The Law School Admission Council, basically everything you need to apply for law school. Personally I think it friggin' rocks, but I understand and have friends who think it's just there to make a profit and force law students to do things their way. It's kind of the Walmart for law students, but there aren't any other competitors, just the one-stop shopping experience. Basically, you sign up at lsac.org, fill out all your information and then it tells you what you need in order to apply. You'll have to get your undergraduate school to submit your transcript, all your letters of recommendation have to go to them with an official cover sheet, your resume and personal letter, you sign up for the LSAT through them and can check your scores after they have been submitted and you can apply for law school through the website. I say you can, but I'm fairly sure that you have to. You can fill out the paper form that each school requires, but all the other information has to come from LSAC, if I'm not mistaken.
What I thought was great about LSAC is that when you start applying to schools, it will autofill most of the information for you, so you don't have to type in your name and social and all that stuff a hundred times. Saves a ton of time, but I'd recommend reading over everything since it does tend to make a few mistakes here and there. There is a charge for each application you submit, even if you get a fee waiver from a school. I think it's like $12 for each application you submit and again, this doesn't go to the school, it goes to the LSAC for sending all your information to your chosen law school. If you need to pay to apply at your selected school(s), most will allow you to do that through this website and some schools will even waive the fee if you do everything through LSAC electronically. I'd imagine this is where some people start getting upset about the close connection between law schools and the LSAC, but at this point I don't really care any more.
I'll break down all the stuff I had to submit when I applied and the rough time frame that I had in my next post. Let me know if anything has changed since I did it all, I know the LSAC website itself is going through some changes, but I don't know if the requirements or anything have changed.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
My LSAT
I started getting ready for the LSAT by going to a free class the Princeton Review offered. It was a few hours one night and the guy there answered all our questions and gave us some pointers and beginning advice. You can sign up for various classes ranging from private tutoring (it'll cost up to nine grand) to online programs and small groups to the regular classes lasting anywhere from four to sixteen weeks. I never did any of these since I didn't have $1200 to spend on it. I didn't really check out Kaplan when I was getting ready so I don't have any advice on that program. I did take advantage of the free LSAT tests that The Princeton Review offers, usually once a month. They administer previous tests which have been released in a test-like atmosphere so it's pretty solid practice and did I mention free? I did sign up and take a weekend course, where they try and give you a basic understanding in a couple of days. It was like $400 and honestly not worth it for me or my brother-in-law who took it with me. Our instructor wasn't all that great, he was more interested in telling us how disappointing his law experience was so far (he worked for the DA) and how we shouldn't expect to make the big bucks. Others might have had a different experience, but I found that I learned a lot more from my individual studies and practices.
There are a few books that I personally found really helpful, one of them is the Princeton Review Book. It may sound like I'm endorsing these guys or something, but honestly that's just the direction I took and it helped a lot. I took the July 2008 LSAT after doing some person training and the weekend course and scored a 159. That was about seven or eight points lower then what I was scoring on my practice tests, so I was pretty upset. That's when I bought the PR book and starting to really study. I signed up for the October test and despite feeling like I bombed it, I actually scored a 166, right where I thought I'd be. If you don't know the difference in percentile that those seven points are, it's pretty crazy. A 159 puts me in the 78th percentile, so 21% of the people who took the July test did better then me (it only goes up to the 99th percentile). A 166 put me in the 93rd percentile so 6% of test-takers scored higher then I did. So yeah, seven points is a huge difference. The link titled "Chances of Getting Accepted" is cool, you can punch in your GPA and LSAT score and based on the previous years enrollment, it calculates your chance of getting accepted to every ABA law school. Schools are required to take your highest test score, something that changed in the past few years, so don't be afraid to take the LSAT more then once. With my new score, I started finalizing my applications and narrowed down which schools I wanted to apply to.
There are a few books that I personally found really helpful, one of them is the Princeton Review Book. It may sound like I'm endorsing these guys or something, but honestly that's just the direction I took and it helped a lot. I took the July 2008 LSAT after doing some person training and the weekend course and scored a 159. That was about seven or eight points lower then what I was scoring on my practice tests, so I was pretty upset. That's when I bought the PR book and starting to really study. I signed up for the October test and despite feeling like I bombed it, I actually scored a 166, right where I thought I'd be. If you don't know the difference in percentile that those seven points are, it's pretty crazy. A 159 puts me in the 78th percentile, so 21% of the people who took the July test did better then me (it only goes up to the 99th percentile). A 166 put me in the 93rd percentile so 6% of test-takers scored higher then I did. So yeah, seven points is a huge difference. The link titled "Chances of Getting Accepted" is cool, you can punch in your GPA and LSAT score and based on the previous years enrollment, it calculates your chance of getting accepted to every ABA law school. Schools are required to take your highest test score, something that changed in the past few years, so don't be afraid to take the LSAT more then once. With my new score, I started finalizing my applications and narrowed down which schools I wanted to apply to.
