Author: Lawschooli

It’s now July, 16th 2013 and there is something like 80 days until the October LSAT is administered. We wanted to give our readers who are taking the LSAT in October an admissions and LSAT prep timeline to help them along. If you aren’t taking in October, check out our December LSAT timeline. We’ve compiled a lot of advice for different parts of the admissions/LSAT process in here so bookmark the page. You’ll be glad to have it in one place. This timeline is an overview that gives you the full picture. Our more detailed LSAT study schedule is here. October…

Here we take on some of the most common myths about the LSAT so you can correct your friends when they are wrong. Correcting friends who are wrong adds up to about half the conversation in law school, so get good at it now. We also have some LSAT facts, and while they may not be the most fun facts you have ever seen, they are likely to be informative.

If you are considering taking the LSAT in December, the great news is that there has never been a better time than now. In the past, taking the December LSAT was considered late in the game, and there was no question that your prospects were not as good as they would have been if you got your applications in sooner. In the past few years the number of applicants to law school has fallen drastically. This year marks year 3 of a double digit percentage drop in the number of students applying to law school. That means there are plenty…

LSAC just released the figures on how many people took the recent June LSAT. They recorded a 4.9% drop from June last of year. This marks the third year in a row that numbers have fallen in June, with the biggest decline coming in 2011, when the number of June takers fell 18.9% from the previous years. This June’s decline is slightly less than last year’s drop of 5.9%, so there is reason to think that we are approaching a sort of natural floor for the post-recession world. 23,997 people took the June LSAT this year.

Law school admissions work differently from admission at many undergrad schools. Instead, law schools have a long window where you can apply, typically beginning around October and lasting until February or later. Rather than making decisions all at once, law schools continuously “roll” out decisions in batches over the entire application period. Hence the name “rolling admissions” However, the typical practice is to have accepted enough student to fill their class long before the application deadline approaches, at which point there is often already a substantial waiting list. Because of this, it is best to apply early when there is…

Need to retake? Check out our 3-month LSAT Study Schedule & make sure you’re using the best LSAT prep books to study! Having to retake is straight up painful, there is no question about it. You just waited three excruciating weeks for your score, nearly fainted when the score hit your inbox, and then went through the five stages of grief dealing with the fact that your current LSAT score just isn’t enough to get you in to your dream school. So what do you do from here?

BEST LSAT STUDY SCHEDULEIn this article we cover what I feel is the best LSAT study schedule based on my own experience and my observations as an LSAT tutor and LSAT class instructor. Here we discuss how long and how hard you need to study for the LSAT to max out your score on test day, as well as what to do and when you need to do it. The idea behind this study schedule is that you are doing everything you need to so you won’t worry that you’ve left anything on the table. Follow this schedule and taking…

The logical reasoning section of the LSAT is super important because two of the four scored sections on the LSAT are always logical reasoning, meaning half your LSAT score comes from logical reasoning questions alone. Luckily, it is possible to make considerable improvements to your score in the logical reasoning section. You can WILL make these vast improvements if you follow the advice here. RELATED POST: LSAT LOGICAL REASONING FUNDAMENTALS

The following interview is with a student who managed to succeed in a highly competitive environment at Cornell Law, one of the elite top 14 law schools in the country. When all grades were in, this student placed in the top 10% of their class 1L year. I find many 0Ls enter law school with a desire to excel but no idea what do to get there. Hopefully the advice in this interview will set you on the right path. Bear in mind that this represents just one person’s strategy for getting good grades. Many strategies work well, but you have…

In this post, next in our series on logical reasoning basics, we cover the all-important topic of when you should diagram and when you shouldn’t on the LSAT logical reasoning section. Follow this advice to get a slight edge that may earn you extra points on test day.

In this post, we distill the top 10 LSAT tips to help you prepare the best you can. Prepping for the LSAT is often the first thing a person does on the way to being a lawyer, but it’s arguably among of the most important. A few points either way on your LSAT may mean everything when it comes to which school you go to and how much money they give you. Start with these top 10 LSAT tips and you won’t go wrong.

Should Law School Be Two Years Long? Is law school too long? It seems that just about every shiftless 3L thinks so. Also, the idea has gained increasing traction in the media, with pundits calling to reduce the serving size of law school as a means of reining in the cost of a degree. A recent op-ed opinion by Daniel Rodriguez and Samuel Estreicher in the Times argues that 3L should be optional under most circumstances.

In this series of posts, we are taking an in-depth look at strategies that apply to all logical reasoning questions or broad categories of them. Follow these tips and you should be on your way to hitting the best score you can on the LR section. The Never Ending Debate: Read The Stem or Stimulus First on Logical Reasoning Questions? The question of whether to read the question stimulus (the part containing the facts, premises, conclusions, etc.) or the stem (the part that actually asks you a question) on LR questions is hotly debated in the LSAT prep community. Two…

To rank is human. It gives us a way to take detailed and potentially overwhelming information and reduce it to a simple, digestible list. The widely read law blog Above the Law treated us with another sample of these earthly delights recently, with their The ATL Top 50 Law Schools. Showing the good sense that US News lacks, they chose yesterday to further break down their rankings, showing us how the top schools would rank for the individual data points employed in their rankings. Brian Leiter, rankings guru and U Chicago law professor, would surely approve of this step towards transparency.…

The LSAT is almost here. Test day is when you finally face the LSAT in glorious combat! To this end, I’ve got some additional ‘problems’ that you may encounter on test day and advice on how to solve them.

In this post, we discuss the best majors for law school applicants. If you are still in undergrad and you are considering law school, this article will give you a better understanding of which undergraduate majors are the most beneficial for law school admissions, and how your choice of major might affect your law school application. Quick Note from Joshua Craven: Remember, these numbers represent averages, and regardless of your major you can dominate the LSAT. I was a finance major and I got a 177 on the LSAT (23 points higher than the average for my major).Click Here to…

What Should I Do The Last Week Before the LSAT? Although Josh has handled this subject to a large extent in his post ‘Top 10 Last Minute LSAT Tips’, I still thought that I would go ahead and share my wisdom on the final push to test day as well. Here is what I think you should do in your final week before the LSAT. Doing these things helped me hit a 173 on the day of the exam, just a little below my ~175 practice average (on my test, one more question right would have yielded a 175 :- so…

Today’s post on how to relax before the LSAT was written by my good friend Evan Jones. Evan graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with me, and he has been kind enough to join the blog. Enjoy! – Joshua Craven

If you have just taken the LSAT and didn’t do quite as well as you expected, fear not! All schools consider the results of a retake of the LSAT and MOST schools only really count the best score you have received on the LSAT.