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Hey all,

Have a few basic questions and was hoping that some of you might be able to offer some advice/comments.

I took Blueprint's prep course last year to prep for the December 2009 LSAT. The class was great, my instructor (Justin) was awesome, and my performance in class was also top-notch. I started off with a 151 diagnostic, upped my score by 10 points by the second diagnostic, and was averaging between 166-171 for my last few diagnostics I took before the LSAT. I never really had any problems in the course itself.

That said, I did miss quite a few lessons, never did any homework, and did not follow any structure while studying. I took the test in December and didn't get a score that I was very proud of (it was close to my first diagnostic score). I screwed up on two logic games that cost me almost 10 points alone. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out, especially after my latest diags.

Anyway, now that I've graduated, I'm back at studying for the test and I'm considering taking another LSAT prep course. While I do have all the materials from Blueprint's course, as well as many other books from Kaplan, Powerscore, Testmasters, etc., I still feel that retaking the course might restrengthen my ability to follow a set structure and procedure for studying.

I've considered either retaking Blueprint's live course, Blueprint's "Movie" at-home study course, or another company's live course here in Los Angeles. I was pretty happy with Blueprint, so I don't see a reason to try another company out; however, Justin isn't teaching the course this semester and I was looking forward to signing up with him again.

I don't know much about the other two or three instructors that are teaching for December's LSAT (Misha Silin, Brad Snyder, or Derek Rethwisch). Does anyone have any feedback they could offer on these guys? Misha is teaching near USC, and that's closer to me than UCLA, however I don't mind the drive if the instructor is worth it.

Also, what other recommendations might you guys have? I would prefer taking Blueprint's movie course at home because I can see myself being a little more serious and comfortable at home/library on my laptop. It might give me the freedom to actually learn the material when I feel like it, as opposed to attending class every two or three days. However, a class would force me to attend, would make me learn the material, and would possibly get rid of my lazy, ADD-driven power hour daydreaming episodes I have every single day.

Are there other courses that are, in your opinion, light years ahead of Blueprint's? Do you have experience with both?

I'll also be considering a tutor, either on the side or full-time, possibly in place of an actual course. I'm just really confused and would love some feedback from you all. I don't really know my strengths and weaknesses yet (a couple of fresh diags will help this weekend), but I can safely say that I need help for all three sections of the test.

I'll open it up to the TLS folk, now. Thanks for reading my post!

Christophosphorus

Go with BP the Movie. You will find a second run through the classroom course redundant and a waste of time. They recently updated the movie as well.

If you're going to do BP, do it with Trent or Matt. Otherwise you're not getting the best bang for your buck. If you live too far, I guess it can't be helped.

The OP strikes me as suspicious (like possibly a shill) due to its in depth detail about stuff not relevant to actually solving more LSAT questions correctly. Whatever, I'll answer anyway.

That said, I did miss quite a few lessons, never did any homework

Based on what you described you obviously did your homework about something, just not the stuff that is important to improve your reading and reasoning skills in order to produce a good score on test day since that didn't work out for you the first time.

Stop wasting time researching and posting little details about the staff and course offerings BP has and maybe instead sit down with the materials you already have from taking the course and start working through them, reading the instructional materials, practicing, reviewing, etc. You know, that whole 'doing LSAT homework' thing. You do have to put effort into it to increase your score.

Do your homework with test content and directed instruction that you already have in your hands, it might help you get better at answering more questions correctly. Since you apparently didn't do that last time I think it is safe to say that is a major part of your problem that resulted in a not so great LSAT performance. Crack some of them books open, read them, work some practice problems and see how it goes before you decide that you need to take a course again and hand over a bunch of cash.

If you need live instruction again (if you are actually a real student), take the same course you took before and focus more on the LSAT content/analysis and less on all the goofy jokes and off LSAT topic attempts at humor/entertainment that BP loves to waste time on.

aesis wrote:Go with BP the Movie. You will find a second run through the classroom course redundant and a waste of time. They recently updated the movie as well.

If you're going to do BP, do it with Trent or Matt. Otherwise you're not getting the best bang for your buck. If you live too far, I guess it can't be helped.

Thanks. Have you taken the movie course? I've been thinking about this for a while now, and this is the route I might choose. Not much time left, anyway. I'm gonna call them tomorrow and see if they'll let me sit in on the live class for a few time trials and tests. I remember someone from Valley that did this last time I took the course.

Jeffort wrote:The OP strikes me as suspicious (like possibly a shill) due to its in depth detail about stuff not relevant to actually solving more LSAT questions correctly. Whatever, I'll answer anyway.

That said, I did miss quite a few lessons, never did any homework

Based on what you described you obviously did your homework about something, just not the stuff that is important to improve your reading and reasoning skills in order to produce a good score on test day since that didn't work out for you the first time.