The LSAT
The Law School Admission Test, the ultimate in standardized tests. Each school has its own way of calculating your future success as an attorney, but let's be realistic. The LSAT is the single most important test in your path to law school; regardless of your GPA, your essays and resume, no matter how many hours of community service you provided, nothing compares to a solid LSAT score. There are a total of six sections on the test and you're allowed 35 minutes to complete each section, no working ahead or going back. The test is multiple choice, other than the writing section which is not scored, but is reviewed by the schools you're applying to. One of the remaining five sections is an experimental section where they test out future questions on you. You have no idea which section this is however, so you have to approach each section as if it's the real deal. The other four sections are broken down to one reading comprehension, one analytical reasoning and two logical reasoning sections.
Without going into too much detail (sorry this isn't an LSAT Prep blog), the reading comprehension is either a long passage followed by six or seven questions about that passage or two shorter passages with questions comparing the two passages. Honestly, we've been doing this kind of reading comprehension since elementary school, so if you're not good at it by now, there's not a whole lot you can do to master it quickly. My only advice is that the questions are meant to trick you and try to get you to use information you know from outside the passage to answer the questions. Just remember to only refer to the information provided, even if you know it's wrong, to answer the questions. The test makers try to bring up topics that spark bias and strong opinions so they can get you to pick wrong answers. Logical reasoning is another tricky one, but something you should be familiar with. It consists of small paragraphs followed by a question or two. Again, only refer to that paragraph when answering these questions. There are a number of questions that can be asked, but most of them are similar to the types of questions you'll be asked in the reading section. The best advice that I was given was to look for the wrong answers to the questions and never the right. It's easy to convince yourself something can be right when it's not, however it becomes more difficult to convince yourself that something is wrong when it's really right. I just stupified myself writing that, so you might want to go back and read that again. Mark off the wrong answers and what you're left with is the BEST answer, not the right answer.
The last section, Analytical Reasoning, is insane, but for dorks like me it was pretty fun. Some people refer to this as the games or logic section; it can be pretty challenging, but it's also the area you can improve on the most. Here's a sample question:
An attorney is scheduling interviews with witnesses for a given week, Monday through Saturday.
Two full consecutive days of the week are reserved for interviewing hostile witnesses. In addition,
non-hostile witnesses Q, R, U, X, Y and Z are each interviewed once for a full morning or a full
afternoon. The only witnesses who are interviewed simultaneously are Q and R.
X must be interviewed on Thursday morning.
Q must be interviewed before X.
U must be interviewed before R.
Z must be interviewed after X and after Y.
I know what you're thinking, what on earth does this have to do with being an attorney? As far as I know nothing, but they tell me that it shows the ability to think analytically and that it compares all test takers at the same time with the same problem on a level playing field, blah blah blah. Fact is, you have to take it, so buckle down and start breaking it apart. After giving you this information, there will be five to seven questions based just on this info, such as:
Which of the following is a sequence, from first to last, in which the non-hostile witnesses
could be interviewed?
A. Q with R, U, X, Y, Z
B. Q, U, R, X with Y, Z
C. U, X, Q with R, Y, Z
D. U, Y, Q with R, X, Z
E. X, Q with U, Z, R, Y
The principle here is that you should create a chart or diagram to collect all the information you can so that you can fly through the questions as quickly and painlessly as possible. Another good tip I was given on this section and on the others is to answer the easiest questions first. Each question has equal value, so if you answer all the easy ones first, you'll hopefully get all those correct, then you can work on the harder ones.
The average LSAT is like a 151 I think, and it's a bell curve, so they take the average number of questions answered correctly, make that a 151 and then curve the rest of the scores. The scores range from a 120 to 180 and there are four times a year you can take the test: February, June, September or October and December. This is getting to be an essay and not a blog, so you should check out LSAC, Wikipedia, Kaplan or Princeton Review for more info.
Without going into too much detail (sorry this isn't an LSAT Prep blog), the reading comprehension is either a long passage followed by six or seven questions about that passage or two shorter passages with questions comparing the two passages. Honestly, we've been doing this kind of reading comprehension since elementary school, so if you're not good at it by now, there's not a whole lot you can do to master it quickly. My only advice is that the questions are meant to trick you and try to get you to use information you know from outside the passage to answer the questions. Just remember to only refer to the information provided, even if you know it's wrong, to answer the questions. The test makers try to bring up topics that spark bias and strong opinions so they can get you to pick wrong answers. Logical reasoning is another tricky one, but something you should be familiar with. It consists of small paragraphs followed by a question or two. Again, only refer to that paragraph when answering these questions. There are a number of questions that can be asked, but most of them are similar to the types of questions you'll be asked in the reading section. The best advice that I was given was to look for the wrong answers to the questions and never the right. It's easy to convince yourself something can be right when it's not, however it becomes more difficult to convince yourself that something is wrong when it's really right. I just stupified myself writing that, so you might want to go back and read that again. Mark off the wrong answers and what you're left with is the BEST answer, not the right answer.
