any advice for a rising sophomore?

[psiovana]

Hi all,

I am currently a rising sophomore at Vanderbilt University, GPA 3.91. I am interested in law schools and have some naive questions to ask.

Does GPA+LSAT really take 90%+ of the admission process?

For me, what is the MOST important thing to do at this point? When should I start preparing for LSAT? I have absolutely no idea about the preparation...

Thank you so much for answering my questions!

[Corsair]

..

[rad lulz]

Go to Tin Roof and try to get some wimminz lil breh

[4for44]

For me, what is the MOST important thing to do at this point?

Get good grades and have fun- college is over before you know it

[shifty_eyed]

Hi all,

I am currently a rising sophomore

[flem]

Go to Tin Roof and try to get some wimminz lil breh

Fun story: the OG Tin Roof is less than a mile from my house, and I drink there often

[soj]

You can start preparing for the LSAT now even if you're not planning to go to law school right after graduation, but there's no rush either. Do it when you're most willing and able to devote time to studying for a few months. Managing UG work with LSAT studies isn't too difficult with the right time management, so it's up to you to decide when to study.

You still have three years of UG left, so there's plenty of time to rethink your major and career path. You might end up deciding law school's not for you.

[laxbrah420]

Some questions before I can honestly answer yours:
1. Where are you from originally?
2. Are you ethnic?
3. Do you parents work? If so, what do they do? Will they be funding any or all of your post graduate studies? Are they funding it now?
4. Are you a man or a woman? Cis or trans?
5. What are you majoring in? If you haven't decided, have you at least narrowed it down?
6. Are you athletic? Do you have any softs?
7. Are you a good writer and are you well versed in the classics?

[crumpetsandtea]

My advice:

First and foremost, maintain your GPA. DO NOT WORRY about taking the LSAT earlier than you need to. Worst case scenario is that you graduate and work for a year before applying so you have more time to study - this will actually HELP your app (to have work experience).

Secondly, when it comes to studying for the LSAT, it depends on where you start. If you start at 140, for example, it's going to be a long and hard road to get a 17X. If you start at 160, it will be easier but will still require a lot of work. DO NOT TAKE the LSAT until you are solidly practice testing between 172-175. This, combined with your GPA, will put you in a good position for the T6 schools (although ideally you want a high 175+ score to put you solidly in HYS territory).

Finally, here is some general LSAT studying advice for when the time comes:

1) Buy the Powerscore Bibles & acquire a bunch of practice tests (PTs), preferably all of them. Do ONE PT to gauge where you are starting from. This will give you a good idea of which section you need the most work in. Also, it's kind of cool to see where you started before studying and where you end up

2) DO NOT do any more PTs. Just work through the Bibles, make sure you understand the tricks and theories behind why certain answers are correct, what you should look for in diff sections, how to diagram LGs, etc etc.

3) Once you've worked through the Bibles, do ONE (1) PT to gauge where you stand. Based on that PT, you should have an idea of how you have improved after reading the PS bibles.

4) Drill, baby, drill! Do practice problems for the section/question types that trouble you. Begin by doing them untimed and shoot for 100% accuracy. Once you have the accuracy down, work on timing them.

5) Once you're done drilling, THEN move on to doing practice tests. The reason why you want to put this off is because you cannot improve without a good foundation for the LSAT: otherwise, you're just burning through PTs that you've paid for without really improving.

6) After every PT, analyze your incorrect answers and the qs that troubled you THOROUGHLY. This should include asking yourself these questions (keep a notebook/log if it helps you...an example of my study log here):

• Why was my answer wrong?
• Why was the right answer correct?
• Did the writers of the LSAT use any 'tricks' to get me to pick the wrong answer?
• Is there any methodology I can use to combat this sort of a trick on this question type in the future?

If you need an example of the above process, I can make one up, I'm just too lazy to type it up right now.

7) Once you are comfortable with PT-ing under testing conditions (early morning if possible, not in your bedroom, 35 min per section with no breaks except for 1 10 minute break between section 3 and 4) THEN you should try to move on to PT with less time. AKA, move from 35 min/section to 30 min per section. Why should you do this? Because inevitably, time passes faster when you're taking the actual test. 35 minutes will feel like a lot less. If you're used to having 30 minutes though, you won't end up running out of time during the actual thing. In fact, you'll probably still have 2-3 minutes to look back over your answers for all of your sections. In a test where nerves can fuck you up badly, this can be a lifesaver. Even having 45 seconds at the end of a section to put your pencil down, take a deep breath, and relax will help you a lot during the test.

Best of luck! It's good that you're thinking about this early. Maintain that GPA!!!

[Tiago Splitter]

I'd wait at least another year to take the LSAT. The score is only good for five years, and you don't want to rush into law school just because your score is going to expire.

[Mr. Pancakes]

OP, you are pretty much fucked with that GPA.
Have you thought about tech school?