3.61 GPA, Very good Resume, Good LORS, LSATS not good. Forum

[WhiteyCakes]

Actually, I did not realize how pejorative the word guido was. I'm Italian too. I thought it was a term for the stereotypical Jersey Shore personality. My bad, edited. Your post, however...

It is a term for the stereotypical Jersey Shore personality, but it does carry ethnic connotations. However. I couldn't care less. I've never been disadvantaged by my ethnicity in my life. If anything, it has opened doors for me. I couldn't care less what a Florida State alum has to say about it.

Keep digging those holes...

[WhiskeynCoke]

Stop treating the LSAT like it's a fucking sociology quiz you half-ass study 2 days for. You need to seriously grind this shit out, 20+ hours per week, taking atleast 30+ practice tests, for at least 6 months if you're serious about law school. A 3 digit number resulting from a 3.5 hour test is worth more than EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT YOU, including your 4 years of UG and your super average resume, when it comes to law school admissions. If you refuse to take this seriously and work hard now, don't bother going to law school because you'll be toast (and $200,000 in debt with no job prospects).

Oh yea, and volunteering at a couple places and working part time through college is probably around the 50th percentile when it comes to resumes. Your LSAT score is even worse. This means that there are at least 20,000 applicants currently more competitive than you. Retake that shit or don't waste the app fees.

[Legacy Rabbit]

Oh Boy.....

When the truth hurts...

The above poster is absolute correct. I thought like the OP. I worked full time throughout UG, thinking my resume and LORs from my philo and poli sci prof would help "carry" a sub par LSAT; it did not.

You mentioned in your post that you received two great LORs from a philo prof and a poli sci professor, my two majors are in both disciplines and I suggest going back to the fundamentals before you start practicing timed tests/sections.

Help to get out of the 150s funk:
1. I suggest outlining Copi's Intro to Logic (find at least a 12th edition). Outline Chapters 1-13 and do the homework at the end of each chapter.

2. David Chalmers text, Philosophy of Mind. There is one reading from Jaewong Kim, I believe, regarding mental causation. I really liked this reading because the author breaks down the contemporary understanding of causation. Actually this whole book is helpful. Reading philosophers who tackle the issues of necessity, determinism (causality), is a good way to begin understanding "LSAT language"

3. and of course, Powerscore Logic Games Bible

OP, clearly you are improving. A SEVEN point increase is no easy feat, but you need to do it again to even have a small chance in hell of even being considered in top 50.

Stop treating the LSAT like it's a fucking sociology quiz you half-ass study 2 days for. You need to seriously grind this shit out, 20+ hours per week, taking atleast 30+ practice tests, for at least 6 months if you're serious about law school. A 3 digit number resulting from a 3.5 hour test is worth more than EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT YOU, including your 4 years of UG and your super average resume, when it comes to law school admissions. If you refuse to take this seriously and work hard now, don't bother going to law school because you'll be toast (and $200,000 in debt with no job prospects).

Oh yea, and volunteering at a couple places and working part time through college is probably around the 50th percentile when it comes to resumes. Your LSAT score is even worse. This means that there are at least 20,000 applicants currently more competitive than you. Retake that shit or don't waste the app fees.

[yankihote]

Have to agree with Chickensoup on this one.

The idea that the LSAT is learnable or that hard work gets you a 170+ is seriously flawed. I find it interesting that everyone is criticizing his logic with faulty logic of their own. It is true that saying someone isnt good enough to score based on their first attempt is wrong. By the same token, however, claiming that your 170+ score is due to hard work alone is just as wrong.

The LSAT is a test scored based on a percentile ranking system. The details of how that works are described in plenty of posts on this forum, but what is true regardless is that the system is a purely mathematical one. When LSAT says that a score of 173 is the 99th percentile, they mean it. However much you think the test is learnable, the fact is that the vast majority of people do not find that to be the case. The LSAT assumes that everyone tries their hardest and maxes out their potential on test. While there is always some test day bias, the fact is that the percentile rank is the difference between test takers natural ability. While jumping from 140 to 160 is certainly possible, it is likely only possible for someone who would had the ability to score at 160 from the beginning. The only "learnable" aspect is the preparation. The rest really is ability and most people cannot score in the 170s.

The OP should try his best. We do not know his true potential based on his first try. However chickensoup is right when he points out that for a forum that religiously claims "t-14 or bust" to then go and say the test is learnable is a strange thing. If the LSAT is percentile based, and law school admissions are a numbers game, then the posters in this thread are basically saying that anyone with a high GPA can get into the t - 14 with hard work alone. It's just not true.

[Davidbentley]

Have to agree with Chickensoup on this one.

