<p>I’m going to disagree a bit with some of the advice given in this thread. I think people are extrapolating too much from their own and/or their children’s experience. You have to adjust your appoach to law school admissions based on individual circumstances. </p>
<p>For example, I don’t think ANYONE should PLAN on taking the LSAT twice. Yes, if you get a 149, it makes sense to study and retake it. But, it would be better to study enough to get your desired score the first time. I personally think it would be better to defer taking the LSAT if you aren’t getting your desired scores than it would be to take it and then study and take it a second time. One reason is that LOTS of law schools average and so taking it twice can hurt. It isn’t like the SAT where taking it two or three times is the norm. </p>
<p>My own advice would be to take a practice test under timed conditions, preferably in a quasi-noisy environment, like a college library. It would be even better to take a few of them. How you score will give you some idea of how much time you need to devote to studying for it. It will also give you a better idea of whether the study methods you are using and/or the course you are takiing is effective. </p>
<p>Also, while I have a kid who is simply gifted at taking standardized tests–I’m not, BTW, based on what I’ve “heard,” halldog’s D should NOT be looking at TestMasters or PowerScore. Can anyone who has actually taken them comment? </p>
<p>My kid’s through law school and the bar exam, but the “word” among her friends a couple of years back is that these courses were teh ones to take if you had at least a 160 or so on your diagnostic. If you didn’t, then you were better off with Kaplan. That’s just hearsay, my kid didn’t take a course, but that was the “word.” In the opinion of kids’ group of friends and acquaintances applying to law school, Kaplan was a better program for people scoring in the 150s on practice tests, and a waste of time for anyone who started at a 165+. On the flipside, though, they didn’t think TestMasters was good if you started with an average score. </p>
<p>Again, I have no personal experience. However, that was the collective opinion of my kid’s group.</p>
<p>Jonri, YOu may be right about the prep for the LSAT. My son took Testmasters and also studied the bibles. He went to the library every day for 6-8 hours for 4 months and got under 150 as his high score. Maybe he would have been better off with Kaplan or Princeton. However, he did feel that the course was great.In his opinion, it was his own personal test taking skills that were questionable.</p>
<p>As far as retakes, many law schools now take the highest scores given. I would guess that if a student thinks that they have a chance to significantly raise their scores, why not retake? The problem is that some law schools don’t take the highest scores but the average of the scores. Thus, folks really need to know what the law school’s policy is regarding LSAT scores.</p>
<p>I’ve read that a “pre-law” major is not viewed well by law schools. I am majoring in economics and I can minor in “law and society”. Will law schools view that minor poorly?</p>
<p>jonri- interesting tidbit of info re: what type of student might benefit from Kaplan vs. testmasters.<br>
just to add another bit of anecdotal info. My own kid’s diagnostic was in the
150’s. She took Kaplan course and used the Bibles too. Her score went up about 15 points. So in her case, the Kaplan course worked for her. Could never understand the hatred towards Kaplan.
She also liked the scheduling of the Kaplan course as it worked for her method of study.
–One Kaplan course a week- and she used the rest of the week for alot of self-study and practice.</p>
<p>I think the key to any of the various testing methods is guidance, self-study- & discipline and that ability to do ok on standardized tests.
some kids are just better testtakers than others. and I know that some here feel that if you study long and hard enough, you’ll be able to get a 175- but I just don’t buy into that. Vast improvement yes- but most of us are going to plateau at a certain point.</p>
<p>hey taxguy, good stuff. just wondering when you said taht the undergraduate school you went to doesnt matter, lets say you go to a REALLY obscure, tiny , sub-third tier undergrad, or you go to an online undergrad college will taht matter??</p>
<p>I don’t care if you attend a really small undergrad, a big undergrad, a state school, an ivy school, MIT, a liberal arts college, as long as it is accredited, it doesn’t matter for law school admission. I have had a number of questions about this statement. What part of it do folks not understand? I don 't think I can make it any clearer.</p>
<p>I’d say it matters a tiny bit. For example, if you have two candidates that both have the same LSAT scores, GPA, well-written personal statements, and great recommendations, the reputation of the school could go into the pot along with such other factors as geographic diversity, whether one was a poli-sci major and one was an engineering major, leadership activities, internships, etc. </p>
<p>If you look at the number of applicants for some schools, you’ll see that there are thousands of applications for an average of 150 seats in a class. Even if they admit quadruple the number of seats for purposes of ultimately filling the class, the Admissions Committees of selective schools are likely to see many candidates with equal numbers. The Admissions Committees have to distinguish candidates somehow…hence the soft factors can come into play for admissions and wait-lists. I would agree that it’s probably a much less important soft factor than many others, but I’d say that coming out of a tough, well known school would be a soft factor that might help more than coming out out of internet college (if other admissions criteria were equivalent.) The student from the tough, well known school is probably not going to be admitted over the student from the internet college who has a much higher LSAT/GPA.</p>
<p>It is an inexact science though. </p>
<p>My kid did get onto wait lists that were reaches according to his LSAT score, and got admitted to one reach school. This could have happened due to very strong soft factors. </p>
<p>My kid’s LSAT score is well-below the lowest scores for admitted students at his transfer law school, and yet he is still performing well academically. (My fear is that the LSAT score is a predictor of testing abilities for the bar, but we have a little more time to find out…)</p>
<p>Neonzeus, I spoke with a number of admission officers. Admittedly, they tend to lie if it would get more applicants to their school. However, everyone that I spoke with noted that the cache of the school was almost irrelevant. I guess the word “almost” validates your points somewhat. However, they noted that they really try to base their decisions on both hard and soft factors without consideration to the name of the school unless a school is particularly well known for grade inflation/deflation.</p>
