Stop Telling People to Retake Forum

[BlendedUnicorn]

If people want to pull the lst data from Chicago TTTs I'll discuss my anecdotes against them anytime. You're not going to get rich. I've never claimed that. But for the people that really really want it, I still have yet to see a failure by the way TLS talks i.e. Never gets a job lives in basement/only does doc review forever. Upper middle class is 60k paired with another 60k income in case you didn't know.

And yeah i was a hustler while in law school and somewhat social so I def met and know at least that number throughout 3-5 years.

According to this: https://www.lstreports.com/schools/john ... l-chicago/

11.2% of 1Ls fail out of John Marshall
1/4 to 1/3 of those that do graduate every year are underemployed

and they don't provide salary data so read into that what you will.

I didn't think about immigration but yeah if you're bilingual and that's something you're passionate about it might be a viable path too. But that just cycles back to the larger point which is that the lower down the rankings you go the more you really need to know what you want to get out of law school to justify the risk.

Strongly agree with the last sentence. And yeah of course those stats are accurate. I'd estimate 30-50% of the people I graduated with were underemployed and barely employed even a year later. The next year saw a lot of decent moves though. At the end of 1 year my wife was making $15/hour part time for 2 different guys. After a year and some experience, she negotiated 25/hr from those guys and got full time work and found a side hustle that paid 50/hour for in court. Went from earning like sub 30k to 60k. The job I quit after a year (which was making 35k), I turned down 45k and got my friend the job who was doing doc review. After a few months in the job she leveraged up to get a job at the states attorneys making 55k (dog shit pay raises so she'll make that foreve) but with pslf and unlimited job security and a 35 hour work week. Also pension. Other friends doing the doc review cycle decided to go into compliance at a big bank and then like 5 of my friends followed suit to do compliance work for like 60k. Few years later and they're climbing to 100k. Overall a year out most were struggling. Lot of salaries literally doubled that 2nd year. 5 years later, not most, but a lot are over 6 figures. Most are over 75k. These are investments over a career which I think a lot of people forget. And these would be the failures according to tls standards. Got several friends who are midlaw and biglaw still killing it years later. Lot of the small law guys learned the ropes in shitlaw for 2 years and went solo. The solos are absolutely killing it. 30 hour work weeks. 6 figures. And now their big cases that they've been sitting in the pipe since they started are starting to materialize.

Yes it's tough. But if you don't fucking give up like tls wants you too, you can get clients. I had a couple clients within a year of graduating. Wife had multiple clients a couple years out.

If this is true then your sample is either completely out of whack with the median experience in the country or you're only selectively thinking about the ones that made it big or the people you know at solo shops are fucking lying to you.

http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-c ... eed-2015-6

By 2012, solo practitioners had seen their incomes fall to $49,130, a 34% decrease, while partners earned $349,000, a 100% increase.

$49,130 is not the starting salary for solo practitioners. It is the average income of all 354,000 lawyers who filed as solo practitioners in 2012, including those who have practiced law their whole lives.

By comparison, the average starting salary of a 2012 college graduate was $44,000 and the median household income in the U.S. was over $51,000 that year.

I mean I'm not saying that going to a John Marshal or a DePaul is necessarily doom or gloom, but I think you're not really putting yourself in a better position than you would be pursuing other careers. This is a response to your more recent post too. I think that spending 3 years working in some other field and making money/climbing up the corporate ladder/gaining experience is a better use of time than rushing to law school. If you're smart enough to work your way up in the legal field in the ways you describe above, you're smart enough to do the same thing in corporate America and you get a three year head start. And law school will always be waiting for you if that's what you want to pursue.

[BlendedUnicorn]

Only reason I'm fighting you so hard on this Johann is because I think you saying "just go solo you can land a few big cases and make 6 figures and work 30 hour weeks" is disingenuous bullshit. I get that you're fighting what you see as an overly cynical narrative here, but don't blow fucking rainbows up people's assess.

[A. Nony Mouse]

And to be fair, I think there's something to what Johann says, based on my experience at a lower T1 (and if someone has exhausted their takes and is informed and wants to take their chances at where their score gets them, that's totally their prerogative). My law school classmates that I know of are all gainfully employed (it was a struggle because I'm class of 2011 and it took longer to get jobs than it does at a T14, but people got them). Obviously that's not comprehensive, but since we're swapping anecdotes, I offer it for what it's worth.