The idea that the LSAT is learnable or that hard work gets you a 170+ is seriously flawed. I find it interesting that everyone is criticizing his logic with faulty logic of their own. It is true that saying someone isnt good enough to score based on their first attempt is wrong. By the same token, however, claiming that your 170+ score is due to hard work alone is just as wrong.

The LSAT is a test scored based on a percentile ranking system. The details of how that works are described in plenty of posts on this forum, but what is true regardless is that the system is a purely mathematical one. When LSAT says that a score of 173 is the 99th percentile, they mean it. However much you think the test is learnable, the fact is that the vast majority of people do not find that to be the case. The LSAT assumes that everyone tries their hardest and maxes out their potential on test. While there is always some test day bias, the fact is that the percentile rank is the difference between test takers natural ability. While jumping from 140 to 160 is certainly possible, it is likely only possible for someone who would had the ability to score at 160 from the beginning. The only "learnable" aspect is the preparation. The rest really is ability and most people cannot score in the 170s.

The OP should however try his best. We do not know his true potential based on his first try. However chickensoup is right when he points out that for a forum that religiously claims "t-14 or bust" to then go and say the test is learnable is a strange thing. If the LSAT is percentile based, and law school admissions are a numbers game, then the posters in this thread are basically saying that anyone with a high GPA can get into the t - 14 with hard work alone. It's just not true.

This post is terrible.

[yankihote]

How so?

[yankihote]

Case in point:

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... erdata.pdf

[Tiago Splitter]

chickensoup is right when he points out that for a forum that religiously claims "t-14 or bust" to then go and say the test is learnable is a strange thing.

How are these two things at odds? TLS, of course, isn't T-14 or bust. Going for free or close to free to a lot of non T-14 schools is a reasonable plan as long as you don't want BigLaw. But even if TLS was T-14 or bust it would have nothing to do with whether or not the test is learnable.

If the LSAT is percentile based, and law school admissions are a numbers game, then the posters in this thread are basically saying that anyone with a high GPA can get into the t - 14 with hard work alone. It's just not true.

Let me tell you one thing that might blow your mind: Everybody taking the test this December could score a 180. Every single person. Shocking, I know. People think the LSAT is curved like a math final is curved, but it doesn't work that way.

To your other point, anyone with a high GPA can get into the T-14 with enough work. People get into places like UVA every year with low 160s with the right GPA. It might take a year or two, and for most of us that kind of nearly endless time frame (LOL) is just not workable.

Perhaps most importantly, the majority of people going to law school shouldn't be going. "The test isn't learnable" is not a reason to then go pay huge money for a crappy school with no employment prospects. Not scoring highly on the LSAT can happen for many reasons, but none of those reasons really matter. If you don't score highly enough, you either need to retake or find something else.

[yankihote]

Tiago:

I agree with many of the points you made. Perhaps I should have rephrased myself when I talked about getting into the T-14. What I was really driving at was the fact that most people can't get 170+s.

But, you are saying that everyone could get 180 on the test. The fact remains though that the vast majority don't. It's true that claiming that this is due to a lack of raw intelligence may be wrong. At the same time, the idea that the difference between those that get 180s and those that score in the low 160s is due purely to preparation just isn't true.

Yes, the OP shouldn't be put down for a low initial attempt. But I still think that many TLSers claim that everyone can learn this test. The problem I see is that just because you were able to improve your score considerably through study doesn't mean that everyone can. I think the LSAT percentile data over the last 20 years goes a long way in showing that to be the case.

[Tiago Splitter]

The point about everyone being able to get a 180 was only made to discuss the way the test is curved. Nothing more.

I don't think everybody can break 170 but I think a significant portion of test takers could. I also think that with enough time and effort a substantial majority can break 160, which for most is as low as an LSAT score should be to make law school an acceptable choice.

There are those people out there who can't break 160 even with all the time in the world, and I'm sure we'd both agree that those people should quickly move on to other endeavors. Probably 9/10 test takers falls somewhere in between "this thing is easy I got a 172 on my cold diag" and "I've studied for six months and can't break 150." It's all of those people in the middle who should study their ass off for a really important test, score as highly as possible, and see what options develop. Many of them still shouldn't go to law school, but the time spent studying is going to be worth it for most.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Have to agree with Chickensoup on this one.

The idea that the LSAT is learnable or that hard work gets you a 170+ is seriously flawed. I find it interesting that everyone is criticizing his logic with faulty logic of their own. It is true that saying someone isnt good enough to score based on their first attempt is wrong. By the same token, however, claiming that your 170+ score is due to hard work alone is just as wrong.

