Law school application advice for student previously dismissed

It sounds like a law school application addendum would probably be in order. Short, to the point, matter of fact, explaining why things didn't go as well as they could've the first time around. Not a list of excuses, but instead an acknowledgment of what you could've done differently, what you've learned, etc.

Again, short - less than one page. And don't make this the focus of your law school personal statement - instead, treat it is a separate short addendum. 

Good luck!

LSAT Reading Comp Speed Advice

How long do you spend on your initial read of each LSAT Reading Comp passage? I generally recommend 2.5-3 minutes at most.

You might consider cutting down your annotations even more. As an exercise, try to walk with NOTHING but the main point. The main point is the biggest takeaway you need when doing LSAT Reading Comp passages. And if you've got that, you can knock out a lot of general questions (main point, primary purpose, title, tone, etc.)

ETA: You can also work to build your understanding as you go along, by doing the LSAT Reading Comp questions in a strategic order: general (main point, primary purpose, title, tone, passage organization, etc), local detail-oriented (esp. those with line references), and finally inferential (questions like what would author be most likely to agree with, questions similar to LSAT Logical Reasoning questions, etc.)

Final LSAT Test Day Prep Advice

I recently put a ton of videos on YouTube about getting ready for LSAT Test Day.

Links below.

But first, here are 7 quick LSAT Test Day prep tips:

• Make an LSAT Test Day playlist with motivational songs and videos
• Practice mindfulness meditation
• Make sure you allow time for sleep, diet, exercise, and relaxation
• Simulate test day conditions and prepare for distractions
• Relax the day before, but...
• Pack your bag the day before
• Do a few warm-up questions before entering the test center

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LSAT Test Day Prep Videos (including what to bring and what NOT to bring)

LSAT Test Day Motivation Playlist (including Steve Jobs, Jock Jams, Elle Woods, and Alan Watts)

All the best to everyone and hope you rock the exam!

Law School Admissions + Teach For America

Answering a law school applicant's question about how strong a soft factor Teach For America would be:

It's always hard for me to answer "how" questions. This sort of thing isn't really quantifiable. I suspect that it definitely helps, in large part because it's so difficult to get accepted into Teach For America (so you show you passed through another "filter"), and even harder to stick with (which shows perseverance in difficult circumstances - teaching's hard!)

Softs pale in comparison to LSAT+ GPA, but Teach For America is incredible work experience and could likely provide material for a great law school personal statement.

Why I'm Not Wishing You Good Luck on the LSAT

I don't like wishing people good luck. Why think of ourselves as slaves to chance? Instead, we should trust in our abilities.

"In bocca al lupo" is an old Italian proverb that literally translates to "in the mouth of the wolf." The customary response is "crepi (il lupo)," which literally translates to "kill (the wolf)."

The idea is that when faced with adversity, you should have the mindset that you will overcome it. Luck is not a factor. You will destroy whatever obstacles get in the way of achieving your goals.

So, rather than wishing you all good luck, I'm going to remind you that when you encounter the LSAT, kill it.

LSAT Test Day Advice

LSAT Reading Comprehension: Staying Engaged

For staying engaged in LSAT Reading Comprehension, I like to caricature the viewpoints to be more extreme than they actually are - in other words, sensationalizing them. I also like to read from the author's perspective - why did they lay out the passage the way they did?

I read for the flow of the presentation of information - how they go about explaining the topic, why they included a particular piece of information where they did, etc. I'm critiquing their writing from an analytical perspective. Most of this is done untimed while studying/reviewing, but it can help to increase your understanding when you do other passages timed later.

LSAT Logical Reasoning: Speeding Up

On speeding up at LSAT Logical Reasoning - in part, you get faster by deepening your understanding, which comes from continued LSAT prep practice and detailed review of all LSAT questions that give you trouble.

However, pacing is an element as well - having the mindfulness to let go of a question where things aren't clicking, and continuing to move forward. If you want a 165+ LSAT score, I'd aim to complete the first 10 LSAT Logical Reasoning questions in 10-12 minutes at most. You don't want to invest time increasing your confidence level on an easy question from 75% to 99% at the expense of getting to 5 questions later in the section.

Trust that you'll get the easy questions right anyway, and save that time for questions you're not even getting to later in the section. By being less of a perfectionist, you can actually increase your LSAT score by getting to more questions and spending more time on the ones that need it.

Improving LSAT Reading Comp Strategy

I don't know exactly how you approach LSAT Reading Comp right now, but there are lots of ways to improve your LSAT reading Comp strategy.

Some quick thoughts:

Minimal note-taking

2:30-3 minutes on initial passage read

Order of approach:

1st: Main idea/primary purpose/general Qs 

2nd: Detail questions 

3rd: Inference questions

Process of elimination - here more than any other section, instead of prephrasing, look for the ones that don't work and eliminate them one-by-one. You may not love the correct answer, but it's "the best of the worst."

Recent LSAT Trends

The biggest and most obvious trends would be in LSAT Logic Games - Weird/Curveball Logic Games, as well as LSAT Rule Substitution / Equivalency questions.

There have been curveball games in the past that don't fit the mold of classic game types, but they've become increasingly frequent. And rule substitution questions started with LSAT PrepTest 57 and have appeared consistently since then.

I think the exam as a whole has gotten more difficult in recent years likely due to increased/better prepping. What this means for you is that you should make sure you especially focus on the recent exams (LSAT PrepTests in the 70s and 80s). 

If you only do exams from the 30s and 40s, you'll likely get inflated/unrealistic scores. (You can see that the raw score conversions are different on the older exams as well.)

Applicants with 170+ LSAT Scores Increase - Why?

Could be due to an increase in permitted LSAT retakes.

However, I do think a recent increased stealth factor might be more applicants getting LSAT test accommodations - getting 50% extra or double-time, etc. could lead to significantly increased scores.

I also think there are probably more 170+ applicants since the legal market (and news about it) has somewhat improved in the past few years.

I don't think the LSAT has gotten easier. If anything, I think it's gotten harder in the past few years (probably due to increased/better prepping).

170+ LSAT Score: What Separates Top Scorers from the Rest

What does it take to achieve an LSAT score in the 170s?

A couple of things:

1. Working not only to consistently apply LSAT prep strategies, but to understand why the strategies work. I consider this equivalent to reading the beginning of a chapter in a math textbook where they explain how the formula is derived in the first place.
2. For LSAT Reading Comp, consistently find the exact lines supporting a given answer choice in the passage. The answer is always in the passage - inference questions don't actually give you a license to go beyond the text.
3. Seeing the exam more from the LSAT test-makers' perspective. Patterns in tempting wrong answers and discouraging correct answers.

(For more on the test-makers' perspective, check out this book of interviews I did with a former LSAT question-writer.)

One more thing - at this point, you should have a strong foundation, so it's time to work on pacing and endurance. You also want to be ruthless in skipping tough questions to come back to at the end of a section. Avoid getting bogged-down in any one question. At this point, it's probably more mental than anything else.