The last section, Analytical Reasoning, is insane, but for dorks like me it was pretty fun. Some people refer to this as the games or logic section; it can be pretty challenging, but it's also the area you can improve on the most. Here's a sample question:
An attorney is scheduling interviews with witnesses for a given week, Monday through Saturday.
Two full consecutive days of the week are reserved for interviewing hostile witnesses. In addition,
non-hostile witnesses Q, R, U, X, Y and Z are each interviewed once for a full morning or a full
afternoon. The only witnesses who are interviewed simultaneously are Q and R.
X must be interviewed on Thursday morning.
Q must be interviewed before X.
U must be interviewed before R.
Z must be interviewed after X and after Y.
I know what you're thinking, what on earth does this have to do with being an attorney? As far as I know nothing, but they tell me that it shows the ability to think analytically and that it compares all test takers at the same time with the same problem on a level playing field, blah blah blah. Fact is, you have to take it, so buckle down and start breaking it apart. After giving you this information, there will be five to seven questions based just on this info, such as:
Which of the following is a sequence, from first to last, in which the non-hostile witnesses
could be interviewed?
A. Q with R, U, X, Y, Z
B. Q, U, R, X with Y, Z
C. U, X, Q with R, Y, Z
D. U, Y, Q with R, X, Z
E. X, Q with U, Z, R, Y
The principle here is that you should create a chart or diagram to collect all the information you can so that you can fly through the questions as quickly and painlessly as possible. Another good tip I was given on this section and on the others is to answer the easiest questions first. Each question has equal value, so if you answer all the easy ones first, you'll hopefully get all those correct, then you can work on the harder ones.
The average LSAT is like a 151 I think, and it's a bell curve, so they take the average number of questions answered correctly, make that a 151 and then curve the rest of the scores. The scores range from a 120 to 180 and there are four times a year you can take the test: February, June, September or October and December. This is getting to be an essay and not a blog, so you should check out LSAC, Wikipedia, Kaplan or Princeton Review for more info.
Why Law School
Who knows, honestly. Once I realized that I had no future in the NFL, NHL or any other professional sport, I eventually understood that one day I would have to work and make money and support myself. So as I started my undergrad, I tried to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I'm a sports nut, so I thought maybe I could go into something along those lines, such as a trainer or something medicinal. My dad works for a local hospital and he suggested I volunteer at the physical therapy center to see if that's something I would be interested in. After a few short weeks, I came to the conclusion that I had no business in that field. Medicine still interested me, so I started looking into that and spoke with a few doctors and family friends in related fields. Biology 1301 and 1302 quickly helped me see what a terrible idea it would be for me to be in any medical or related field, so I scratched that idea off the list. My best and oldest (not actual age, I'm referring to the duration of the friendship) friend, Matt was finishing up his undergrad and was getting ready for law school and the more we talked, the more it started to interest me. I started looking into it further and with my nerdy passion for government and history, I realized that this was something I could do and enjoy and hopefully make a few bones while doing it. So began my journey into law, probably two years or more before I would even step foot in a law school.
3 Weeks and Counting
Over the last year and a half I've gone through all the insanity that getting into law school requires. There were a lot of times that I wanted help or needed to ask a question or get some advice, but I found it pretty hard to actually get the assistance I needed. I figured that I could share my experience with others and hopefully answer someones questions about law school as well as the lengthy process of getting accepted to law school. I'll try not to bore everyone to death and hopefully others will feel free to ask questions or offer advice to me and others. I will be attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas starting 21st. While that's the first official day of class, I have two days of mandatory orientation on the 18th and 19th, so I will attempt to post everything that I did and wish I would have done since I started the process of applying. I'll discuss the LSAT, the LSAC, letters of recommendation, resumes and all that fun stuff and how I finally decided on SMU. Once the school year starts, I'll try and update as often as possible, time permitting so that everyone can feel my pain (and my wife's) as I get a quick reality check as a 1L. For those of you who aren't familiar with law school lingo (I'm one of you by the way), a 1L is a first year law student, 2L is a second and a third year is a 3L. Please feel free to post and make comments or bring up questions and suggestions, hope you enjoy.
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