In case you missed it, the latest buzz in the law admissions world is that those of you applying might be advantaged this year thanks to the drop in applications among high LSAT scorers. The basic idea is that a dearth of top applicants has made room at top schools for folks who wouldn’t normally squeeze in, which leaves more spots open in the tiers below for folks who wouldn’t normally be admitted at that level, and so on. (You know… like Reagan.)

But is this a reason to apply? I’ve written before and will again: don’t apply to law school unless you want to go. You shouldn’t apply just because your chances of getting into a higher ranked school have increased any more than you should become a doctor because one year you make a particularly strong med school applicant. You should become a doctor because you want to be one, and you should become a lawyer because you want to be one. For some reason, the common sense of this notion is more often forgotten in law than in other professions.

So what’s to be gained from this potential, newfound flexibility in law admissions? Well, if you already planned to apply, why not aim a little higher? Make your reach school a bit of a farther reach. Who knows? You could be surprised. If not, there’s always the circus — I hear their numbers are down this year.

Another Friday signals the near-end of yet another week of LSAT prep ahead of the October exam. Here are some of the stories that made the rounds among our LSAT crew this week:

The Short on Long-Term Planning: 10 LSAT Tips That Aren’t About the Actual LSAT (jdMission)*

*jdMission have a wide ranging list of LSAT planning tips and application strategies. You should get in the habit of checking back with them!

8 Ways That Judges Have Cited Star Trek From the Bench (io9)

Who knew that judges were such science fiction nerds? Our was #5.

Law School Admissions Tip #6: The Importance of Micro-editing (Law School Podcaster)

Law School Podcaster goes over some helpful editing tips for your admissions essay.

Conquer Back To School Season For Your First Year At Law School (LawRiot)

Four tips for students starting law school. Get the jump on your classmates!

A Work Soundtrack (gradhacker)

A round up of recommended music, playlists, podcasts, and radio stations to listen to while studying, and where to listen to them.

Beauty blogger and former Manhattan LSAT student Jessica (twitter: @JessicaVCloset) has been creating videos about women’s fashion, beauty, and lifestyle tips as a hobby. She’s gathered quite a following for herself in the last year (take a look at her website //www.victoriascloset.ca, and it’s easy to see why). As Jessica is about to begin law school, she was kind enough to share her 0L experience as well as some thoughts on her LSAT prep. Yes, we’re still blushing!

Yesterday, the President of the United States of America logged onto Reddit, the popular online forum community, to participate in one of the site’s online threads called “Ask Me Anything,” where experts on various subject matter make themselves available to the community to answer questions. One question  the POTUS responded to came from a recent law school graduate: Read more

The LSAT is one damn hard test: time is short, the language dense and deceiving, and the answer choices deliberately designed to throw you off.

As if those challenges weren’t difficult enough, imagine taking it in a foreign language. This is the challenge that non-native English speakers (ESL) students taking the LSAT face.

Our friends over at Law School Podcaster recently did one of their excellent podcasts on this very topic in their most recent show Tackling the LSAT As An ESL.

The show features our own Noah Teitelbaum, as well as Steve Schwartz from the popular LSAT Blog. Featured also is first-person testimony from an ESL test-taker (and former Manhattan LSAT student) who rocked the LSAT on exam day to the tune of 169 (97th percentile).

Think of your LSAT Prep as Oil for the Machine That Is Your Brain

Neuroscientists at the University of California-Berkeley have published a study that suggests that heavily training one’s brain to develop sharper reasoning skills (sound familiar?) can can fundamentally reinforce tangible connections between neurons in areas of the that are used when thinking and reasoning.

The study focused particularly on LSAT students, since you all are essentially training yourselves to be better at reasoning. Allyson Mackey, a graduate student in UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute who led this particular study, says “What we were interested in is whether and how the brain changes as a result of LSAT preparation, which we think is, fundamentally, reasoning training. We wanted to show that the ability to reason is malleable in adults.” The findings of this particular study led by Mackey supported this hypothesis.

Silvia Bunge, associate professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute adds “A lot of people still believe that you are either smart or you are not, and sure, you can practice for a test, but you are not fundamentally changing your brain. Our research provides a more positive message. How you perform on one of these tests is not necessarily predictive of your future success, it merely reflects your prior history of cognitive engagement, and potentially how prepared you are at this time to enter a graduate program or a law school, as opposed to how prepared you could ever be.”

Scientists, prelaw students, and educators the world over should be very excited by this discovery; it is encouraging to know that when trained properly, the brain – like any other muscle in the human anatomy – can be made stronger and more powerful. Study on, my friends, study on!

Source: University of California – Berkeley. “Intense prep for law school admission test alters brain structure.” ScienceDaily, 22 Aug. 2012. Web. 23 Aug. 2012.

Take a break from your LSAT prep work and check out some of this week’s lop legal and law school-related stories. Happy reading!

Law Schools Are Upset About New York’s Proposal That Lawyers Put In Time Working For Free (Business Insider Law & Order)

Law school deans around the country are voicing concern about the pro bono work proposal for new law grads. Many fear such a mandate will place a financial burden on law schools to provide training if they hope to have their grads land jobs in New York.

“I Hate My Classmates” and Other First-Week Problems (The Girl’s Guide To Law School)

Heading to law school in the fall? Here are some common problems you may encounter and some tips for how to deal.
Read more

5 Non-Obvious Things to Do When You Start Law School (The Girl’s Guide To Law School)

Is Studying Law Boring? (The Guardian)

How to Stay Positive Amis Negative Law School News (Law Student Ally)

Don’t let the negative press about attending law school drag you down. Here are some great tips for staying positive and sticking to your goals.

Telling Your Story: Tell the Truth (jdMission)

What would a links roundup be without a little celebrity gossip?! Believe it or not, Rob Kardashian’s controversial future was one of the most talked law school topics on the web this week. I cringe for future generations..Rob Kardashian is Not Going to Law School, Says UCS Law School (Huffington Post)

Since you’ve already submitted most of your free time to the LSAT, we figured we would share with you a list of interesting(?) trivial facts about ye old exam.  If you want to impress a crowd or maybe pick up (read: lose) a few friends, commit these LSAT facts to memory and rattle some off when the topic comes up, because hey, everyone loves that friend who does nothing but talk about the LSAT! (weekly links after the jump)

LSAC does not guarantee special desks or tables for left-handed test takers.

• The first administration of the LSAT occurred in 1948.
• Prior to 1991, LSAT scores were distributed on a scale from a low of 10 to a high of 48.
• The LSAT is only offered twice a year in Africa and Europe (October and December).
• There is no age requirement to sit for the LSAT.
• Statistically, the number of students who take the LSAT increases when the United States economy, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), decreases.
• When you go to the test center for the first time, about 75% of the people around you are also taking the test for the first time. Roughly 20% for the second time, and 5% for the third time.

Read more

Get your weekly fix of law school and other legal-related news from some of this week’s top articles:

2 Unique Challenges of Applying to Law School as an International Student (U.S. News Education)

For international law school applicants, the application process can be very complex. U.S. News Education shares two challenges international applicants may face and some helpful solutions to get you through the process.

Study Names Top 10 Law Schools by Impact of Faculty (JD Journal)

According to a study of all the American Bar Association accredited law schools, researchers ranked the schools based on their scholarly impacts of law faculty. The researchers looked at citations for the faculty that were given in legal literature over the past five years.
Read more