Author: Evan Jones

If you are starting to research the law school admissions process, or are looking into your chances at a given school, you may have come across some unfamiliar admissions lingo: “splitter.” It’s not a sports term. Let’s familiarize you with “splitters” and “reverse-splitters” and find out if you are one. What is a splitter? A splitter is what we call a law school applicant that has a high LSAT, but a relatively low GPA to go with it. In terms of how we define “low” and “high”, a high LSAT, for example, would be over the 75th percentile for a…

Everyone starts out wanting a 170 or better. Will you be able to achieve it? In this post we discuss whether you are setting realistic goals for your LSAT score, and take a no-holds-barred look at the potential to improve on this test. If you are shooting for a top score, the first thing to realize is that the odds are stacked against any given individual. About 2.5% of test takers on a given administration of a test are going to get a 170 score or better, so for every thousand people taking the test, only around 25 people are…

In this post, we are going to take a look at dropout rates for law schools. Dropouts are significant because generally, they mean one or both of a couple things: either the student feels him or herself unequal to the challenge presented by the law school environment, or the prospect of mounting debt and a poor employment outlook compel the student to bail out. In either case, dropouts are left having paid a significant sum for no tangible benefit. Needless to say, in an ideal system there would be few to no dropouts. That isn’t the system we have. Although…

In this lesson, we discuss proper timing (pacing) strategy for the LSAT logical reasoning section. Remember that this is a benchmark to eventually shoot for. In the first phase of your prep, you should spend a considerable amount of time learning how to do LR problems untimed. Later, after you are feeling confident with the various question types, argument structure, and deductive and inductive reasoning, you can begin to think about working under time pressure. Most people find that when they start timing LR sections, they are unable to finish the section in the allotted 35 minutes. This is normal.…

Let’s discuss how to explore potential ideas for your law school personal statement. A good topic is the anchor of the essay, so how do you arrive at one that can put you in your best light? Rather than hit you with silly advice (like “try to sit down with a piece of paper and fill it up with various ideas”), in this post, we are going to get to the heart of what makes effective essays, so you can get started on one of your own. First things first, let’s remove some of the stress and pressure from the…

LSAC has announced that they will be transitioning to a paperless, tablet computer-based LSAT test beginning with the July 15, 2019 LSAT. In this quick informational post, we get you ready for the transition to digital testing. Do I still have time to take the paper version of the LSAT? No, the LSAT is now only administered in digital format. There is no reason, however, to be anxious. The digital test is still just the same test, as we will discuss next. Are They Changing The Test Format or Questions For The Digital LSAT? No! Other than the fact that…

This is a question that we get very frequently in the Mastermind Study Group: Who should I ask for my LORs (Letters of Recommendation)? How Many Letters of Recommendation Do You Need? Most people will be happy to learn that just two letters of recommendation is generally considered the ideal. Three is acceptable, but you should use three only if you think your circumstances call for it and if you are certain that each recommendation will be strong/not redundant. Three academic recommendations would be overkill. Generally, that the only people who are going to want three LORS are those who…

https://youtu.be/YazHFUkTx1o Can you get nearly every question in a logical reasoning section right if you have unlimited time but fall apart if you try to do it any faster than usual…? Can you usually finish LR in 35 minutes, but with much worse accuracy than if you had even 40 minutes…? Do you not even have the first idea how long these questions should be taking…? Are you so close to finishing the LR section on time and looking to make some adjustments that have worked for other top scorers? If you are having any issues with LR timing at…

The sun rises. Taxes are due in April. Summer blockbusters are released in summer. And the LSAT is given four times a year (September or October, December, February, and June). Right? Wrong! This year, you can take it in July as well! This July test, coming on the heels of typical June examination, is new as of this year. A lot of students didn’t know about it until we told them, so we are trying to make sure as many people know as possible. This July LSAT is the first step in expanding to a full six test dates in…

To kick off the release of our new Online Logical Reasoning Course, we are doing series of webinars to cover some LR topics. In this webinar, we give a quick lesson on an LR topic, then opened up the floor for questions. Watch the webinar replay above.

