Does the LSAT have significant bearing on success Forum

[mark237793]

I consider myself to be a decently smart person. I did ok on the LSAT and was accepted to a T14 law school. However, I did nowhere near stellar and was certainly carried by other factors. My main area of weakness was logic games.

While I now acknowledge that the LSAT has no bearing on the rest of my life, I still have the thought that it may be indicative of law school performance. I've worked with numerous attorney and have seen the materials of friends who are law students. NOTHING bears any resemblance to logic games.

What do you all think?

[PoopNpants]

Typically Logic Games is the easiest section to improve on for most people, so you should consider yourself lucky that's your main weakness. What do you struggle with specifically regarding games?

[Rigo]

Better LSAT score = better law school & better scholarship = better employment opportunities & less debt = better future.

LG is the easiest section to improve on. It doesn't mean you're dumb, but to answer the thread title, yes I do think the LSAT has a significant bearing on success.

LG does test your ability to see how variables interact within a larger picture. Law is about learning how certain legal issues interact in a larger legal problem/case. LG tests your ability to handle complexity and be flexible in dealing with different sets of circumstances while following rules (aka "laws"). Though you do not play logic games in law school, the broader skills certainly come into play on both exams and in the profession.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Dirigo, all due respect, but you haven't taken any law school classes/exams yet.

[NonTradLawHopeful]

Better LSAT score = better law school & better scholarship = better employment opportunities & less debt = better future.

That, which you already seem to be on track since you are going to a T14 school.

[radio1nowhere]

As a 0L, I can't speak to how you will perform at law school, but I can tell you that I scored about 10 points better on the actual LSAT than on my first practice test, mainly because I did a huge number of logic games practice problems and improved on my performance in that section. If I had not studied for the LSAT and forgone those 10 points, would that cause me to have less "success" at law school? Doesn't seem likely.

Moral of the story is that LSAT scores themselves are variable and reflect many different things. You can easily imagine a very high IQ but lazy applicant taking the test cold and getting a 170; will that applicant be more successful than someone of just good intelligence but a strong work ethic, who studied for months to get that same 170? Hard to tell. The scores themselves just don't tell us enough about the applicants.

Work hard, be confident in yourself, and good luck!

[Ron Don Volante]

LG is the easiest section to improve on. It doesn't mean you're dumb, but to answer the thread title, yes I do think the LSAT has a significant bearing on success.

LG does test your ability to see how variables interact within a larger picture. Law is about learning how certain legal issues interact in a larger legal problem/case. LG tests your ability to handle complexity and be flexible in dealing with different sets of circumstances while following rules (aka "laws"). Though you do not play logic games in law school, the broader skills certainly come into play on both exams and in the profession.

dude. no.

[banjo]

LG tests your ability to think quickly. That's probably the only reason there's a correlation between that section and 1L grades, which are based almost entirely on time-pressured issue spotters.

The hardest part about a logic game is creating a good diagram and making inferences. Once you've done that, you can knock out the questions in a minute or two. In law school, "diagramming" and inference-making is easy. You have the whole semester to create a 50-page "diagram" that tells you how the rules fit together. By exam time, almost everyone understands the rules. The hard part is spotting and commenting on dozens of issues in a jungle of facts.

[hopeboaltberkeley]

I think most of the sections are learnable. There seems to be a consensus that the lg skill set is the most readily acquired. But even more stubborn sections like rc probably are improvable over time.

FWIW I distinctly remember having time management issues as a highschooler attempting the SAT reading comprehension section. In college I became a more avid reader, and by the time I ended up taking the LSAT I was able to complete most rc sections at a healthy pace.

So the takeaway is *if* the LSAT skill set is necessary for law school success, then take you can comfort in the fact that you can improve those skills

[Kimikho]

I know people below the 25th percentile here who did phenomenally.

I also know people with 180s who did phenomenally.

There might be some correlation between someone who has a 130 vs. 180, but those people aren't admitted to good law schools in general. As it is, if the 13o person was admitted, then that is the school saying that that person with a 130 is just as smart as everyone else and their LSAT score was an anomaly.

[InTheHouse]

I consider myself to be a decently smart person. I did ok on the LSAT and was accepted to a T14 law school. However, I did nowhere near stellar and was certainly carried by other factors. My main area of weakness was logic games.

While I now acknowledge that the LSAT has no bearing on the rest of my life, I still have the thought that it may be indicative of law school performance. I've worked with numerous attorney and have seen the materials of friends who are law students. NOTHING bears any resemblance to logic games.

What do you all think?

That you passed up thousands of dollars in scholarship money and/or admission to better schools by not getting better on the most learnable part of the LSAT suggests that you'll leave "money" on the table at other critical moments in your legal career by not doing your due diligence.