The LSAT is a test scored based on a percentile ranking system. The details of how that works are described in plenty of posts on this forum, but what is true regardless is that the system is a purely mathematical one. When LSAT says that a score of 173 is the 99th percentile, they mean it. However much you think the test is learnable, the fact is that the vast majority of people do not find that to be the case. The LSAT assumes that everyone tries their hardest and maxes out their potential on test. While there is always some test day bias, the fact is that the percentile rank is the difference between test takers natural ability. While jumping from 140 to 160 is certainly possible, it is likely only possible for someone who would had the ability to score at 160 from the beginning. The only "learnable" aspect is the preparation. The rest really is ability and most people cannot score in the 170s.

The OP should try his best. We do not know his true potential based on his first try. However chickensoup is right when he points out that for a forum that religiously claims "t-14 or bust" to then go and say the test is learnable is a strange thing. If the LSAT is percentile based, and law school admissions are a numbers game, then the posters in this thread are basically saying that anyone with a high GPA can get into the t - 14 with hard work alone. It's just not true.

I pretty much disagree with most everything you say in this post. Based on my experience teaching the lsat, hard work can lead to substantial improvements for most people. I think most people can at least score in the high 160s if they work hard enough. Sure, there are some people who try so hard and just don't seem to get it, but that was the minority of people based on my experience. You need to keep in mind a few different things: 1) most people do not prep much for the lsat, even people who take lsat classes, 2) the test is incredibly time pressured--the vast majority of people aren't used to taking a test this fast and aren't comfortable with it. A big part of proper prep is getting much better at going faster, which happens with practice (this is a big reason why games is the easiest section to improve for a lot of people, and 3) most people don't have much experience with formal logic and logical fallacies. Sometimes these concepts can take awhile to get really comfortable with if it's completely new to a person, but, once again, a lot of practice can lead to significant improvements.

There's a lot more to say on the topic, but I'll stop there.

[helix23]

The idea that the LSAT is learnable or that hard work gets you a 170+ is seriously flawed. I find it interesting that everyone is criticizing his logic with faulty logic of their own. It is true that saying someone isnt good enough to score based on their first attempt is wrong. By the same token, however, claiming that your 170+ score is due to hard work alone is just as wrong.

I'd just like to say that when I took the LSAT cold for the first time I got around a 154. After that, I took a full/timed practice test every weekend and would stay late after work every night on the weekdays practicing different sections over and over again for around 6 months. It was exhausting, but my score slowly increased with time, until I was getting a 171 every time I took a full/timed test. Then I took the LSAT officially and got a 171. I didn't take any courses. Just endless practicing.

You want to sit here and tell me my hard work alone didn't get me that score?

[North]

This guy ^

[yankihote]

I am honestly not claiming that anyone didn't work hard to achieve their score. I worked hard for mine, too. But what I am saying, for instance in North's case, is that North was likely capable of around a 171 from the start, but only lacked the practice necessary to achieve that score on his cold diagnostic. In my mind, this doesn't make the LSAT learnable but just means that the LSAT assumes that you've already put in the hours before test day.

To Tiago's point: It is true that anyone could get 180 in the sense that anyone scoring -0 on the entire test will receive one regardless of how anyone else performs. But, the LSAT is a test which uses historical data to rank sets of questions by difficulty level and then is compiled as a mix of these questions so as to ensure a historically normal bell curve. Yes, flukes are possible and perfectly normal bell curves probably never happen but more or less this holds true.

Finally, about the ability to do the test quickly: I agree that speed is an important factor in LSAT success. But I also think that the ability to process information quickly is a main component of "natural ability". Yes, the LSAT does not probe your understanding of quantum mechanics, but if, try as you might, you cannot finish an LG section within 35 mins, the test might be a little too hard for you to achieve a very high score.

[helix23]

I am honestly not claiming that anyone didn't work hard to achieve their score. I worked hard for mine, too. But what I am saying, for instance in North's case, is that North was likely capable of around a 171 from the start, but only lacked the practice necessary to achieve that score on his cold diagnostic. In my mind, this doesn't make the LSAT learnable but just means that the LSAT assumes that you've already put in the hours before test day.

I'm not sure why I am going to argue with you, but here goes. What you're saying is contradictory. The LSAT is learnable to the degree you know what kind of questions to expect and what kind of answers they are looking for. You learn how to manage your time for each section. Learning requires hours. So the LSAT is learnable. Just like everything else that that doesn't require a natural, prodigous talent. You learn how to drive. The more hours you put in, the better driver you will be. You learn the mechanics and physics of the road, as well as the dimensions of your car. Maybe someone out there was born with a faster reaction speed (or better test taking abilities), but this is the exception and not the rule. And certainly there might be people out there who will never learn how to break 170 on the LSAT, but for the majority of people they do have the ability.