Joshua Craven and Evan Jones are proud to introduce The Lawschooli.com Logical Reasoning Course! Knowing logical reasoning is all-important—half of your score on the LSAT will be determined by how well you can solve logical reasoning questions. To that end, we have built what we guarantee the most in-depth resource available for teaching the logical reasoning section. Our goal with this course is simple. No shortcuts and half-measures. No oversimplification. The goal is to get you understand logic and problem structure on exactly the same level as the people who are making this test. If you have taken an LSAT exam…

Your ability to attack the LSAT logical reasoning section will decide half of your score on the LSAT. HALF YOUR SCORE! It is all-important to your success on this exam. So what separates the bulk of LSAT takers, who never get more than around half of the problems they attack correct, from those who consistently miss just 0-3 on this section? (This is the range you want to be in to get a 170+ score on the LSAT.) To explore this topic, we hosted a special Wednesday Webinar: MASTERING THE LSAT LOGICAL REASONING SECTION. Our webinars are always free to…

The LSAT is just a short while away. It’s a good time to take stock of where you are and make sure you will be ready for this thing. Let’s run down what you need to do. Shoot To Hit Your Peak On Test Day You need to be a great LSAT taker for just one day. In fact, just for two hours and twenty minutes. The home stretch, which you are entering now, is all about focusing on being in peak LSAT form when test day comes. Here are some strategies for being in peak LSAT performance mode come…

We are pretty positive people here at lawschooli.com, but I can’t be merry and just tralala through life all the time. Why not? Because I see people doing stuff to prep for the LSAT, that is very wrong, and I have to fix it. We will also get some help from GIFS from the Ring to help illustrate my points and communicate just how horrified I am that you are doing it wrong. If this scares you, then I’m sorry, but the idea of not reaching your potential on the LSAT should scare you more.

I hope I’m not going to say anything too controversial here, but the reality that most people don’t see big improvements on logical reasoning. It’s not your fault, really. You are just incompetent. Before you click away because whoa, I just said something really mean, hear me out for a second. Almost everyone starts out their path to logical reasoning mastery totally incompetent, so chances are you are totally incompetent too. The problem is that you don’t even realize it! You may even think you are pretty good, and actually, you’re not wrong. So how can you be pretty good…

Someday, maybe America will be more like the movie Gattaca, and they’ll be able to tell which law school we belong in (or whether we belong in law school at all) just by scanning our genetic material. Until then, we are stuck with the LSAT, which is like the Harry Potter sorting hat from hell. In about 6 months or so, you are expected to go from not really knowing what the LSAT even is to mastering it. With that in mind, I wanted to give you some specific hacks that will help you on your journey. These are some…

Sometimes, it’s tough for me to remember what it was like to begin studying for the LSAT. At first, the whole thing was totally foreign to me. In recognition of that, we wanted to do a post for those just starting out learning logical reasoning (LR) in order to help you get a hold on the fundamentals of the section. Heads up, this will cover pretty basic info, so those of you who have some LSAT experience might want to scan to the bottom to find our posts on more advanced LR topics.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked about using multiple LSAT prep books for each section during self-study. How many LSAT prep books do you need? Is it wise to use materials from a bunch of different LSAT companies when you are doing your prep? Here we will talk about this, and also how to prep if you do choose to use multiple books for your self-study.

Learning how to spot and critique flaws is the most important skill that you need to develop to succeed on the LSAT logical reasoning section. We are all good at spotting and critiquing flaws in real life. HOWEVER, with LSAT flaws, we are not talking about your ex’s habit of leaving dishes around your apartment or anything like that. LSAT flaws are very specific. When the LSAT tells you something is flawed, that means there is an error in the reasoning. What does it mean to say that there is an error in the reasoning? All arguments have at least one premise…

Spivey Consulting, which last year successfully obtained The USNWR’s annual ranking of the top law schools ahead of time, released a preview again today. While we can’t say with 100% certainty that these are the real rankings, it seems very likely that they are. Let’s see which law school admissions committees have reason to celebrate, and which will be left scrambling. We provide some analysis! 1) Yale2) Stanford3) Harvard (-1)4) U Chicago5) Columbia (-1)6) NYU7) Penn8) Michigan8) UVA10) Duke (+1)10) Northwestern (+2)12) Berkeley (-4)13) Cornell14) UT Austin (+1) The big stories here are three-fold: U Chicago beating out Columbia rather than…