Love letter to all you TLS crazies from a lurker! Forum

[runplaystudy]

TLS, you have done me a great service. Ever since I decided to apply to law school almost two years ago, I have lurked on this site and it has really influenced how much I expect of myself in terms of GPA and LSAT. However, when I started talking to normal people about law school, I realized that you people are batshit insane.

Because I have a job and do an absurd amount of extracurricular activities, I never had the time to attend any Pre-Law Club functions, and I only talked to our law school counselor once before I realized she was less helpful than Google. By the time any of the normal people in the pre-law community met me, I had already morphed into a TLS psycho overachiever. Worse, I didn’t know enough to hide it.

After studying so much for the LSAT that most mental health professionals would have had me committed, I took a practice LSAT at my college. Upon scoring my test, the law school counselor asked me to teach a logic games class. This should have been a red flag.
I came up with a curriculum and started teaching the class, and in the meantime I took the LSAT. In the weeks leading up to the LSAT, I took a crap-ton of PTs and never got below a 169, usually hitting 172-175. Unfortunately, on the February LSAT I got the experimental games section first, which I couldn’t finish. Thinking I had just bombed my best section, I got so freaked out I almost threw up on my test. I got a 164. I thought the world was going to end. I would soon go on a total bender, but not before making an ass of myself…

Here’s the TSLer vs. civilian part;

Since all my opinions of the LSAT are based on TLS, I wrote an email to everyone in my LSAT class telling them my score, explaining that I really DO know how to take the LSAT, but it was okay if they didn’t want to take my class anymore. I then went to the law school counselor a blithering mess and asking for all the recent practice tests I hadn’t taken so I could start studying for June.

EVERYONE THOUGHT I WAS OUT OF MY DAMN MIND!! I looked liked a crazy person and it’s all your fault!!

But I retook this LSAT and I think I did much better, Kate Chopin be damned. So at the same time, thanks TLS. Because of you crazy bastards, I’d never take a 164 lying down!

[hurldes]

That was pretty funny. I totally agree with you about TLS making people (us) psycho overachievers. I'm sure you rocked the june lsat.

[thecilent]

Wait why did they think you were out of your mind? you're saying they still respected the 164 so much that they couldn't see why you would be crazy?

[Paraflam]

This is so true. I stopped going to lunches and activities with my pre-law program because I've realized that I tend to (unknowingly) make a complete elitist ass out of myself, without even trying. Last time I went, our advisor asked everyone what they were shooting for on the LSAT and what schools they were going to apply to, and literally NO ONE was even AIMING for above a 165. People's dream schools included John Marshall and SLU, and my advisor talked about a student who recently graduated and is now attending SLU, as if this was really admirable. TLS certainly is in its own bubble.

[theanswer]

I can totally sytpathize--my first test score was way lower than my PT average. I ended up retaking and hitting in my range, but it kinda sucks that the lower score is on my record. No matter what, it will follow you wherever you end up. Even in practice now I feel like my partner passes me over in favor of other associates who were able to crank it out on the first LSAT.

[runplaystudy]

Wait why did they think you were out of your mind? you're saying they still respected the 164 so much that they couldn't see why you would be crazy?

Because apparently 164 is a completely respectable score (at or above many people's target scores), and I was panicking about it.

I'm at a top LAC and everything, I was pretty surprised. My perception has been so warped

[Grizz]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

[thecilent]

Wait why did they think you were out of your mind? you're saying they still respected the 164 so much that they couldn't see why you would be crazy?

Because apparently 164 is a completely respectable score (at or above many people's target scores), and I was panicking about it.

I'm at a top LAC and everything, I was pretty surprised. My perception has been so warped

A score in the 170s is what you need to shoot for for law school. Their perception is warped.

[nickwar]

If you throw up on your LSAT, just wait until you take your first law school exam. And you tell us we're crazy...

/lighten up Francis

[nickwar]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

Probably because girls don't care where you go to law school. Unsurprisingly you need more than a high LSAT score and government loans to get laid.

[JamMasterJ]

TLS, you have done me a great service. Ever since I decided to apply to law school almost two years ago, I have lurked on this site and it has really influenced how much I expect of myself in terms of GPA and LSAT. However, when I started talking to normal people about law school, I realized that you people are batshit insane.

Because I have a job and do an absurd amount of extracurricular activities, I never had the time to attend any Pre-Law Club functions, and I only talked to our law school counselor once before I realized she was less helpful than Google. By the time any of the normal people in the pre-law community met me, I had already morphed into a TLS psycho overachiever. Worse, I didn’t know enough to hide it.

After studying so much for the LSAT that most mental health professionals would have had me committed, I took a practice LSAT at my college. Upon scoring my test, the law school counselor asked me to teach a logic games class. This should have been a red flag.
I came up with a curriculum and started teaching the class, and in the meantime I took the LSAT. In the weeks leading up to the LSAT, I took a crap-ton of PTs and never got below a 169, usually hitting 172-175. Unfortunately, on the February LSAT I got the experimental games section first, which I couldn’t finish. Thinking I had just bombed my best section, I got so freaked out I almost threw up on my test. I got a 164. I thought the world was going to end. I would soon go on a total bender, but not before making an ass of myself…

Here’s the TSLer vs. civilian part;

Since all my opinions of the LSAT are based on TLS, I wrote an email to everyone in my LSAT class telling them my score, explaining that I really DO know how to take the LSAT, but it was okay if they didn’t want to take my class anymore. I then went to the law school counselor a blithering mess and asking for all the recent practice tests I hadn’t taken so I could start studying for June.

EVERYONE THOUGHT I WAS OUT OF MY DAMN MIND!! I looked liked a crazy person and it’s all your fault!!