Short version: Even though you are trying to argue the opposite, what you are really saying is that the LSAT is learnable. North was capable of scoring a 171. He just had to learn how to do it. Putting in hours = learning. Most people are capable. Most people can learn how to score 170+. LSAT is learnable.

[yankihote]

I think your argument boils down to splitting hairs about terminology. Maybe I should rephrase and say that the test isn't purely learnable. I'll be reiterating myself again but, the fact remains that people take the test very seriously. In other words, people show up on test day prepared. And while there may be some test day bias (underperforming, etc.) the fact is that the vast majority of test takers do not score 170+. To say that the difference between those who score lower and those that score higher on any given administration boils down purely to differences in preparation and study is just wrong.

I'd be the last person to claim that the LSAT is a perfect test. But to say that MOST people can score that high given that they study is to undermine the entire system that a test like the LSAT is based on.

Please refer to my above posted link. Repeat test takers on average score very slightly (1 point or so) better on their next attempt. Yes, there are a few who have larger jumps. But on average those who score a 160, for instance, do not do substantially better and certainly do not score 170+ on their next attempt.

[Legacy Rabbit]

A lot of people just "take the test", not realizing this test is unlike any other test they have ever taken before.

If most people take practice LSAT test in "LSAT conditions" and make a point to learn "LSAT language" and lastly take into account time, they would do better; however, a lot of people do not.

I am just saying that some people who take this test and keep scoring the same are not attempting to learn the test to their full potential.

I have heard information that the average American reads at a third grade level. You may be able to go through college and get a degree reading like that, but it is doubtful you can leave the 140s on a LSAT reading like that.

I think your argument boils down to splitting hairs about terminology. Maybe I should rephrase and say that the test isn't purely learnable. I'll be reiterating myself again but, the fact remains that people take the test very seriously. In other words, people show up on test day prepared. And while there may be some test day bias (underperforming, etc.) the fact is that the vast majority of test takers do not score 170+. To say that the difference between those who score lower and those that score higher on any given administration boils down purely to differences in preparation and study is just wrong.

I'd be the last person to claim that the LSAT is a perfect test. But to say that MOST people can score that high given that they study is to undermine the entire system that a test like the LSAT is based on.

Please refer to my above posted link. Repeat test takers on average score very slightly (1 point or so) better on their next attempt. Yes, there are a few who have larger jumps. But on average those who score a 160, for instance, do not do substantially better and certainly do not score 170+ on their next attempt.

[LetsGoLAW]

Ignore many of these posters. It is ridiculous to assume that everyone can bring their score up 10 to 15 points. In most likelihood, you are simply not smart enough to get into any law school worth going to. Forget law school and find a new career.

Lol. 148 > 163. Thanks to TLS + hard work + passion.

TITCR.

[North]

Sweet necro brah.

But 152 168, here.

[sinfiery]

There is no test or skill in this world that isn't learnable by the definition used in this topic. IQ tests, by definition, are not learnable. By the empirical benchmark for making a test learnable set in this topic, IQ tests are learnable.


Just thought I'd put that out there.

And certainly there might be people out there who will never learn how to break 170 on the LSAT, but for the majority of people they do have the ability.

This is the only part he is arguing against. You stated it as a matter of fact, he disagrees. I don't know.

[wert3813]

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[John_rizzy_rawls]

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[John_rizzy_rawls]

I will be taking out less than 50K in debt. Both my parents are lawyers with large rolodexes, so I doubt I will be doing doc review. Thanks for your concern though.

Ha. Resorting to ethnic slurs. Impressive. If my ancestors weren't building Rome while yours were swinging from trees, I'd be slightly offended.

I don't give a fuck. I don't feel compelled to try that hard. I have done fine my entire life and I am sure I will continue to do fine.

3 Things:

1. Your empire founding ancestors would LOL/ at your desire to simply do 'fine' despite all of your privilege.

2. Allow me to introduce myself: some of my ancestors were indeed tree swingers who at some point came out of the forest and out of segregation. Now one of their descendants (hi) is scoring a better LSAT score and doing a far finer job of maximizing precious planetary space by being useful than the descendant of whatever lineage was passed down from the incestual idiocy of Commodus or Domitian.

3. I've already ignored your response to this.

G'day <3

[sinfiery]

If it matters he has proven time and again that he's an internet jerk. Just saying terrible rude things on here for the point of saying them.

I was referring to yankihote's comments, not CS. Albeit similar, CS tends to be more extreme and quicker to make assumptions I would not.