Author: Evan Jones

Lately we’ve gotten some questions from students in our Mastermind Study Group about diversity statements. When is it a good idea to write one? How does it fit in with the rest of your application? To answer this, I brought in an authority — Peg Cheng, admissions counselor and founder at Prelaw Guru. A diversity statement is an additional essay which most law schools invite you to submit alongside the other materials in your application. Typically, the purpose of the diversity statement is to highlight unique factors about your background, so that the law school may understand the ways you may…

LSAT LR questions often make arguments. They run the gamut from persuasive and logically valid to misguided and flawed. As an LSAT taker, you need to become an expert critic. You need to be combative, incisive, and quick on your feet. One of the essential features of argumentation, both on the LSAT and in life, is arguing from the general to the specific– from principles to actual instances. In today’s lesson, we are going to take a very close look at the topic of speaking broadly, i.e., using principles. While LSAT instructors and students often refer to certain LR questions as “principle…

This lesson comes from our Mastermind Study Group, which is now underway. Here’s how it works: you self-study (cheap!) but Josh and I guide you every step of the way with live coaching and lessons. Check it out HERE For our first part of the webinar on “diagramming considerations,” I wanted to take a look at some of the sneakiest, meanest, most insidious rules that you see on the LSAT. In the conditional logic lessons, we’ve gotten pretty used to handling conditional statements. If you spot the word “if” and “then”, I’m pretty confident that you understand that you are dealing…

With a few limited exceptions, (the now closed Wolverine Scholar’s Program at University of Michigan, for example) the LSAT has always been a requirement to get into an ABA-approved law school. Now, for at least some students anyway, that could be changing. The ABA recently released its proposed changes to law school accreditation standards, which will be voted on in August. Among the proposed modifications: a rule change allowing law schools to waive the LSAT requirement for up to 10% of their student body. Before you celebrate, there are a few big hurdles to jump over if you want the LSAT requirement waived.…

Anyone who has read this blog in the past year knows that I’m pretty cautious about sending people on the path to law school. In the wake of the recession, getting into this profession has been a risky proposition for the majority of aspirants. Consider this grim statistic: for recent classes, fewer than 60% of graduating students have found full-time legal employment in the nine months following graduation. Compare this with more golden times for law students: in the eighties, as much as 85% of each class had found full-time legal jobs by the nine month mark. Historically, the average is about 75%. Right now we are still running near a…

I know that everyone loves law school rankings so today I wanted to bring you a very simple one that is pulled from the work of a law professor, Alfred Brophy of UNC law school. The US News’ Rankings methodology includes many variables that are arguably disconnected from what students actually care about. This simple ranking combines just two factors: the school’s rank by LSAT based on the median LSAT of the class entering in 2013 and the percentage of the 2013 class employed at full-time, long-term JD-required jobs nine months after graduation.

In today’s post we have a reference chart of GPA medians by law school. These GPA figures, pulled from the class that entered in Fall 2013, are those used in ranking law schools for the current 2015 US News Best Law Schools Rankings. I expect that these median figures reflect with reasonable accuracy what GPA you will need to be competitive in the coming admissions cycle– though something around 10,000 fewer people have applied for Fall 2014 than for Fall 2013, it looks like we’ll regain much of what was lost for Fall 2015. In other words, you can expect the next published medians (2014) to be slightly lower than this,…

Update: For the most current numbers, see this post: Newest LSAT and GPA Medians For those anticipating their LSAT score soon, here is a handy chart of LSAT medians, 25th percentiles, and 75th percentiles by law school. These figures are those used to rank law schools for the USNEWS Best Law Schools Rankings, and represent the medians for students entering in the fall class of 2013 (class of 2016). Because it’s likely that a comparable number of prospective students will be taking the LSAT this year, it’s very likely that medians will remain around where they are on this chart. These LSAT…

For those of you just getting started on our LSAT Study Schedules, I wanted to talk a little about the direction your early study should take. Right now, it’s going to feel like a ton of concepts are being thrown at you all at once, and I’m hoping I can give you a little clarity. Habit vs. Skills on The LSAT So what should you focus on right now? Right now, you should be close to 100% focused on building skills — the technical ability to actually solve the problems. Don’t worry about how fast you are or whether there…

I know many of you are just getting started with your LSAT prep (or are in the process of getting your prep materials together). As a quick intro to LSAT thinking, I wanted to give you a quick and simple lesson in LSAT contrapositives. “Contrapositive” is a scary sounding term (autocorrect doesn’t even think it’s a word), but it’s really a pretty simple concept if you try to take out the jargon and just see it in action. If you want to dive in further, there is a great lesson on contrapositives beginning on page 173 of your LSAT Trainer.…

What are the best iOS and Android apps for studying for the LSAT? With the app explosion, a whole bunch of companies have created apps to help prep for the LSAT. The problem? Most of them are terrible and will deprive you of your hard-earned cash for nothing in return. Here we look at the best (and worst) LSAT apps.