<p>We’ve had this argument before. IMO, where you got your undergrad degree matters more to some law schools than others. </p>
<p>It probably matters most at Yale. Why? Because most admissions decisions are made by the faculty, and some faculty DO care about where you went to college. Heck, some of the faculty had openly said that. </p>
<p>The lower down the pecking order you go, the less it matters, for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>But looking at the number of students from various undergraduate institutions at various top law schools, it’s hard to believe that the excellent representation of e.g., Williams, came about without any weighting of the quality of the college in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Yes, you can get into any top law school from any accredited college. Indeed, I’ve known several law school “super stars” who went to unknown colleges. But I still think it’s easier to get into a top law school from a top college.</p>
<p>1.) I think there’s some marginal boost in the few situations where you’re applying to a top tier law school, you have mediocre grades by that school’s standards, a high LSAT by that school’s standards, and you attended something like a top-ten college.</p>
<p>2.) I think you WILL get penalized for going somewhere like the University of Phoenix Online.</p>
<p>3.) Other than that, I don’t think it matters terribly much.</p>
<p>Jonri and BlueDevil: I think you both make sense. We tend to forget that the Admissions Committees are usually comprised of professors, who bring their biases and own experiences (usually from upper tier schools) to the process.</p>
<p>In at least one of S’s reach applications, he spoke to a pleasant admissions person who had noticed something in his personal statement relating to a parent’s illness. This admissions officer said that my S’s application was being hand-carried to a professor on the admissions committee who had a relative with the same slightly rare illness…(S was ultimately admitted to that school). Based on my kid’s experience, I’ll attest that they do pay attention to details of the applications. I just think that they get so many applications from outstanding candidates, that numbers have become the easiest way to make cuts.</p>
<p>Ad to admissions officers lying to your face, I want to address that. In any conversation, it is impossible to tell whether someone is truly inadmissable. In every application process, there are outliers with special circumstances who are admitted. Yes, it is the job of the admission officer to get as many apps as possible, but it also NOT his/her job to discourage anyone from applying because upon deep reading of the situation, the obstacles may truly be surmountable.</p>
<p>By the way, back in the dark ages, I was told by every single admissions officer that I was highly unlikely to be admitted except for one school where I was taking post ungrad courses. No law school official would give me any heads up at all. </p>
<p>I was given a piece of very important advice that still holds in applying to any program or position. Get an interview or talk to the person who will be looking at your app as close to possible to the perusal date. A general comment that someone makes when s/he does this thousands of times over the course of the year means nothing. When you talk to someone and the main points of the conversation are still fresh on the brain, it makes a very strong impression and can impact the decision. </p>
<p>Still, the LSAT is a very important piece of all of this that cannot easily be mitigated. Bad grades some years ago can be ignored with sterling performance more recently. If you clearly don’t test well, cannot crack a certain point on one pivotal test, you are done. </p>
<p>Taxguy, I have a son who is going to give accounting a try for college. He is an excellent student, but tests abysmally on general knowledge type tests. He can get over a 700 on a SAT2 subject test, a 4 on an AP, but can’t crack 550 on the SAT1 sections even in a practice setting. Went the ACT route for a little better, but not much. He is thinking (in a distance) of law school after getting a CPA</p>
<p>cpofthehouse, good luck to your son. Yes, people do have biases, and I am sure that these biases translate somewhat to admissions. I also think that the personal statement is important. However, I can only speak for my son’s experience. An y school whose bottom 25% that wasn’t within my son’s LSAT by as lettle as 2 ponts or more didn’t accept him. We didnt’ see one benefit of strong soft factors other than two schools putting hm on waitlist, which is still a form of rejection. Every school that law school predictor said would reject him, based solely on numbers, did so. </p>
<p>I would agreew with you, which I also stated, if you are not admissible ( near the school’s medians) based on your LSAT and GPA, you are done for unless you are a URM. Soft factors only matter for the margins for those that are very close numbers wise or to decide between two almost equal applicants.</p>
<p>I do want to clarify what we mean by “soft factors.” In law school admissions, when people talk about soft factors making a difference, they’re not usually referring to an extra certification, or bosses who liked you, or things like that. Generally for a “soft factor” to make a difference we should be talking about something like a few years as a journalist embedded in a unit in Iraq, or a stint with the Peace Corps, or a published novel or something like that.</p>
<p>adtobe - where you go to undergrad can matter a lot if your file is being read by committee members at a reasonably selective law school. I suppose it wouldn’t matter if the target law school is about on par with the sub-tier3 undergrad school. My post 45 has more to say about this if you are interested.</p>
<p>The LSAT is a ranking test. The top percentile is going to include right about 1% of test takers. So while you hold out eternal hope that everything is a game and the rules can be manipulated, some people game the game better than others.</p>
<p>E.g., I played tennis for years and years, and I am still a lousy player. I am better now than the first year I started playing, but unfortunately not by much.</p>
<p>I am glad to hear that Law School Admittance is based primarily on GPA and LSAT scores. I took an on-line prep course through Kaplan. I got a 700 on the LSAT. My GPA is 3.60. I will be graduating from NYU’s Stern School of Business. When I talked to NYU’s law school advisor, he told me a some other prospective students that law schools do not want college graduates. that we should work for a few years first.</p>
<p>Needless to say I did not apply to any law schools. </p>
<p>I do have a job. So who knows maybe in afew years…</p>