3L's or graduates: Question about LSAT/capability in school Forum

[2807]

As an unfortunate low LSAT guy I have some questions for the more experienced:

I certainly see a lot of "your LSAT is too low, you should not go to law school" threads onTLS. Can some 3L's or graduates comment on the truth of this?

GPA and life experience equal, do you think people with a lower LSAT could have done what you did? Did the lowest scoring (grades) people in your classes have the lowest LSAT's? Is the LSAT the absolute EVERYTHING in law school-- like it is when you are in my position?(applying).

Do you see your ability to know strengthen/weaken/must be true/flaw/ and which loaf of bread came first--coming in handy ? -- and the better you are at these, the better law student you are? Is there a correlation?

Is the difference between grasping the concepts, making the arguments, and resolving the issues defined by LSAT scores when you are in the classroom?

Any examples would be awesome. I would think there would be a unlimited amount of specific examples based off of the weight given to the LSAT.

Can you give some examples of your daily workload and how LSAT excellence was a proper indicator of your progress and performance?

I am not trying to be a smartass, I really am interested if after law school admission the LSAT skills are all they are cracked up to be.

thanks


**edit**: I do see people occasionlly saying that the LSAT is not an indicator of ability, but will determine your school-->job-->money, and based off of that it could be a reasonable issue. I am more interested in addressing the arguments/threads that say the LSAT is an indicator of your ability. Is it?

[d34d9823]

Not a 3L, so I can't comment on whether the test is effective.

That said, you're looking at it wrong. There's no such thing as "LSAT skills" in real life. You will not answer logic games questions on your CivPro final. The test is meant to judge your reasoning ability as it applies to law school. Whether it does that or not is a constant debate on here.

[2807]

Not a 3L, so I can't comment on whether the test is effective.

That said, you're looking at it wrong. There's no such thing as "LSAT skills" in real life. You will not answer logic games questions on your CivPro final. The test is meant to judge your reasoning ability as it applies to law school. Whether it does that or not is a constant debate on here.

Im sure you can understand that those type of skills (reasoning), are the skills I am referring to. I am quite aware of the obvious absence of actual LSAT type questions on exams in law school.

Is the LSAT a true indicator of the skills needed to do well in law school. I want to see if a 3L can say that on a regular basis he/she is able to resolve the issue better/faster/stronger than the guy next to him with a lower LSAT score.

[d34d9823]

I want to see if a 3L can say that on a regular basis he/she is able to resolve the issue better/faster/stronger than the guy next to him with a lower LSAT score.

Well, anyone who can personally answer that question is one of the douchiest people alive.

A better approach than random anecdotes might be a statistical study. The best one I know of is here: http://www.lsac.org/LsacResources/Resea ... -07-02.pdf. As you can see in the conclusion, LSAT score correlated to 1L success with a factor of 0.34 for 2005 and 0.33 for 2006.

[094320]

..

[sophia.olive]

I mean, 75% of the test is just reading comprehension under pressure so I would guess that it is pretty relative.

However, your gpa was determined by a layout that is similar to law school - classes, notes, memorization, outside distractions, dedication, adaptability, caring - so I would venture to say it is also a huge factor on how well you do.

I suppose, once in law school, a person with a poor gpa because of prior mentioned causes may shape up. Years between undergrad and law school could have an effect on this.

Similarly, I would imagine that many people that performed poorly on the LSAT are not for some reason unable to reason well, think quickly, and perform well on test.

I do think both have a strong impact on your performance though. Perhaps too close to determine if a splitter or reverse splitter does any better. But I am pretty positive that someone with a low gpa and high lsat would do much better than someone with a low gpa and a low lsat.

[d34d9823]

I mean, 75% of the test is just reading comprehension under pressure so I would guess that it is pretty relative.

However, your gpa was determined by a layout that is similar to law school - classes, notes, memorization, outside distractions, dedication, adaptability, caring - so I would venture to say it is also a huge factor on how well you do.

I suppose, once in law school, a person with a poor gpa because of prior mentioned causes may shape up. Years between undergrad and law school could have an effect on this.

Similarly, I would imagine that many people that performed poorly on the LSAT are not for some reason unable to reason well, think quickly, and perform well on test.

I do think both have a strong impact on your performance though. Perhaps too close to determine if a splitter or reverse splitter does any better. But I am pretty positive that someone with a low gpa and high lsat would do much better than someone with a low gpa and a low lsat.

The correlation for LSAT is about 15% stronger than that for UGPA. They are both strong predictors, but the LSAT slightly more so.

[legalease9]

I certainly see a lot of "your LSAT is too low, you should not go to law school" threads onTLS. Can some 3L's or graduates comment on the truth of this?


**edit**: I do see people occasionlly constantly saying that the LSAT is not an indicator of ability, but will determine your school-->job-->money, and based off of that it could be a reasonable issue. I am more interested in addressing the arguments/threads that say the LSAT is an indicator of your ability. Is it?