What I don't know is whether the jobs they got are the jobs they wanted when they went to school (though plenty of them probably didn't really know what they wanted), or whether the jobs are worth the debt they took on (and I don't know what level that is for everyone, either). And when taking a year and studying longer for a test can put you in a situation to better your options, I don't know why people wouldn't. I don't at all regret the school I went to, but I wish I hadn't gone into debt for it.

Also, I absolutely completely agree with this:

I think that spending 3 years working in some other field and making money/climbing up the corporate ladder/gaining experience is a better use of time than rushing to law school. If you're smart enough to work your way up in the legal field in the ways you describe above, you're smart enough to do the same thing in corporate America and you get a three year head start. And law school will always be waiting for you if that's what you want to pursue.

I think one of the tragedies of modern America is that we're terrible at teaching kids how actually to find out about careers they might want to do and how to pursue them, so that people self-select into the same tired categories of traditional professional jobs because they just don't have any idea what else they can do.

[Ferrisjso]

For anyone looking for actual constructive advice on non T1 schools feel free to pm me. To my knowledge, I'm the only tls poster who's lived it. It's a dark winding road but it's not hopeless.

I think there's more posters who go to non T1 schools(there are a handful of people in most of the TT decision threads) but most of them are driven into hiding on the main forums by this BS. I feel like conversations like this are important though because otherwise the retake chorus will end up fooling themselves into believing they are the consensus.

[A. Nony Mouse]

For anyone looking for actual constructive advice on non T1 schools feel free to pm me. To my knowledge, I'm the only tls poster who's lived it. It's a dark winding road but it's not hopeless.

I think there's more posters who go to non T1 schools(there are a handful of people in most of the TT decision threads) but most of them are driven into hiding on the main forums by this BS. I feel like conversations like this are important though because otherwise the retake chorus will end up fooling themselves into believing they are the consensus.

No, they are the consensus. People can know the consensus and choose a different path, and that's fine. But retaking the LSAT to get the highest score possible is the consensus.

[BlendedUnicorn]

Personally I recommend 3 years in the military and the gi bill.

[rcharter1978]

I think one of the tragedies of modern America is that we're terrible at teaching kids how actually to find out about careers they might want to do and how to pursue them, so that people self-select into the same tired categories of traditional professional jobs because they just don't have any idea what else they can do.

This is truth.

I will say that working your way up the corporate ladder in America probably still requires an advanced degree of some sort.

There are a million problems with education in America. I maintain that one of the biggest problems is an overabundance of college degrees.

Entry level jobs are still paying a relatively low amount. However, they all require that you have a BA degree now, because everyone has one. Very rarely do you actually need a college level education to perform the job duties.

And its become a vicious cycle. Everyone has a college degree, so every employer feels like they should be asking for one. You can't get a decent job without a college degree, so everyone feels compelled to go to college. State funded colleges are overrun, and standards to pass classes are lowered. So, now you leave college and an employer can't really know if you're qualified to work in whatever field your major was in because there is a rush to pass everyone.

Of course this doesn't apply to students at top colleges and universities, but the vast majority are not at those institutions. And also this doesn't apply to students studying engineering or computer science.

I think if employers were to take a step back and realize that a majority of entry level positions don't really require more than a high school or community college education it would be so helpful. You wouldn't have as many kids in college if they knew that they could get a nice, stable job without the college degree. If their job or situation found them in need of the degree as they advanced THEN they could do it.

[rcharter1978]

Personally I recommend 3 years in the military and the gi bill.

This is a great option, but I fear that it will all but disappear in the next decade or so.

[BlendedUnicorn]

Personally I recommend 3 years in the military and the gi bill.

This is a great option, but I fear that it will all but disappear in the next decade or so.

Well I mean the world will probably be a steaming husk of radioactive waste so I assume you are correct.

Also, I would feel more secure about the gi bill than I would PSLF or PAYE right now.

[uion1715]

I would really urge people to go to MyLSN, click "Ranged", and plug in your GPA and a LSAT score "range" to see how much difference a 1 point in LSAT can make.

Also, even if you don't prep, isn't it possible by a sheer luck to get a higher score when you retake? It's literally a free roll.

[Johann]

I think one of the tragedies of modern America is that we're terrible at teaching kids how actually to find out about careers they might want to do and how to pursue them, so that people self-select into the same tired categories of traditional professional jobs because they just don't have any idea what else they can do.

And yes, so much this.

[BlendedUnicorn]

I think one of the tragedies of modern America is that we're terrible at teaching kids how actually to find out about careers they might want to do and how to pursue them, so that people self-select into the same tired categories of traditional professional jobs because they just don't have any idea what else they can do.