^ That is probably worst anyone can say and its mostly horseshit. You're fine. You're at a good school. Just worry about things you can control. Seriously. Worrying about shit like this is what makes law students go bonkers.

[RZ5646]

If you mean does having a high LSAT score cause you to be successful, the answer is obviously no, except insofar as that score gets you into a good school. High scores might be correlated with success just because smart and hardworking people tend to get higher scores, but a high score doesn't guarantee anything or say much about you as a person.

Just to throw in more anecdotal evidence, I know a guy who got in the 140s and is now in a public defender in an okay city and seems to enjoy his life quite a bit. TLS conventional wisdom says he should be starving in a gutter somewhere, but he's doing alright for himself. In contrast, that TLS1776 guy who wrote a 180 guide never even went to law school and according to his website has been bouncing around entry-level office jobs for years.

Finally, personally, I think LG should be replaced with another RC or LR. Those sections must be more relevant to lawyering than LG, unless LG is just supposed to be a test of one's work ethic, which since it's very learnable seems plausible to me.

[MattM]

Yes, it shows work ethic ( which does not always translate into success, but often is a part of success)

Let's say you have a 3.75 GPA applicant....they don't study too much for the LSAT and get a mid 150's score. What does it say about the applicant? they were not willing to put in the work for an exam that the results could be literally tens of thousands of dollars and better job prospects with a better school....if they can't put in the work for the LSAT, what makes you think they would put in the work for law school.

That is why I am impressed by a 3.0/178 type more than the first applicant who raises a lot of red flags for me. Despite a weak GPA that person studied their ass off and didn't give up.

I don't understand why someone would punt away a 3.7+ GPA on the LSAT because they did not have the drive

[Pneumonia]

Nothing at all about the test is inherently indicative; you don't need to be thinking about this now that the test is over. Of course things like quick thinking, good thinking, work ethic, determination etc are all important in law school, but I know lots and lots of people with all of those characteristics who did poorly on the LSAT.

There is a minor correlation that people always bring up between 1L success and LSAT score, but its nothing more than that and shouldn't really affect the way an individual thinks about him or herself- especially now that you've already been accepted.

It feels strange that the test is meaningless after you've been admitted, and so people will sometimes fight against that fact. It is nonetheless true.

[mentat]

Higher LSAT scores correlate with better career outcomes, in general. If you're asking if it's possible to have a middling LSAT and still be a successful attorney, of course the answer is YES, but pretty much everything will be harder for you (unless your parents are Biglaw partners). Law is a uniquely prestige-obsessed profession and it's simply more difficult to get your foot in the door from lower ranked schools. High LSAT scores also lead to higher scholarships and less debt. That being siad, you're already in at a T14 so most of this won't affect you.

However, I wouldn't call the correlation between 1L success and LSAT score "minor." If I recall correctly, it is 0.4 according to LSAC, which is quite significant. Intelligence correlates with LSAT performance. Thinking otherwise is a mistake.

[radio1nowhere]

That is why I am impressed by a 3.0/178 type more than the first applicant who raises a lot of red flags for me. Despite a weak GPA that person studied their ass off and didn't give up.

At the same time, perhaps that GPA shows that the person didn't study their butt off for four years in undergrad. It only took me one semester to study sufficiently for the LSAT, but it took years of day-in, day-out work to keep my GPA up!

[MattM]

That is why I am impressed by a 3.0/178 type more than the first applicant who raises a lot of red flags for me. Despite a weak GPA that person studied their ass off and didn't give up.

At the same time, perhaps that GPA shows that the person didn't study their butt off for four years in undergrad. It only took me one semester to study sufficiently for the LSAT, but it took years of day-in, day-out work to keep my GPA up!

the reasoning in this argument is flawed because .....there are so many factors that make up a GPA that you can't make the leap that because one app has a higher GPA than another that person is smarter.......A person with a 3.8 but took courses like Basket weaving or History of Rock and Roll isn't smarter than a 3.25 STEM major.

tldr: not all GPA's are created equal because of diff schools/profs/inflation(deflation)/major.....so LSAT is better indicator

[radio1nowhere]

.

[Pneumonia]

Nothing like a discussion with 60 or so 173+'ers to convince you of how little bearing the LSAT has on success. It is literally worthless beyond getting you in the door to a good school with good money; beyond that it's the school that does the work. So practically it bears on your opportunities for success, but inherently in doesn't really bear on anything.

[RZ5646]

Is there some "theory of psychometrics" book we can refer people to when these threads pop up? Someone asks a ridiculous question about the LSAT every week or so.