The type of thread you talk about in your edit is what almost all "your LSAT is too low, you should not go to law school" threads are talking about. Very few on TLS actually argue that you can't make it through the work of being a law student/lawyer because you did bad on the LSAT (and any who do are wrong). They are saying your employment prospects will be shit because of the school you will likely attend.

[bk1]

The type of thread you talk about in your edit is what almost all "your LSAT is too low, you should not go to law school" threads are talking about. Very few on TLS actually argue that you can't make it through the work of being a law student/lawyer because you did bad on the LSAT (and any who do are wrong). They are saying your employment prospects will be shit because of the school you will likely attend.

+1

If your LSAT is low you will end up in a crappy school which is most likely a poor decision. Retake or don't go is the generally correct response.

[2807]

Thanks for the input. I see this turning into another thread of "bad" school = do not go to law school.

Ugh. I'm out.

Thanks for the videos.

[bk1]

Thanks for the input. I see this turning into another thread of "bad" school = do not go to law school.

Ugh. I'm out.

Thanks for the videos.

Why does that dismay you? Nobody is going to say it is a sound financial decision.

Though others take a harsher line than I do, I would say if you really want to be a lawyer and the best school you can get into is a TTT, then I say go for it, as long as you have an understanding how rough employment will be and how much debt you are piling up.

[JazzOne]

Not a 3L, so I can't comment on whether the test is effective.

That said, you're looking at it wrong. There's no such thing as "LSAT skills" in real life. You will not answer logic games questions on your CivPro final. The test is meant to judge your reasoning ability as it applies to law school. Whether it does that or not is a constant debate on here.

My civ pro final was multiple choice, and it actually reminded me quite a bit of a logic game, only much harder. There were a shitload of facts, some of which were complicated. There were also numerous rules to keep track of, and the rules themselves were lengthy and somewhat tricky to interpret or apply to the facts. While I was taking the test, I remember thinking about how much it reminded me of the LSAT.

[legalease9]

Thanks for the input. I see this turning into another thread of "bad" school = do not go to law school.

Ugh. I'm out.

Thanks for the videos.

Why does that dismay you? Nobody is going to say it is a sound financial decision.

Though others take a harsher line than I do, I would say if you really want to be a lawyer and the best school you can get into is a TTT, then I say go for it, as long as you have an understanding how rough employment will be and how much debt you are piling up.

180. There's nothing wrong with going to a low level law school if you really want to be a lawyer. You just need to know the financial tradeoffs associated with it.

[legalease9]

This video does a very good job towards the beginning of explaining the effectiveness of the LSAT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_xHsce57c

It's long, but you don't actually have to sit all the way through to get to the juicy explanation.

Fantastic Video!

[094320]

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[johnnyutah]

I'm a 3L, and I was at the 75% LSAT and 25% GPA for my school. Predictably, I'm near the middle of my class.

From what I noticed, the people who really tore up on final exams were just the people who worked and prepared the most, not necessarily the high LSAT kids or the kids who are super analytically proficient. I think your work ethic has as much or more to do with your law school results than your native reasoning ability (however you may purport to quantify it). Long story short, hell yes I think you can do what I did.

Although I will say I have an amazing work/results ratio

[nphsbuckeye]

I feel like it should be required watching for anyone who wants to discuss the merits of the LSAT.

No kidding. No mention of any metric other than LSAT, GPA, and URM (any only that was fairly little - not nearly as much as the other two). Makes one (or at least me, who doesn't know that much about admissions other than GPA and LSAT) wonder what the softs do.

[bk1]

I feel like it should be required watching for anyone who wants to discuss the merits of the LSAT.

No kidding. No mention of any metric other than LSAT, GPA, and URM (any only that was fairly little - not nearly as much as the other two). Makes one (or at least me, who doesn't know that much about admissions other than GPA and LSAT) wonder what the softs do.

They don't do anything. HTH.

[Clarity]

This video does a very good job towards the beginning of explaining the effectiveness of the LSAT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_xHsce57c

It's long, but you don't actually have to sit all the way through to get to the juicy explanation.

Thank you for posting that video!

[sundance95]

This video does a very good job towards the beginning of explaining the effectiveness of the LSAT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_xHsce57c

It's long, but you don't actually have to sit all the way through to get to the juicy explanation.

Great great video, thanks for link.

[nphsbuckeye]

I feel like it should be required watching for anyone who wants to discuss the merits of the LSAT.

No kidding. No mention of any metric other than LSAT, GPA, and URM (any only that was fairly little - not nearly as much as the other two). Makes one (or at least me, who doesn't know that much about admissions other than GPA and LSAT) wonder what the softs do.

They don't do anything. HTH.

Yeah, but the interesting part is on admissions websites that say the word "holistic". I didn't know I ventured onto a business school website...

[bk1]

Yeah, but the interesting part is on admissions websites that say the word "holistic". I didn't know I ventured onto a business school website...

The veneer of being holistic is important for them. I would say the majority of prospective law students are fooled by it. I think they may actually believe it too, but in their "holistic" view so much weight is on GPA/LSAT that everything else is insignificant.