And yes, so much this.

I also agree with this.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I will say that working your way up the corporate ladder in America probably still requires an advanced degree of some sort.

This is probably true. But I would rather see people go get corporate jobs, even if fairly shitty ones, to find out what their options are and decide what path they want to follow, and *then* go to grad school to get the degree that will help them get there - rather than use the degree as a way to enter a given field.

(Which is pretty much a variation on what you said:

If their job or situation found them in need of the degree as they advanced THEN they could do it.

[Ferrisjso]

I think one of the tragedies of modern America is that we're terrible at teaching kids how actually to find out about careers they might want to do and how to pursue them, so that people self-select into the same tired categories of traditional professional jobs because they just don't have any idea what else they can do.

And yes, so much this.

I also agree with this.

Same. We need to find out what kids are good in and prepare them for careers in it, rather than teaching them to be mediocre at everything. College should be for people passionate about their majors not people who "are trying to find themselves". Disagree about the corporate part.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I think one of the tragedies of modern America is that we're terrible at teaching kids how actually to find out about careers they might want to do and how to pursue them, so that people self-select into the same tired categories of traditional professional jobs because they just don't have any idea what else they can do.

And yes, so much this.

I also agree with this.

Same. We need to find out what kids are good in and prepare them for careers in it, rather than teaching them to be mediocre at everything. College should be for people passionate about their majors not people who "are trying to find themselves".

Okay, that's not remotely what I meant by what I said.

[BlendedUnicorn]

I will say that working your way up the corporate ladder in America probably still requires an advanced degree of some sort.

This is probably true. But I would rather see people go get corporate jobs, even if fairly shitty ones, to find out what their options are and decide what path they want to follow, and *then* go to grad school to get the degree that will help them get there - rather than use the degree as a way to enter a given field.

(Which is pretty much a variation on what you said:

If their job or situation found them in need of the degree as they advanced THEN they could do it.

If I were king of trumpmerica, I wouldn't let people go to law school without at least two years of work experience.

[rcharter1978]

I will say that working your way up the corporate ladder in America probably still requires an advanced degree of some sort.

This is probably true. But I would rather see people go get corporate jobs, even if fairly shitty ones, to find out what their options are and decide what path they want to follow, and *then* go to grad school to get the degree that will help them get there - rather than use the degree as a way to enter a given field.

(Which is pretty much a variation on what you said:

If their job or situation found them in need of the degree as they advanced THEN they could do it.

I agree, right now we're forcing kids into a situation where they have 40-60k of debt before they even know what they really want to do in life. There has to be a better way. To me, you should be a pretty decent job right out of high school, since I don't think the majority of positions really call for much more.

My first job out of college was as a claims adjuster. It was a job that required your brain, but it didn't really require a formal education of any sort. I was made aware of that by the people who were successfully working there before the BA requirement was attached to the job. You should be able to do that job right out of high school. And if you decide you want to learn more about insurance, or do something more complex in the industry, you should be able to get an education to reflect that.

But right now, to get a job in your field, you'll need like 7-8 years of education. 2 years of general ed, 2 years of whatever major you choose at the last second, because whatever, and 3 years of actual study in a field you've become interested in.

Wouldn't it be easier to work as a claims adjuster right out of high school and in a few years if you decide you're really interested in pursuing it, make that the focus of your BA?

[rcharter1978]

I will say that working your way up the corporate ladder in America probably still requires an advanced degree of some sort.

This is probably true. But I would rather see people go get corporate jobs, even if fairly shitty ones, to find out what their options are and decide what path they want to follow, and *then* go to grad school to get the degree that will help them get there - rather than use the degree as a way to enter a given field.

(Which is pretty much a variation on what you said:

If their job or situation found them in need of the degree as they advanced THEN they could do it.

If I were king of trumpmerica, I wouldn't let people go to law school without at least two years of work experience.

I'd be even trumpier and demand that all kids work/volunteer two years before attending college.

[BlendedUnicorn]

I will say that working your way up the corporate ladder in America probably still requires an advanced degree of some sort.

This is probably true. But I would rather see people go get corporate jobs, even if fairly shitty ones, to find out what their options are and decide what path they want to follow, and *then* go to grad school to get the degree that will help them get there - rather than use the degree as a way to enter a given field.

(Which is pretty much a variation on what you said:

If their job or situation found them in need of the degree as they advanced THEN they could do it.

If I were king of trumpmerica, I wouldn't let people go to law school without at least two years of work experience.

