LSAT in... I got a 150

[bigs5068]

I don't think MC questions on the bar are much of an indicator that you will be a good attorney, but it is what it is. A few points here and there make a huge difference again when you go to law school the curve is brutal. Everybody is intelligent and a few points can mean the difference between being the top 10% of the class or the top 30% of the class. When employers come to interview at a number of schools they will tell career services we ONLY want applicants in the top 20% of the class. If you are not in the top 20% of the class you cannot even apply. If you were in the top 21% of the class then you can't apply. When you argue cases almost always both sides will have good arguments and put in hundreds of hours of work. Being one percent better than the other side wins the case and gets your client 5 million dollars, gets him out of jail, etc.  It is a strict profession and it is far from fair or accurate, but it is what it is. The logic games suck I don't know anyone that has every said logic games AWESOME! However, it is something you have to deal with and plug through. I imagine most people do well on the other sections, but the logic games make you put in some real work. It sucks, but it is something you have to deal with. Again, when you go to law school you may want to do Criminal Law, but you will still have to take property although it will teach you nothing about Criminal Law it is something you have to deal with.

[MikePing]

I just don't know what the big deal is. Why is a 150 so much worse than a 155? Why is a 145 so much worse than a 150? It's like a 4-6 answer difference. I know percentiles play a big role in it, but still, it just doesn't seem very fair. Logic Games can't possibly be a law school performance indicator.

There are several reasons it's a big deal.  First, LSAT+GPA is the best known indicator of how you are going to perform in law school during your first year.  Law schools use regression analysis and can usually get equations that are a .6-.8 correlation.  That means that the school can reasonably predict your likely performance at their school by usuing your LSAT score.  Second, law schools are competitive and they want smart students.  A 150 is somewhere around the 44th percentile, which means that most of the people who took the test scored better.  A 155 is roughly 20% better, and is better than most people who took the test.  It is a large difference, even though it isn't that many questions.  Third, and maybe most importantly, US News law school rankings are big business.  The school has to report your LSAT if they let you in.  The lower the average LSAT at the school, the lower it is considered in prestige by US News.  They reserve the below-average LSAT spots for students who bring meaningful value to the law class.  Think about it like a college offering sports scholarships, there are minimum GPA/SAT requirements, but the scholarship kids do not come anywhere close to the average student's qualifications.  But the scholarship applicant brings meaningful value to the sports program.  Finally, law schools know that high scores are the rusult of dilligence on the students part.  A good score is an objective indication of your committment to doing well in law school. 

Good luck, whatever you decide, please let us know how it goes.

   

[LSATFailure2011]

I just don't know what the big deal is. Why is a 150 so much worse than a 155? Why is a 145 so much worse than a 150? It's like a 4-6 answer difference. I know percentiles play a big role in it, but still, it just doesn't seem very fair. Logic Games can't possibly be a law school performance indicator.
[/quote/]

There are several reasons it's a big deal.  First, LSAT+GPA is the best known indicator of how you are going to perform in law school during your first year.  Law schools use regression analysis and can usually get equations that are a .6-.8 correlation.  That means that the school can reasonably predict your likely performance at their school by usuing your LSAT score.  Second, law schools are competitive and they want smart students.  A 150 is somewhere around the 44th percentile, which means that most of the people who took the test scored better.  A 155 is roughly 20% better, and is better than most people who took the test.  It is a large difference, even though it isn't that many questions.  Third, and maybe most importantly, US News law school rankings are big business.  The school has to report your LSAT if they let you in.  The lower the average LSAT at the school, the lower it is considered in prestige by US News.  They reserve the below-average LSAT spots for students who bring meaningful value to the law class.  Think about it like a college offering sports scholarships, there are minimum GPA/SAT requirements, but the scholarship kids do not come anywhere close to the average student's qualifications.  But the scholarship applicant brings meaningful value to the sports program.  Finally, law schools know that high scores are the rusult of dilligence on the students part.  A good score is an objective indication of your committment to doing well in law school. 

Good luck, whatever you decide, please let us know how it goes.

   
[/quote

So you are saying that unless I am:

Black, Rich, or have a very high GPA I am screwed


What am I going to do?

I am going to apply to a few schools that I would actually hope to attend for Fall of 2011, and hope for the best. 

I will also start studying for the LSAT, and probably take it again in October. Perhaps I should spring for an intensive review course?

I must say that I am highly skeptical that of courses and tutors for standardized tests. It's not like they give you your money back if your score doesn't improve. The LSAT is an IQ test. Studying will not improve my score any more than 3 pts.

For the record I am not interested in throwing my money away at the Wiedner's, Florida Coastal's, or Thomas Cooley's like some of you may reccommend.

