The 2013 U.S. News law school rankings were just released this week.Here are the 2013 U.S. News Rankings for the top law schools (some are tied):
U.S. News Law School Rankings for 2013 Released
The 2013 U.S. News law school rankings were just released this week.Here are the 2013 U.S. News Rankings for the top law schools (some are tied):
UTampa February LSAT Takers Must Retake Due To Lost Answer Sheets
WTSP (Tampa Bay's News Leader) recently reported that the February LSAT answer sheets were lost for "54 perspective law students" (sic) at the University of Tampa. There's even a video.LSAT Diary: Conan, The Graduate Student
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Logic and Games
* 2013 U.S. News law school rankings released. [U.S. News; Above The Law]
* Judge skeptical of both sides in law school jobs data litigation.
* Paul Campos suggests that Stanford Law School decrease its tuition by 33%. [Above The Law]
* How The West Wing inspired a generation to go into politics. [Vanity Fair]
* Judge skeptical of both sides in law school jobs data litigation.
* Paul Campos suggests that Stanford Law School decrease its tuition by 33%. [Above The Law]
* An analysis of jurors using social media during trials. [WSJ Law Blog]
* How The West Wing inspired a generation to go into politics. [Vanity Fair]
Should You Retake The LSAT?
Maybe you took the LSAT already and didn't get the score you wanted. Here are some thoughts on deciding whether to retake it. (Also see How to Study for a Retake.)
LSAT Diary: LSAT Score Release
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Logic and Games
* A suggestion that removing the B.A. requirement for jobs would help to narrow the gap between rich and poor. [ABA Journal]
* Blogging's not only for LSAT tutors anymore - this article suggests that law students should be doing it, too.
* If you do poorly on the LSAT, you can always become a billionaire by inventing Spanx (HT: AboveTheLaw). [Forbes]
* Faced with a rising sea level, the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific look to the law for protection. [ABA Journal]
* A chat with one of the hackers behind Anonymous. [Gawker]
* Blogging's not only for LSAT tutors anymore - this article suggests that law students should be doing it, too.
* If you do poorly on the LSAT, you can always become a billionaire by inventing Spanx (HT: AboveTheLaw). [Forbes]
* Faced with a rising sea level, the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific look to the law for protection. [ABA Journal]
* A chat with one of the hackers behind Anonymous. [Gawker]
February 2012 LSAT Scores Released
As you know, February 2012 LSAT scores were finally released yesterday. Hope you all rocked it!Unfortunately, LSAC doesn't release February exams, so you won't get to look over your test or answers. All you'll get is that little (or hopefully not-so-little) 3-digit number.
Now that the dust has settled and it's a new day (and you may be waking up to a hangover whether you aced the LSAT or bombed it), it's time to figure out where to go from here.
Feel free to use the comments on this blog post to gloat about your score if you rocked it, to vent if you bombed, and to discuss with each other how to go forward from here.
How'd the LSAT turn out for you? Better than expected? Worse? What are your plans going forward?
Discuss it all in the comments!
Photo by vincealonji
LSAT Diaries: LSAT Studying and Motivation
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Logic and Games
* A profile of the lawyers suing law schools for misleading employment statistics. [NYMag]
* A federal judge files a complaint over his own racist email.
* How prisons deal with inmates who have dementia. [NYTimes]
* A Chinese TV show interviewing prisoners before their executions has become a big hit. [Daily Mail]
If The LSAT Were A Computerized Test, Cheating, and Theft
LSAC has thought about computerizing the LSAT for several years. In May 1999, LSAC published a study titled, "Item Theft in a Continuous Testing Environment: What is the Extent of the Danger?"In this study, LSAC and ETS consider "the possibility of organized, large-scale item theft" by "professional thieves" as a result of turning the LSAT into a computerized exam.
(Sadly, they weren't talking about an Ocean's Eleven-style heist or even about hacking.)
If the LSAT were computerized, it'd probably be offered on most weekdays, like the GMAT and GRE.
Since it wouldn't be practical to write hundreds of unique exams each year, questions would be recycled. This group of questions is called an "item pool" by standardized test nerds (psychometricians). "Items" are test questions. (See my series on how the LSAT is constructed for more details.)
Your average "thief" is someone of average ability who remembers a few test questions and passes them along to friends. This has some impact on future test-takers' performance.
However, if "professional thieves" took the exam for the purpose of memorizing test questions and passing them on to future test-takers, this would have a more significant impact. (In the early 1990s, Kaplan employees took the GRE for the sole purpose of memorizing test questions - also see LA Times. It seems they were doing it to embarrass ETS rather than to give their own students an edge.)
In order to counteract these kinds of shenanigans, it's likely that if the LSAT were ever computerized, there would be several different pools of questions. Each one would be large enough so any benefit gained from memorizing previously-administered questions would be minimal-to-none. Besides, the topics of Logical Reasoning questions repeat so often that they tend to blur together in your mind unless you've done the question a few times.
For more details on what LSAC scientists do in their spare time when it comes to simulations about question-stealing, read the LSAC study. If you skip the mathematical parts, it's actually kind of entertaining.
Photo by extraketchup / CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo by grimages / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
LSAT Diary: Balancing LSAT Prep, College, and Dead-End Job
This LSAT Diary is from Ian, a 31-year-old assembly-line worker.If you want to be in LSAT Diaries, please email me at LSATUnplugged@gmail.com. (You can be in LSAT Diaries whether you've taken the exam already or not.)
