Unusual situation -- advice needed Forum

LotusBunnyMN · Post by **LotusBunnyMN** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 11:40 am

Hi TLS. Long time lurker, first time poster here. Your advice and sage wisdom in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Here's the situation:

My wife is applying to medical school residencies right now. The way that this works is, she has to "rank" her top choices for residency in February and gets "matched" to a school based to her preferences / their interest in her in mid March. Sufficed to say, I want to attend a law school in the locale of her residency. To that end, it would be significantly better if I applied to law schools right now. That way, I could conceivably get some responses before she has to rank her choices and thus she could rank locales where I got in more highly.

Here's the dilemma -- the LSAT scores for October arrived last night, I got a 162. On my worst ever practice test (my first one), I got a 168. My average across 25+ prep tests has been ~171. I don't know what happened on that LSAT, but it was clearly way, way below my average performance.

Gender: Male
Race: Caucasian
School: Top 5 liberal arts
GPA: 3.6
Work experience: 5 years of work in high powered STEM fields

Partial list of schools that I'm targeting:
University of Minnesota
University of Michigan
George Washington
Wisconsin
Northwestern

Given all of this information, should I retake the LSAT? Currently I'm strongly leaning towards yes. Thank you in advance for all advice offered!

lymenheimer · Post by **lymenheimer** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 11:49 am

totesTheGoat · Post by **totesTheGoat** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 1:30 pm

yes, retake. Also, shore up your test practice routine to make sure it better fits what you actually experienced at the testing site. It could be that your score the real deal was just an anomaly, but 9 points is quite a swing for just an anomaly.

For reference, my actual LSAT score was 2 points below my last practice exam, and 1 point below the average of my 3 last practices. If I had seen a 9 point drop on the LSAT from where I was coming in on the practices, I would have been really concerned about my practice procedures.

87mm · Post by **87mm** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 2:21 pm

Never give up, trust your instincts. You know what to do.

LotusBunnyMN · Post by **LotusBunnyMN** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 4:40 pm

Thank you all for your supportive responses. I have decided to retake. After some reflection, there wasn't much of a choice, really.

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totesTheGoat wrote:yes, retake. Also, shore up your test practice routine to make sure it better fits what you actually experienced at the testing site. It could be that your score the real deal was just an anomaly, but 9 points is quite a swing for just an anomaly.

For reference, my actual LSAT score was 2 points below my last practice exam, and 1 point below the average of my 3 last practices. If I had seen a 9 point drop on the LSAT from where I was coming in on the practices, I would have been really concerned about my practice procedures.

Your advice is appreciated and well heard, totesTheGoat; I have been considering just this possibility since last night, but doubt that was the problem. My practice test routine was to do the first 3 sections of to the test, then take a 15 minute break, then do the next section -- all timed. That's pretty darn close to the actual test conditions. Heck, I even have a rare medical condition, which occasionally causes me severe pain. But I prepared for that by doing several practice tests while experiencing an episode and my scores were fine.

Unfortunately, I can't see if I bombed a specific section because I took an undisclosed test on the 10th (due to Hurricane Joaquin). My conclusion is that it was probably nerves/stress from my first live test, but I will continue to practice under closely mimicked testing conditions just the same. Thank you again for your advice on the matter.

87mm wrote:Never give up, trust your instincts. You know what to do.

Thanks, you are of course right! Going to go for it again!

Hildegard15 · Post by **Hildegard15** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 6:57 pm

Post removed.

LotusBunnyMN · Post by **LotusBunnyMN** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 7:02 pm

Hildegard15 wrote:
LotusBunnyMN wrote:
Your advice is appreciated and well heard, totesTheGoat; I have been considering just this possibility since last night, but doubt that was the problem. My practice test routine was to do the first 3 sections of to the test, then take a 15 minute break, then do the next section -- all timed. That's pretty darn close to the actual test conditions.
Just to clarify, did you do 5 sections during your PTs?

No, I should definitely do that! I'll have to cannibalize a few prep tests to do that, I guess.

Hildegard15 · Post by **Hildegard15** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 7:08 pm

Post removed.

Buck Strickland · Post by **Buck Strickland** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 7:18 pm

LotusBunnyMN wrote:
Hildegard15 wrote:
LotusBunnyMN wrote:
Your advice is appreciated and well heard, totesTheGoat; I have been considering just this possibility since last night, but doubt that was the problem. My practice test routine was to do the first 3 sections of to the test, then take a 15 minute break, then do the next section -- all timed. That's pretty darn close to the actual test conditions.
Just to clarify, did you do 5 sections during your PTs?
No, I should definitely do that! I'll have to cannibalize a few prep tests to do that, I guess.

If you have clean copies of practice tests you've already taken, just use those. I don't think it's a big deal that you've already worked the problems. Just put yourself through it so your brain gets a little bit more fatigued.

diesel50 · Post by **diesel50** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:35 pm

LotusBunnyMN wrote:Hi TLS. Long time lurker, first time poster here. Your advice and sage wisdom in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Here's the situation:

My wife is applying to medical school residencies right now. The way that this works is, she has to "rank" her top choices for residency in February and gets "matched" to a school based to her preferences / their interest in her in mid March. Sufficed to say, I want to attend a law school in the locale of her residency. To that end, it would be significantly better if I applied to law schools right now. That way, I could conceivably get some responses before she has to rank her choices and thus she could rank locales where I got in more highly.

Here's the dilemma -- the LSAT scores for October arrived last night, I got a 162. On my worst ever practice test (my first one), I got a 168. My average across 25+ prep tests has been ~171. I don't know what happened on that LSAT, but it was clearly way, way below my average performance.

Gender: Male
Race: Caucasian
School: Top 5 liberal arts
GPA: 3.6
Work experience: 5 years of work in high powered STEM fields

Partial list of schools that I'm targeting:
University of Minnesota
University of Michigan
George Washington
Wisconsin
Northwestern

Given all of this information, should I retake the LSAT? Currently I'm strongly leaning towards yes. Thank you in advance for all advice offered!

If michigan or northwester work good geographically, definitely go there if you get it. But you wont get in. Not with a 162.

With your stats, you could probably go DEFINTELY get into WI for, probably with 10K too. That said, don't. Unless you are supremely confident you will land in the top 10-15% of the class, you would be risking having your BEST shot at ANY job being in bumfuck wisconsin. The firms in Madison and Milwaukee (not just the top firms) will generally take only take down to the top 15% and some URMs.

As for landing in MN or chicago from WI. Good luck. Unless you are top 5-10% WITH strong (and I mean "dads a local politician/managing partner" strong) you have a way worse shot than top 1/3 at the scrubb ass hamline, st thomas, john marshal, kent, etc etc