Ahh, Friday!   Even if your weekend is chock full of errands and preptests, you cannot tell me that the Friday air doesn’t smell a little fresher than that of its weekday brethren.

In that spirit, we wanted to share some more law school themed hilarity from the web:

Check out this music video titled “Law School State of Mind” set to the tune of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind”.  Perhaps a cautionary tale?!

Even if you’re still an undergrad, these two videos from the hilarious and talented GW Law Revue might resonate with you.

The first is a “preview” about the horror of class without laptops .  This is right on the money. I once saw one of my ‘Psychology of Addiction’ classmates lose $750 in one lecture on pokerstars.com…

Ever shotgun a can of red bull in order to maintain your all night study session?  You’ll definitely appreciate where these guys are coming from.

Happy Friday!

Tools of the Trade

At Manhattan LSAT we are constantly swelling with pride over the achievements of our instructors. If you’ve ever spoken with us about them, you’ve probably  noticed that we fancy them quite a bit! We’re lucky to have so many incredibly intelligent, talented, and downright fascinating individuals on our team.

A recent example of our collective Manhattan LSAT-instructor-coolness takes us deep in to the world of metaphor and rhyme. John Beer, a Manhattan LSAT teacher in Chicago, has recently been given the Norma Farber First Book Award for his book, The Waste Land And Other Poems, The Norma Farber Award is given annually to one exceptional poet who has published their first book of original American poetry.  John will be traveling to New York City in April to accept the award.

I’ve been treating myself to a healthy sized sample of these poems for the last week or so and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

There is even an entire section toward the end of the book called “Sonnets to Morpheus”.  Yep, that’s a Matrix reference!

We’re so incredibly proud of John. I would encourage any of you who are interested in poetry to check out his book, available on Amazon.

Harvard’s Stephen Burt has written a review of The Waste Land And Other Poems for bostonreview.net (scroll down a little ways until you see John’s name in the subheading)

We all knew “that guy” (or girl) who couldn’t get enough of their own voice and opinion in the classroom. When the Professor asked a question, they would invariably raise their hand with a fervor and energy that can only be matched by a pack of twelve-year-old girls at a Justin Bieber concert.  They had the answer to every question, studied twice as much as you for every test, and were – at least in their own minds – destined for greater things than you.

Cee Lo Green

Well my law school hopeful friends, I have some good news and some bad news; first the bad: you will undoubtedly encounter these folks in large numbers as you journey through law school.  So prevalent are these Poindexter’s that  law school students have even come up with a term for them: gunners.

The good news?! You and your other, non over-zealous classmates have several years of jokes to make at their expense! See exhibit A: an incredibly talented group of George Washington University students have put together an excellent tribute to these classroom legends set to the tune of Cee Lo Green’s Grammy nominated mega hit “F*** You’.

Enjoy!

Some students treat their LSAT prep like a side gig – dipping their toe once or twice a week. Others dive in, with their clothes on. I now speak of Derek – who’s set up a blog post to record his travels through LSAT land. And yesterday, he posted this about his latest conquest with the LSAT Arcade:

That’s the first game-breaker we’ve seen (other than from our geeky curriculum developers who spent hours playing each game).

Break-away, Derek! Break-away!

(but which game was this?)

For those of you reading this blog from outside of NYC, you may not know how big a deal real estate is in NY, but suffice it to say that it is completely common to ask a near-perfect stranger what she pays for rent. It’s sort of a shared burden, so why not ask? Thus we’re very excited that we now have a great new class space! And it just the right size for our classes — enough to keep 18 students in LSAT-blissdom. (Don’t ask about the rent though!).

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU5ZhL6CsHg

I wish I had a brother like this (and now I see that anyone can sing with the use of computers!)

In case you feel like you’ve become a serious nerd, look how bad it gets around here.  Chris Ryan of ManhattanGMAT and me.  (Reminds me of Rain Man. )

One of the most interesting parts of my job is to watch candidates audition.  I’ve written previously about our audition process:

first stage – phone interview –  knocks out about 30-40%,

second stage – online audition – knocks out about 70% of those who make it there

third stage – in-person audition – knocks out about 90% of those who make it there

In case you’re auditioning or just curious, I’ll tell you the top three reasons we reject teaching candidates:

1. Lectures. Folks who have taught for other test prep companies usually lecture instead of teach.  This makes sense since many of them have mostly taught in large lecture halls, where Socratic teaching isn’t necessarily practical.  But, with our small classes, we need folks who know how to teach through questions and discussion.   We have a bunch of reasons why we think lectures are not effective for mastering the LSAT; for one, students don’t have to do a lot of work during a lecture.  More on this later . . . Read more