I'd be even trumpier and demand that all kids work/volunteer two years before attending college.

I would have just played two years of semi pro hockey in this scenario so I'm very onboard with it.

[TAD]

Same. We need to find out what kids are good in and prepare them for careers in it, rather than teaching them to be mediocre at everything. College should be for people passionate about their majors not people who "are trying to find themselves".

Okay, that's not remotely what I meant by what I said.

hahaha. I actually laughed out loud at this.

[cavalier1138]

Again no one is saying not to use your initial retakes if you have them. The guy here has used all 3 retakes and has a 156. Time to give some real advice now tls.

If "the guy here" is referring to the OP, that's not true. The OP specifically said in another thread that they had only taken the LSAT once without doing any substantive prep work. Their worst section was LG, and they're refusing to retake, even though that section is objectively the most beatable portion of the test.

And my real advice for someone with a 156 who refuses to wait a year is to not pay a cent for tuition and to be prepared for an alternate career path.

[emkay625]

TBH I think it's supportive of TLS to encourage a retake. Everyone here truly believes you can do better, and if you do worse, they're pretty damn nice about it. Plus, aside from the curt "retake lol", most are considerate and explain why. Not everyone may know that a lower score may hurt you, or just how much one point means. You're basically saying it's not worth anyone's time to try to be that outlier who improves, that effort is futile because they will never be the top 20%. What kind of nonsense is that? Sounds a helluva lot like elitism to tell a 150 that they'll never be a 160.

Then why doesn't this same logic apply to being in the top 15, 20% of one's class? There are cases where retake is both legitimate and/or the correct advice but there are countless threads with people in wonderful situations who are being told to take a year off to retake. Retaking should be advice one can give but it should not be the default. Also if one asks a specific question comparing schools they ought to answer that question.

The reason I've started using the term "T18" is because I've come to the impression the consensus on TLS is that only 18 schools are worth taking out debt for(and in many people think even less). You either get into a T14 with $ or go to UT,Vandy, UCLA or WUSTL for $$ or a regional(mostly in T1 for for free or close to it). There was a thread I was reading that basically was talking about USC as first among "trap schools". The result of this is that kids in perfectly fine situations are told to retake to shoot for these "acceptable" scenario's or the T14 with $. Retaking CAN be good advice and people in the 140's should retake, heck I'm fine with people telling me to retake(I have a 156 I've taken the test three times to max my potential and it just didn't work out and I'm not willing to wait a year or two for a fourth time) but when we're telling people in the 160's(and at least decent GPA's) to take a year off for the chance of something a little better then the great scenario they only have, I think that's a mistake and you've went a bridge to far. I'm telling people to wait a year and reapply/retake now though not because I think they need to get a better score but because it's to late in the admissions season to get serious money(there is some serious evidence of this in the acceptance threads I've been on) and if it isn't you would have done better next year with the same stats. That's worth taking a year off for(though I'm curious why these people took so long to apply) but the chance(not a high one) of a marginally better outcome? No I don't think that's worth it.

Now you're not understanding the intricacies of a forced curve vs. a predictive curve. The LSAT you take has no bearing on the scores of others. Your prep, your study, and your intelligence alone determine your score on the LSAT. Not everyone can get a 180, and some may not be capable of a 170, but as the person's LSAT score gets closer to those thresholds, the more likely it is they can improve on that, and by extension improve their outcome drastically.

Law school grading is entirely different. You could get a "100%" on the exam and get the same mediocre grade as everyone else if everyone else gets that "100%" because the test was just easier. Law school exams aren't graded that easily, and they aren't as objective as this example, but that's the very reason why no one can predict how well they'll do in their class. That's why the incredibly wise advice on TLS for law students is to expect median grades wherever you go, regardless of USNWR rank. That's probably not entirely the case, but it's a much safer assumption than, "I'm at this school's 75% LSAT and GPA, I'm destined for at least top 25%!" It just doesn't follow.

In theory what you're saying about the forced and uforced curve is true(everyone can get a 180 on the LSAT and not everyone can get an A in LS) however in practice there is very little difference because the 50th percentile will be 150-152 and so forth so it has very little practical difference, even though what you're saying is true of course. The curve isn't forced but it might as well be because the same percentage of people are going to score above a certain point, same as a forced curve. Doing well in LS will still be easier for some than cracking 160,170 on the LSAT, although that's a two way street of course. I'm sure we can find examples of poor LSAT's who did great in law school and people who did great on the LSAT and ended up in the back of their class. The forced curve versus unforced curve argument while true, is immaterial here.