But I retook this LSAT and I think I did much better, Kate Chopin be damned. So at the same time, thanks TLS. Because of you crazy bastards, I’d never take a 164 lying down!

My advisor thought I was crazy for turning down OSU and being pissed about my 166. He'll probably be even weirder when he finds out I'm not going to ND. Retake in Oct, here I come!!

[FeelTheHeat]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

Funny, everyone in this ass-backwards state is bedazzled when I say I go to Florida. And I got laid the night I got accepted, but it was my gf, so I'm not sure it counts.

[Jack Smirks]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

Probably because girls don't care where you go to law school. Unsurprisingly you need more than a high LSAT score and government loans to get laid.

Don't be so BETA bro.

[Grizz]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

Probably because girls don't care where you go to law school. Unsurprisingly you need more than a high LSAT score and government loans to get laid.

Don't be so BETA bro.

[Grizz]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

Funny, everyone in this ass-backwards state is bedazzled when I say I go to Florida. And I got laid the night I got accepted, but it was my gf, so I'm not sure it counts.

I think it's mainly because lately I've been drinking rather than trying to talk to girls.

[dr123]

Most girls (that I interact with, at least), are impressed by any law school. You could say you go to Cooley or T4 and they'd still be impressed.

[blsingindisguise]

Well I hate to say it, but your "insanity" is the right mentality to have right now (albeit maybe taking it down a notch is good). I watched what happened to all the "normal" people who came into law school with a lackadaisical attitude, partied, didn't take anything too seriously under the no longer valid assumptions of their parents' generation that you just go to law school and your career is laid out for you. They wound up very bitter in the end.

[6thbackstreetboy]

Seriously.

When I told my advisor I was frustrated practice testing in the high 160s/low 170s, he told me that my scores were god-like, and that a student here a few semesters ago got in to U Texas-Austin with a 141. I thought to myself how could this be? Did he cure cancer? Did he solve world hunger? New kind of URM? Turns out he got into Texas Tech not UT.

If I didn't lurk TLS, I might be going to a TTTT thinking I was at a T14.

[northwood]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

if you told them you are rad law- they would be throwing themselves at you

[Grizz]

I tell girls I go to Vandy, and they are impressed, but I still don't get laid. Life sucks.

if you told them you are rad law- they would be throwing themselves at you

Sup ladies, I am a d00d who has accumulated 10,000 poasts on teh interbutts

[mac35352]

Seriously.

When I told my advisor I was frustrated practice testing in the high 160s/low 170s, he told me that my scores were god-like, and that a student here a few semesters ago got in to U Texas-Austin with a 141. I thought to myself how could this be? Did he cure cancer? Did he solve world hunger? New kind of URM? Turns out he got into Texas Tech not UT.

If I didn't lurk TLS, I might be going to a TTTT thinking I was at a T14.

My pre-law advisor thought I was crazy when I told her I was studying for the LSAT for 4 months. She had no clue how important the LSAT is. She was like a "a 160 is a competitive score. You will have no problem getting into Catholic. The campus is beautiful"

[zanda]

Yeah, this "insanity," as others have pointed out, is in fact rationality.

I will say that I can relate to the story in one major sense. I'm a rising 3L now, but back when I was a 0L and studying for my second LSAT there was the constant problem of how to handle people asking how I scored my first time. I remember I met one guy on the bus to my job at the time and he asked what I wanted to do long term. We got around to talking about the fact that I was taking the LSAT a second time. He then talked about how he was so proud of his son who had struggled in college but had managed to get into a law school (for the record, it's a T3 but is the only law school for a couple hundred miles). When he asked me my first score (between 165 and 168), I just couldn't say it to him. To say not only that I had gotten a 167 but (by implication) that I was so disappointed in it I felt the need to take it again just seemed so dick. With strangers like this guy, I think I could pass off not sharing my score as a privacy thing. With friends, it was a stickier situation. I couldn't hide from them that I was studying a second time, and if they asked me my score and I refused I was concerned that this appeared to be bragging even more than if I was outright (kinda like the guy who says he goes to school in New Haven or Cambridge rather than at Yale or Harvard... which I understand and am not attacking but think it comes off sometimes as weird). I don't know... different people have different goals. I've found it continues in law school, but the discrepancy is smaller. The good news is it seems better than needing to deal with the opposite problem.

[northwood]

To be fair, just tell people when you are re taking the LSAT that on the first performance you knew that you didnt achieve your maximum potential and wanted to take the test again to show schools and yourself that your score is a good indicator of your potential. Or you could say that you felt as though you left some points on the table that you should have earned, and did not feel comfortable knowing that you could or should have done better on the exam- hence the retake.

I havent told a bunch of customers at work that I am going to law school, or back to school for that matter. Not that im ashamed of the school or the idea of going back to school, but Id rather not have to respond to questions along the lines of : why are you giving up the job that you've had for such a long time? YOu seem to really enjoy it- why switch gears ( to which i want to respond- i hate my job witha passion, waking up every day to go to work totally sucks- and there isnt enough alcohol to make the job enjoyable- but its a conversation that id rather not have with customers).

[Grizz]

(kinda like the guy who says he goes to school in New Haven or Cambridge rather than at Yale or Harvard...

When some pretentious ass says to me "I go to school in Boston; well, not really in Boston, but near Boston," I always say, "Oh! Do you like Tufts?"

[OhOkay]

(kinda like the guy who says he goes to school in New Haven or Cambridge rather than at Yale or Harvard...

When some pretentious ass says to me "I go to school in Boston; well, not really in Boston, but near Boston," I always say, "Oh! Do you like Tufts?"

What would you rather he say? That he goes to Harvard? Would you judge him as any less of a pretentious ass?