[bigs5068]

There are plenty of successful lawyers from Cooley, Widener, etc. Graduates who pass the bar from those schools are lawyers and often have successful careers. There truly is little difference between a school that would let you in with a 155 or Cooley. If you score a 165+ and have a 3.5 etc you can probably get into a T14 school, but there are 200 ABA schools and only 14 T14 schools. Very and let me repeat the word Very few students get into these schools. The vast majority of lawyers went to a tier 3,4 school. The majority of judges went to a tier 2,3,4 school. Obviously not at the Supreme Court level, but almost any lawyer you meet will not have attended Harvard, Yale, or Berkeley. An employer is not going to be that impressed that you went to a tier 3 school opposed to a tier 4 school. They will care about your performance at the school, but I find it very unlikely any employer in Washington State for example throwing out a Gonzaga students resume and begging someone from University of Seattle to work for them. They are essentially equal schools. Seattle might be the 85th best school I think. Gonzaga is tier 3 I believe. U.S. News ranking is highly inconsistent and if you look back even 3 years you will see schools have huge raises and freefalls. Right now there is a 13 way tie for 93rd place. Look at the formula and you will see it is an absolute joke that really cannot be properly measured outside the top 25 or so schools.

[LSATFailure2011]

There are plenty of successful lawyers from Cooley, Widener, etc. Graduates who pass the bar from those schools are lawyers and often have successful careers. There truly is little difference between a school that would let you in with a 155 or Cooley. If you score a 165+ and have a 3.5 etc you can probably get into a T14 school, but there are 200 ABA schools and only 14 T14 schools. Very and let me repeat the word Very few students get into these schools. The vast majority of lawyers went to a tier 3,4 school. The majority of judges went to a tier 2,3,4 school. Obviously not at the Supreme Court level, but almost any lawyer you meet will not have attended Harvard, Yale, or Berkeley. An employer is not going to be that impressed that you went to a tier 3 school opposed to a tier 4 school. They will care about your performance at the school, but I find it very unlikely any employer in Washington State for example throwing out a Gonzaga students resume and begging someone from University of Seattle to work for them. They are essentially equal schools. Seattle might be the 85th best school I think. Gonzaga is tier 3 I believe. U.S. News ranking is highly inconsistent and if you look back even 3 years you will see schools have huge raises and freefalls. Right now there is a 13 way tie for 93rd place. Look at the formula and you will see it is an absolute joke that really cannot be properly measured outside the top 25 or so schools.

I disagree. There is a difference. I'm not looking to pay top dollar to go to a school that wants me to fail in my first year. Schools like Cooley, accept anyone, giving many unqualified candidates false hope. Their operation is predicated on  a certain number of students flunking out. Wiedner, Florida Coastal, and others operate in a similar fashion. I have read that their professors are instructed to give as many D's as A's.


I would like to go to a school that makes an investment on me. Tier 3 schools do that. My numbers are not pretty. I have a crappy 2.75 GPA and a crappy 150 LSAT.

I am also white.....


My strategy?

Apply to PT Tier 3 programs.....

This minimizes my financial risk substantially, and maximizes my chances of being admitted.

[bigs5068]

No school is designed to fail out students. Why would a school do that? They have to report attrition and when they kick people out they are losing money. However, if someone cannot pass the bar they have an obligation to kick them out, but if every student at an ABA school could pass the bar they would keep them there. I might be wrong, but I know at my school there is no mandatory kick out rate. You can find this out by looking at any schools student handbook. The curves are explicitly listed there and if I am wrong then I am wrong, but don't get information from random people on the internet. Most people that failed out of law school generally did not put in the work. There are exceptions of course, but that is the general rule.

Just think why would a school want to kick out students? Each student is paying them 30k annually if the student is kicked out they are losing money. They are a business and having paying customers is a good thing. However, schools maintain ABA accreditation by keeping a respectable bar passage rate and it would wrong to keep someone in school for 3 years when you know they are not going to pass the bar. I can't think of any logical reason why a law school would want to accept a student and kick them out. They are paying customers. Every school would like to have a 0% attrition rate and 100% bar passage rate. However, that is not the way it generally plays out. Your odds of getting kicked out of a PT tier 3 program are much higher than a full time tier 4 program. At least from my limited experience. 

[MikePing]

I am going to apply to a few schools that I would actually hope to attend for Fall of 2011, and hope for the best. 

I will also start studying for the LSAT, and probably take it again in October. Perhaps I should spring for an intensive review course?

I must say that I am highly skeptical that of courses and tutors for standardized tests. It's not like they give you your money back if your score doesn't improve. The LSAT is an IQ test. Studying will not improve my score any more than 3 pts.

