedtler Norica, although the Palomino Blackwing certainly lives up to its hype. The trade off is normally between sharpness and smoothness. The smoother the pencil, the quicker it dulls. Smooth leads are typically darker too, whereas harder leads are much lighter on the page. The Norica has a very soft lead which makes for very smooth writing with a rich, dark color. A dull lead doesn't bother me much, but nothing stopping someone from having two dozen of them sharpened and ready to switch out as they dull.
Anyway, welcome to 7Sage. I'm hugely envious of that 160 diagnostic--better than ten points on top of mine--but I fear you'll inevitably have to leave some potential on the table considering your timeline. Hate you're in that position, but hope you can make the best of it!
Thanks! Yeah I still need to take a post-7Sage core curriculum diagnostic which I'll be doing relatively soon. The first one I took I had no frame of reference whatsoever. I skipped the '07 one at the beginning of the core curriculum since I had already taken a diagnostic and I figured my understanding wasn't any different yet. I imagine that'll be the next one I take, that or 36. I have a copy of nearly all of them.
Yeah, the competition sure does seem steep all around. I have had a good feeling about Northwestern in part due to what you mention and in part because they say an online video interview is a highly influential requirement of their admissions process and I always make a very good impression either in person or through video. If only they all offered interviews I'd feel much better. 154 though on that Yale list! My word! I didn't even know they read applications with LSAT scores under 170.
Northwestern would be great, though. I haven't been to Chicago but the need for severe winter clothing couldn't be a greater quality of life issue than lack of transit, and I've never lived anywhere with good transit even though it's very personally important to me. They say Chicago has the best transit in the country. Yale is of course anyone's dream, but naturally it can't be a goal to depend on. While aimlessly dreaming about Yale I once joked to myself that since they have a prestigious School of Drama as well I could write in my GPA addendum that I'd happily do a monologue for one of the School of Drama's professors and let Yale decide for themselves how I did in my undergraduate education. Naturally that'd be absurd but I had a laugh.
Of course my desire for the T14 is based solely on the widespread assertion that the JD from any other law school is unemployable. I do need to find a more precise source of information about my career chances in say, the T-15-30, they couldn't be so horrible, could they? My grandfather had a wonderful career after getting a JD from Fordham in 1950 and he went to Columbia for undergraduate. But they're oddly not ranked very high. My grandfather was brilliant so I find it hard to believe that the intellectual rigor of Fordham would have declined in only 68 years to the point that going there wouldn't be worthwhile.
Actually I think I will make a new thread about my last paragraph there.
Thank you! I'll try the Staedtler Norica. I saw a YouTube video where a fellow said the Palomino Blackwing 602 was most comparable to a 3B, so I wouldn't want to use something that may be similar to a forbidden pencil. Though I don't know if they're actually concerned about that or if they just mean an ordinary, non-mechanical pencil.
And thank you as well for your general empathy and kindness of remark!