So very wrong. It's not immaterial to say people continue to score poorly on the LSAT, causing the predictive curve based on the previous three administrations (I think this is the basis, but I'm spitballing a bit) to move very little. A predictive curve has zero predictive value of how you, as an individual test taker, can and will do on the test. With enough work, using the right materials, with at least a minimum threshold of ability to learn the test, can move you up way higher on the totem poll of the LSAT. Nothing about the forced curve of law school allows for the same sort of movement and upward mobility in the curve.

But sure, keep arguing that because there continue to be people scoring poorly is predictive of whether you can improve on the test.

I realize I'll never convince you otherwise, so that's where I'll leave it.

Someone posted stats earlier showing small improvement for second time takers and small decline for third time test takers(all of this being within 2-3 points). Again what you're saying is possible in theory but is simply not true in practice.

No, these were not the stats posted. The data posted was the mean score for ALL first, second, and third-time takers. It did not actually indicate if people improved/decreased their score.

An illustration:
800 first time takers: Mean of 150
300 second-time takers: Mean of 151
100 third-time takers: mean of 149.

We have NO IDEA whether or not those 300 second-time takers increased or decreased their score from the first take, because that 150 mean included 500 other folks along with it. Maybe the mean of the 300 second-time takers was 135 the first time. Or maybe it was 155. We have no idea.

People please stop throwing these numbers around to try to prove that people only improve their score by 1 point. That is not at all what these numbers show.

[Npret]

If people don't want to learn how to study more effectively and retake the LSAT, that's on them. Retake is still the best advice for almost everyone who doesn't already have stellar credentials.

Also many people still incorrectly believe that a retake will hurt them, so they haven't considered it before they post here.

[TheSpanishMain]

And not playing is the only sure way to never become a lawyer.

I think the point is that for a person with a 150 LSAT there are other paths to middle class stability that don't involve 3 years and a swimming pool of debt. You're acting like it's either A) take your shot at becoming a lawyer, even though it's risky or B) return soda cans and hope you get lucky with a scratch off lotto ticket. There are a bunch of other options here. I'd agree, by the way, that as a society we suck at conveying this information to kids and there are way too many kids in college who just have some vague idea that they'll get an office job doing office things after they graduate and receive their standard issue 4 bedroom ranch house in the burbs.

Personally I recommend 3 years in the military and the gi bill.

Yep. Very solid. And there are MOS's that can set you up for a very comfortable civilian life even without further education. I know a guy who became an Air Traffic Controller fairly easily based on his experience in the Air Force. He's got great job stability, a nice salary, and a pretty comfortable life. I also know a bunch of people who picked up a security clearance and some kind of tech skill in the Army and are now working for a defense contractor making decent money, none of them with more than an associate's degree.

[jjcorvino]

Again no one is saying not to use your initial retakes if you have them. The guy here has used all 3 retakes and has a 156. Time to give some real advice now tls.

If "the guy here" is referring to the OP, that's not true. The OP specifically said in another thread that they had only taken the LSAT once without doing any substantive prep work. Their worst section was LG, and they're refusing to retake, even though that section is objectively the most beatable portion of the test.

And my real advice for someone with a 156 who refuses to wait a year is to not pay a cent for tuition and to be prepared for an alternate career path.

Seriously, there are people where advising a retake is not good advice (they are the minority). However, OP is not one of them. If you are too lazy to study for the admissions test to get into law school, and want to stick with a low score that is fine. Just accept that you are objectively making a bad decision.

If OP had studied for 15 hours a week for 4 months and thinks that there is no way they can possibly score higher, sure maybe the best option you have is to apply with a 156. The LSAT is an easy test to improve on. Using statistics for the majority of test takers to show improvement is not possible is terribly misleading. the mean LSAT of 150 is not because of students' intelligence, it is because of a lack of knowledge among the general test taking population about how important a high score is (Those happy to go to TTT schools). These people aren't studying seriously, and most people don't understand the bimodal distribution of law salaries (and the terrible general employment statistics of lower tier schools). You see it time and time again on TLS and Reddit. They have no idea that going to Cooley will not get you the job outcomes they want.

If people want bad advice about how special they are and how they are going to make it (despite the odds) they can talk to their parents and friends to get that affirmation. Anonymous internet users are under no obligation to make posters here feel good. They give this harsh advice because it is clear from the thousands of people going to TTT schools with six figure debt that nobody else will tell them the truth.

Anyway, too much rambling.