The LSAT is far from an IQ test.  I don't know of any credible source that would tell you that you cannot make significant improvement with enough study.  Most in that business (I don't do LSAT prep) recommend 150+ hours.  Even the writers of the test acknowledge that study is needed to do well.  I think you are on the right track.  Work hard, it can make a big improvement for you . 

[LSATFailure2011]

I am going to apply to a few schools that I would actually hope to attend for Fall of 2011, and hope for the best. 

I will also start studying for the LSAT, and probably take it again in October. Perhaps I should spring for an intensive review course?

I must say that I am highly skeptical that of courses and tutors for standardized tests. It's not like they give you your money back if your score doesn't improve. The LSAT is an IQ test. Studying will not improve my score any more than 3 pts.

The LSAT is far from an IQ test.  I don't know of any credible source that would tell you that you cannot make significant improvement with enough study.  Most in that business (I don't do LSAT prep) recommend 150+ hours.  Even the writers of the test acknowledge that study is needed to do well.  I think you are on the right track.  Work hard, it can make a big improvement for you .

Working hard is something I would do in law school. Working hard to study for a standardized test is a bad allocation of time. I have taken PLENTY of timed sections, and my scores were 147-153. I scored a 150 on the LSAT. I have bought the Logic Games Bible, and it didn't work for me. I simply don't have the ability to do them fast enough to do well on the LSAT. If it's a law school indicator, than maybe I am best served searching for a new career path. Personally, I don't feel that Logic Games predict anything, and thus am still under the impression that I can have a successful career in law.

Nonetheless I wish I never embarked on this endeavor. When I decided that I wanted to attend law school, never did I imagine the competition and scrutiny I would be under. When I recieved my score I felt like crap. I had to call in sick to work on Friday, and have not left the house since. I hate failing.....

[bigs5068]

Maybe it isn't for you. Honestly, if you think studying for the LSAT is difficult wait until law school starts let alone the Bar. Then when you argue in front a judge the real sh** happens. Honestly, a lot of things in the law don't make sense. I also don't think lawyers have a reputation for being the nicest people in the world. If you hate criticism, scrutiny, and losing once in awhile then the law is not for you. I don't know of any lawyer that has won every case, every motion, etc. No matter how good you are you are going to get your ass kicked. The Supreme Court Justices almost never come out with 9-0 opinions so a few of them are always wrong on something, and everything they write is scrutinized, some of it overturned by congress, etc. Those are the top 9 lawyers in the country and people are always criticizing and scrutinizing their work. It is not a profession for the weak of heart, and there are not going to be a lot of cheerleaders along the way. You have to criticize and scrutinize everything the other side is doing to you in a real life case, because they are going to object to what you way, write motions about how you are 100% wrong on something you are convinced you are 100% right on etc. You will win some and lose some.

Honestly, if the LSAT has you this frustrated and down it might not be worth 3 years of your life and at least $100,000. I was not a huge fan of the LSAT myself, but that was the easiest thing along the whole path up to this point.

[MikePing]

The LSAT is not the be all and end all of being a lawyer. It is a predictor of how you will fare in law school.  Our minds all work differently.  I friend of mine graduated last in our law class, and has a stellar career.  He is a partner at his firm, and is frequently in the courtroom.

I have heard (though some people here disagree) that your first 20 hours or so of study will bump your score to your baseline.  After that, significant improvement takes 150 hours of study.  Based on your line of communication, the assumption has been that you were underprepared.  This might not be true.  If you were fully-prepared, then your score is what it is.  There is no reason to be disappointed at a score that was in your study range.  Did  you expect to score higher on the real test than the practice test?

Law school is full of very smart people, and your grades come from what amounts to a ranking system.  The forced curve ensures that your score in a class depends on how well your classmates did.  You cant control this.  If you are the type of person that thrives on being the best at everything, you might rethink law school.  There is always someone that will score better than you.

If, on the other hand, you discount the value of studying 150 hours, I would just tell you that it can be worth it in the long run.  I had to learn all about family law, an area of law that I do not--and would not--practice, when I was studying for the bar exam.  One could say that it was a waste of time, but I am a licensed-practicing lawyer.

If you want to be a lawyer, you should be a lawyer.  One of the greatest gifts I got in law school is the humbling realization that I had to learn to derive my self esteem from something other than accomplishments.  Maybe this experience will do that for you. 

Good luck, and--believe it or not--I don't look at you as a failure.  The collective experience of this board, after reading your post, believes that you can get a much higher score with study.  We want to see you going to the best law school possible, because we know that it will increase your chance for success.  And, you do too.  That's why you came here.