Top Law Schools

Ok. I had a blog in HS (back when it was cool) but let it fall by the wayside. After stumbling on to TLS over the past few days (and to be honest, being somewhat inspired by reading Lishi's blog) I decided to start one. I'm kind of hoping that I might be able to use it as a catharsis... who knows. I mean, seriously, right now it's almost 4 AM and I am so wired / nervous about my future I can't sleep. Oh well.

So, lets see. I'm 21 yrs old (just recently) and I am so fortunate to attend a "top-10" undergrad school. Unfortunately after getting accepted everything wasn't sunshine and unicorns for me. Being let off the hook for really the first time in my life I screwed up. I let a pattern of drunkenness, debauchery and apathy dominate my life for 1.5 semesters, and when all the dust settled I had taken an ax to my GPA. Somewhere down the line I magically saw the "light" and have started to really care about my future -- which led me here.

In HS I was really caught up in ranks of schools and I guess in some respects I was a rankings snob. I turned down a lot of good schools w/ good financial packages to go for the brand name reputation. The jury is still out (what a fantastic pun!!) on how my decisions been. Either way, coming here, that ranking snob monster inside me reemerged. I look at my decrepit GPA and then at the top law schools and my stomach goes into a knot. There is a serious question that I truly don't know the answer to: Would I go to a law school not in the Top 20? Top 40?

Heavy question right?

Currently I've just been studying for the LSAT sparingly, but starting in the next week I'm going to kick it into high gear and try to get a good number of hours in each week. I'm planning on taking the June test, so seeing so many people already much more advanced in their study has me a little bummed out. Fortunately, I have all of my study materials!!! My target score is probably going to be a 173. Its really more of a soft target, because if I fall a little short it won't be the end of the world. Either way on the SAT the Verbal section was my strong suit so I'm hoping that some of those skills will carry over.

So by now I'm sure you have the burning question of wanting to learn more about your handsome and intelligent sounding blogger... right...?

Right. I was planning to leave you guys on a cliff hanger, but I am still very much awake. Ugh. As cool as my username looks, it's actually just a bunch of random letters thrown together. I'm not sure why I did it, maybe because I wanted some anonymity in my wanton state? Plus, I'm not sure if these blogs are considered "cool" yet, gotta keep my image up.

If it wasn't implied already, I am a guy. When I was in 5th grade my interests included: collecting pokemon cards, playing super Nintendo and recess. Over time, I haven't changed incredibly much, I'd probably add girls to the list to keep it up to date. Lately I've been partying less and working on my Economics degree, but I haven't dropped off the face of the earth socially... yet (re: my LSAT study plan).

As of right now I feel like I'm one of the hermits on this forum, so if you actually bothered to make it all the way to the bottom words of encouragement and candy are appreciated. Also, feel free to pat me on the back and be like, "it's ok you F'ed up in your college career, your natural charm and ability to look good in a suit will have even the mightiest law schools clamoring for you." =p

Anyway, I'm going to try to fall asleep again and then after that get ready to chew bubble gum and kick the LSATs ass! Booyakasha.

I began studying for the LSAT today. I had started actually a few days ago, but I was using "bad" materials. By bad, I mean the Princeton Review LSAT / Kaplan's Premiere Program. I was absolutely not aware that they used FAKE questions. What jerks. From here on out I'm going to be using Powerscore's games and LR Bibles.

So, I know you are curious about how it went! Well, unfortunately it went badly. After reading through the basics of the LR section from Powerscore I began my first practice set on the "must be true" variation of LSAT questions. To my chagrin, I got only 4 out of the 8 right, AND I took forever doing it! The only solace I have from that is I got the theoretically hardest question right in the set.

Feeling pretty down on myself (I mean I read the entire summary section dammit!) I went to take one of the Kaplan Premiere's LR sections from one of the "real" LSATS. In what probably took me an hour, with distractions (people yelling at me, phone call, etc), and stopping to check my answers on 1-17 in the middle, I got only minus 4 wrong in that section (out of 25), including only one wrong in the first 17. I really noticed extreme lack of concentration and I found myself often looking at the choices with ZERO idea what the damn stimulus said. I tried the method of underlining some of the key words like "most", "any" etc, and that kept me somewhat focused. Either way, my brain feels like mush now, and I'm really not sure what to make of my results.

I guess the plan for a bit later is to go back and look at what I got wrong and move on to the next section in Powerscore. I feel like my biggest problem is going to be time... and probably even accuracy... oh boy.

What else went on in my life? Not too much. I browsed another blog, this time St. Cuervo's, and I definitely laughed out loud several times. I like his style! No idea what a koan is... but I think I want one.

So the past couple days have been a little hectic... haven't had as much time to write about my various adventures! Either way, I still always have time to surf the net, and I ran into a couple threads on this site that made me sad /ponder my future.

Well, the first thing that kind of sparked this line of thinking isn't really isolated to a single thread, rather it is more or less the mantra that where you go to law school plays a pretty substantial part in where you are going to live FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. And while someone would say, 'well nonsense, you can practice law wherever you want!' there are 1000 people saying 'but no one would have heard of your crappy law school in a radius of 10 sq miles away from campus'. While I am not exactly a free spirit that would simply give up all of my material possessions to live in the wild, I definitely don't like the idea of being "attached." Yes, I truly do have commitment issues. But seriously, how many other jobs are shackled to such a big elephant?**

Those naysayers are what brings me to my second point, the quality of the law school I go to. Again, the mantra that I've picked up from this site is if you don't go to a top 20 law school, the law you practice will be inconsequential, if not meaningless. I mean, I obviously know that is not true, but it just seems like that's the case on this site. Despite probably being wrong, the only real problem with that is I get caught up in it. I mean, as a high school student I shunned some great scholarships from schools 25-50 because I easily fell into the best school or bust mind set. I have already noticed that I am becoming increasingly ensnared in this vicious trap. Do I really need a top law school to give me the validation that I am still awesome?

Yes I know. Tough life. And as the great philosopher J.T. says "Cry me a river."

So how is my LSAT prep going you wonder? Well, not fantastically. I've been studying for a test, and while this one class will only make up 1/32 of my GPA and the test makes up only 1/3 of the class, I am putting this ahead of my LSAT?? AM I FREAKING NUTS? To be fair, I've at least been studying with a cute girl so that makes everything alright.

Still being a hermit on this site, if you've made it this far I would definitely appreciate hearing words of advice / commiseration / girl scout cookies.

**(OBVIOUSLY this excludes the T14 schools right guys?)