Stop wasting time researching and posting little details about the staff and course offerings BP has and maybe instead sit down with the materials you already have from taking the course and start working through them, reading the instructional materials, practicing, reviewing, etc. You know, that whole 'doing LSAT homework' thing. You do have to put effort into it to increase your score.

Do your homework with test content and directed instruction that you already have in your hands, it might help you get better at answering more questions correctly. Since you apparently didn't do that last time I think it is safe to say that is a major part of your problem that resulted in a not so great LSAT performance. Crack some of them books open, read them, work some practice problems and see how it goes before you decide that you need to take a course again and hand over a bunch of cash.

If you need live instruction again (if you are actually a real student), take the same course you took before and focus more on the LSAT content/analysis and less on all the goofy jokes and off LSAT topic attempts at humor/entertainment that BP loves to waste time on.

Jeffort, nice to hear from you and thanks for the warm welcome. I've been a lurker on the forums for over a year now, and I quite frankly do remember seeing your little finger-pointing game with the BP rep a while ago when a similar situation had come up.

While I do laugh at your "whatever" attitude and finger of suspicion, as well as your attempts to make fun of BP's way of approaching things (?) in the classroom, I actually appreciate most of the advice you're providing in the post. I highly doubt why you would downplay my "research" of blueprint's instructors, though, since most people quickly learn throughout their educational lifetimes that an instructor can make just as big/small of a contribution to one's knowledge as the actual course can. But hey, we can't always see eye to eye, I guess.

I need some strategic intervention and a whole makeover of my personal discipline, and obviously this needs to be a flame I light from within. My lack of "relevance to actually solving more LSAT questions correctly" stems from not KNOWING what my problem areas really are. As I stated in my OP, a couple of PTs this weekend will clear things up.

I guess the extracurriculars, fraternities, and college dazzle took a wee bit more precedence over LSAT classes while I was attending college. I'll sleep on the decision for a few more days, and then pull the trigger this weekend. I'll definitely be retaking blueprint since i'm pretty familiar with their work and was extremely happy, but still can't decide between the movie or the live class. I'll let you all know what happens.

Oh, and we share the same alma mater. I graduated from SC five months ago back in May, and am applying to law school now. But nice try!

Hah! To a fellow USC Trojan I say Fight On! That makes you a good person in my book!

Sounds like you had a good time at USC and focused more on your UG studies and keeping up your GPA than on prepping for the LSAT at the time you took your LSAT class. Nothing wrong with that since you get do-over chances with your LSAT score but not with your UG GPA.

Out of curiosity, did some of your extracurricular and college dazzle time include play time interacting/socializing with the girls floating around on USC campus? There are a LOT of hotties there and it is hard (at least it was for me) to walk around on campus without getting distracted by the eye candy and trying to get to know some of them.

Since you stated that your weakness is personal discipline and that you didn't really do the course homework the first time, if you are going to re-take I think a live class would be better for you than a self study course like the movie thing since it forces you to stick to a pre-determined schedule. That is one of many values of taking a live course, another big one being that you have a live instructor to ask questions and talk about LSAT things with.

My stated suspicion of your post and whether or not you are a real student was cuz it sounded like a BP plug and was your first post on the board. They have been known to shill discussion boards in the past to get attention/publicity for their company and posed as and posted as students to get their company name out there in discussion board land when they started, hence my tentative suspicion of your OP.

Whichever way you decide to go after taking some practice tests this weekend, make sure you put in the homework time to thoroughly study, practice and review, then lather rinse repeat.

Fight on, baby.

To answer your question, what do you think?! Haha. The time I split between my two fraternities, various societies, clubs, sports, internships, living on-campus, etc definitely took over my life. The girls on our campus were/are amazing and never cease to please. While the row has certainly changed since I first went Greek, it's still a gem of a lifestyle. Let's just say that my college experience is something that I will never forget.

Now, moving on to more important things (at the moment, at least!), thanks for the recommendations. I'm STILL torn on this subject, to the point where I'd honestly consider taking both a live course and the online course just to give myself every possible edge to improve discipline and hammer in some of the principles. Though this does sound a bit over-the-top at the moment.. I guess this all depends on what I find more useful: repeating concepts over and over and sticking to problem sets after course study, OR keeping course study to a minimum and using a good portion of my time on homeworks and PTs. I tend to look for outside advice in situations like these, but the truth is that, again, this is something I'd have to choose based on what *I* think. I just hope that attending class and having people around me doesn't mess with my attention too much (it certainly did last time ).

To be brutally honest, money is really not the biggest issue here; time is. If I knew that both the live and movie course would give me the best prep for December, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. I'm just trying to decide whether it's worth doing one or another, or both for that matter. Again, I think it may sound a little bit silly to take both, but we'll see.