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I've been debating law school for as long as I have been in college. A few weeks I finally decided that I wanna go to law school. I've taken my first diagnostic (the free sample on LSAC.org) and ended up with a 153; very sad about it. Here's the breakdown:

LG: -2 in 36 mins
LR1: -6 in 38 mins
LR2: -13 in 40 mins
RC: -13 in 38 mins

My pt had to be interrupted after finishing the 2nd section, worked on the last 2 sections an hour later in another coffee shop, so I'm hoping that changing places affected my performance in the last 2 sections. Both coffee shops weren't quite at all.

Planning to take the exam on October and apply for the 2012 cycle. I was originally aiming for 170+, but now it seems like I'd be happy with 165+. Here are my LS preferences:

Reach:
UCB
Northwestern
Cornell
GT

Favorites:
UCLA
GW
BU
U of Washington

Safety:
BC
UCD
W&M


Of course the preferences could be changed depending on how well/bad I perform on the actual LSAT. As for my UG, I graduated half a year ago from a top 20 public school in the US with a 3.8 LSAC GPA in electrical engineering. Been working full time for a couple of months in my country.

The RC section seems like it would be the hardest to improve on, giving that I'm not a native English speaker (only learned it around 5 years ago). I've ordered the following prep materials:

-LG, LR, and RC Bibles
-Manhattan RC
-Official Superprep
-Official Prep
-All PTs 7-62

Any suggestion for a study plan (given my weaknesses)? How often should I be doing the PTs? Would you suggest any other study material? I work full time so I can't afford more than 15-20 hours/week. Yours inputs are greatly appreciated.

It sounds like you just need to start reading a lot... daily... I suggest New York Times or Wall Street Journal or anything like that

other than that, you can find a good study plan here on the forum somewhere, Im sure someone can post a link in here.

If you're taking the official test in october or December, you have a lot of time to get really good. 153 is a good starting point. Many top scorers started in the 140's, so don't fret. Just buckle down, practice regularly, and take as many timed tests as you can before you take the real thing. And don't cheat, time-wise or other! Good luck.

well I guess I'll study LR first since it is half of my score. I'll also start reading ~3 articles from NYT/the Economist/WSJ daily and hope my reading skills become better by the time I'm done with LR so that I can tackle RC. I'll rely on Manhattan RC since it is what most ppl recommend here. I don't think I'll have much trouble with the LG so I'll keep it til the end.

Really hope to get that 170+

With a 3.8 in EE you can definitely do better than your original score. You tested right around the average for engineering majors and you have a much higher than average GPA. If you're planning on taking the exam in October, you've got plenty of time. A couple of suggestions:

• LR obviously makes up most of the test. You'll get the most return here and you should be less affected by your English.
• How bad is your English? There are a lot of gains to be had in the RC section, but it will be very difficult if your English is not very good.
• Take future PTs under strict test taking and time conditions. No point in evaluating your score otherwise, as it wont be accurate.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention. If you are going into a career in law, you're going to have to get your reading comp. up sometime. It might as well be now. Reading wont go away (in fact it gets worse) once you get into and graduate law school.

EDIT 2: Another thing I forgot to mention. I was -0 for the LG on the free sample, but I scored in the -2-4 range on other exams. I think the LG on the sample is easier than what you might get on the actual exam, especially from an engineering mindset.