Continuing our series of posts handling various logical reasoning question types, today we look at LR “Explain the Discrepancy” questions, also known as “Resolve The Paradox” questions. These questions are by no means the most frequent opponent you will engage with on the LR section — an average test contains just a few of them between the two LR sections. Still, that’s no reason to take your task in learning these lightly. Points are points, as I always say. Here is how to solve these questions with hardly any effort.

These are the best LSAT explanations in terms of sales on Amazon and the best quality. With LSAT explanations, it’s often good to start with ones that explain the problems using the system you are used too. So, if you learned using Powerscore methods for example, you should probably start off with Powerscore’s explanations. After you’ve done a good job reinforcing those skills, it’s fully okay to use other explanations. For me and, certainly, for many other successful test takers too, seeing things done multiple different ways actually helps strengthen your skills. Top LSAT PrepTest Explanations Graeme Blake’s Hacking The LSAT Series…

If you are having trouble with logical reasoning point at issue questions (also called “disagreement” or “identify the disagreement” questions), you are likely getting distracted too much by thinking about argument structure, or you are falling for crafty wrong answers. We can help you. In point at issue questions, you have two opposing arguments, two authors who disagree on something. You have to figure out what exactly they disagree over. This sounds easy, but the LSAT lays a lot of traps. 

LSAT logical reasoning “method of reasoning” questions (also sometimes called “method of argument” questions) are one of the more minor question types on the LSAT LR section. You’ll never see more than two in a given LR section, and sometimes there aren’t any.  However, each one you encounter is still worth the same amount of points as other questions, so they deserve some respect. That said, I think most good LSAT takers view these as easy points, and you should too. They are also a good one to solve quickly, to pick up time that you can use elsewhere. Let’s take…

A few days ago, LSAC held the administration of the May 18th LSAT India. As LSAT experts in the states, we felt a need to get acquainted with the LSAT-India. This post gives some key information on the test for those wanting to lean more about it.  The LSAT-India differs from its American counterpart in several important respects, so we cover that as well. The use of the LSAT as a component in the law school application process is relatively new to India, but has expanded quickly. The LSAT’s adoption in India is interesting because it shows the confidence that law schools have…

Deposit deadline season is upon us. This will be a brief post, as there is no way I can possibly cover the range of choices facing all of you. For every one student who has a clear and easy choice about where to attend law school (and whether to attend at all), there are a bunch who have hard choices to make. Picking a law school is serious business. One thing that might quell your anxiety is that you’ll never know if you made the right or wrong choice. Being unable to split yourself in half and attend two places, you…

Here’s a quick answer to a reader question that I think a few people might be wondering about themselves. She asks: I’m currently waitlisted at a couple law schools in the top 25. Is it totally unheard of to get off the waitlist with an offer of some scholarship money? I would really like to attend these schools location-wise, but I already have a decent money offer from my home state’s public university. I think based on what I’ve heard that would be tough to justify making the move unless I got some kind of money offer. Good question. While…

The ABA just updated its yearly employment figures for all accredited law schools. It’s mostly so-so news: there was very little change from last year’s results, when just 56.2% found employment in full-time, long-term jobs requiring a JD. This year’s crop of 2013 grads placed 57% percent out of a total 46,776 graduates into such jobs. Well it’s a slight improvement, it’s proof that the market for JDs is still very weak.

Brooklyn Law School recently announced a 15% percent cut to tuition. Although Brooklyn will maintain tuition at its current level of $53,850 a year for the class entering this coming fall, next year’s tuition will decrease to $45,850. That’s not all Brooklyn is doing, however: they are also increasing need-based aid, decreasing merit aid, and they claim that LSAT scores will no longer factor in their decision to award merit aid.