Should I start over?

SoccerMomGenie
Sat, 16 May 2015 20:55:23 +0000

The law school you attend will have a huge impact on your career opportunities, with long-term impact. I agree with the rest … your new plan IS a good idea! Study hard, re-take the exam, and apply early to the same or better law schools. I also agree with you that should should get some work experience (and/or internship experience) during your “year off.” I do NOT recommend focusing only on studying for the LSAT. You’d be bound to drive yourself stir-crazy and get yourself hyper-fixated on the exam if that’s all you do. Not only that, but schools will want to know how you spent your time after graduation, so it’s important to do something else productive.

I think that balance and maturity and perspective go a long way toward supporting success in law school as well as success on major exams (I’m thinking about the bar exam, in particular). Students who have worked for even a little while in the real world are usually better at managing time, handling stress, etc. I don’t know statistics, only anecdotes, but I’ve seen lots of examples of students who had to study for the bar exam while working full or part-time doing better on the bar exam than students who had the entire summer off to study. If you exercise a bit of the maturity and self-discipline that you’ll need to do well in law school, you’ll be able to balance study for the LSAT with another commitment, even the commitment of a full-time job. Put another way, if you’re lucky enough to find a decent full-time (40 hrs/ week) job, you should not turn down that opportunity to study for the LSAT; you should have plenty of time to study evenings and on weekends. If, however, you would like to limit your work to a part-time job during the summer, that would be fine. That would give you more than enough additional time to study hard for the LSAT. You can re-take the test in October and then move on to a full-time job or internship after that.

Good luck!