Law school admission test prep-which is best

[dreamofmonterey]

Originally Posted by Enzio1

A few notes, as I'm a gunner for law schools.

1. I suggest NOT taking courses. I don't think they're useful at all, and I think if you did some research you'd find that admission committees would agree. I believe Anna Ivey (the ex-Dean of Admissions at U of Chicago Law, 5th ranked law school) said something along those lines as well.
2. Use the Powerscore Bibles (Logic Games and Logical Reasoning. Don't waste your time on Reading Comprehension. If you want something good for that, perhaps check out the Manhattan series, but in all honesty, just find a style that suits you and go with it.)
   • One not about Reading Comprehension. You should be aiming to finish reading the passages within 2-3 minute
3. Only take ACTUAL tests (this means the following: '10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests', '10 More...', 'The Next 10...' as well as things like 'Official LSAT PrepTest 52'). That means things offered from LSAC. NEVER take fake tests provided by institutions like Kaplan. These are useless. They do not capture the intricacies or nuances of the actual tests and will not prepare you for the LSAT properly. Purchase ALL of these.
4. The standard is roughly 3 months of prep. The first month is aimed at accuracy, the second month at speed, and third month is honing your skills with full-length prep tests. And, I would also suggest beginning with a diagnostic test. I believe LSAC has the June 2007 administration for free on their website that you can work with.
   • You're going to want to categorise the logic games into all the different types. For example, Linear reasoning, grouping games, etc, etc. Go to Top-Law-Schools and look at the different guides here, they will give you great guidance. I suggest starting with PithyPikes guide.
5. Aim for a 180. I don't know what your GPA is, but you should always strive for the best score. Realistically, you should be looking at at least a 170 for top 14 schools (Yale through Georgetown/Texas).

If you don't know much about law schools, then you really ought to do a lot of research. I suggest only paying sticker at the t14. However, that gets a bit dicier once you get down to schools like Georgetown. Some will say you shouldn't even pay sticker outside of the top 6 schools (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU). Go to lawschoolnumber.com and play with the different graphs to get an idea of what LSAT/GPA combo you will need for the different schools. Remember that because of the USNWR rankings, this is largely a numbers game. Extracurriculars don't matter. Just get the numbers, write a solid personal statement and get solid letters of recommendations and you will be set (the only exceptions are Yale, Stanford, and to an extent Berkeley--they actually care about your soft factors, especially the first 2).

thank u for the info. im looking at new england area...wld love berkeley but...im older student...possibly Boston. GPA is 3.8

[LegalDiva]

Originally Posted by skihikeclimb

I totally agree. You do not need a test prep course to do well on the LSAT. Just study your butt off and do the best you can do. Be careful in what school you select as well. Consider something low cost with a decent program.

I graduated Law School in 2007 and passed the bar. I am not going to name the school I attended for numerous reasons. I actually ended up doing pretty well. I make low six figures and have a cush gig working 4 days a week. However many law grads really struggle when they graduate.

My advice is not to go to law school. That is just my 2 cents

Totally agree with this advice. Law school is a bad investment, especially if you have to go into student loan debt over it or can't gain admission to a Top 5 school (and even then, its no guarantee of a secure job post-graduation).

As far as LSATs are concerned, like the above posters suggested, I wouldnt bother with courses. The key is to take as many practice tests under real conditions as you can.

I took the Princeton Review course and scored the same as I did on my Initial Diag before the Course began. In comparing PR and Kaplan, I thought PR was more focused on "here are the tricks to squeezing more points out of this question" - whereas Kaplan was more about "if you understand the basic premise of why the fact pattern has X info - you can figure out how to get 4 correct answers out of the 5 questions"..PR teachers also seemed to be these weird folks who scored 170-180 on the LSAT and functioned at a high level of intellectual sharpness which didn't help the class who was still struggling with staying within the time limits of a question or didn't know how to diagram any of the Games questions...Half the class was struggling to just "get" the mental processes of our professor and we felt more frustrated by the course's end, than prepared..

Also, a lot of the practice LSAT books we used in the PR class would include assumptions, ie "once you obviously rule out answer choice A because its unrealistic and B because its just dumb, you only need to work on choices C and D, and once you see that the question only asks about John's lawsuit, the answer is clearly D!." The Kaplan books would go through every wrong answer choice and explan WHY choice A was unrealistic, WHY choice B is really "dumb"..

When I was at a Kaplan class, I felt like the professors were more focused on teaching the substance of the test, and not so much of tricks and gimmicks. Of course, that may have changed now - that was just the perception of everyone I was in law school who took both Kaplan and/or Princeton Review.

If you DO opt for a class, by all means - sit in on an actual class before you fork over the $$.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by dreamofmonterey

thank u for the info. im looking at new england area...wld love berkeley but...im older student...possibly Boston. GPA is 3.8

With your GPA, aim for a 168 or above. With a semi-well-written app, 168 secures Cornell and Georgetown; 169 Michigan; and 170 Virginia, Penn, Duke, and Northwestern.

[deepimpact2]

Just get some books and practice. Don't waste money on a course.