She's probably hanging out with your December LSAT score

@*&%$#^!!!

That pretty much sums up the collective sentiment of December 2011 LSAT takers everywhere. Forget Waldo and Carmen Sandiego, where the #$&% are the December LSAT scores?! Well, the wait is over:  LSAT scores started rolling out at approximately 5:20pm EST. The curve for the December exam was -14 for a 170, -28 for a 160.

Remember, it is inadvisable to open up that email from LSAC while driving a car, operating heavy machinery, or standing in the same room as minors or others who might object to vulgarity.

Lastly, remember to check out our free review of the December LSAT happening next Tuesday night. Two of our geekiest instructors will be on hand to review some of the more difficult games from the exam, as well as give their sage-like advise on whether or not you should consider a retake.

Best of luck!

12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, and 4 LSATs later, 2011 is behind us.

2011 was a banner year for Manhattan LSAT: in addition to teaching a record number of students, 2011 saw the release of the 2nd edition of our LSAT Strategy Guides.

Happy New Year from Manhattan LSAT

2012 promises to be an even bigger year, as we get ready to bring our 99th percentile approach to even more students in more places (check us out in Boston and Boulder this year!).  Needless to say, we can’t wait to help every one of our students achieve their personal goals on the LSAT.

Today I’m taking a look at the road ahead in 2012 and making some bold (and some not so bold) predictions for the year: Read more

Here are a few links from across the web to catapult us through the stretch run of the Holiday season.

New York Times journalist David Segal has written another article about law school – although this time he abandons his familiar cautionary tone to point out some of the flaws in the current American Bar Association accreditation process that law schools must go through.

OnlineColleges.Net has a useful piece on dealing with the stress of law school.

ClearAdmit.com is debuting a new law school blog at //law.clearadmit.com/. Here you can download 12 free guides to law school – they have guides for Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, and Northwestern, among many others – totally free!

GirlsGuideToLawSchool.com has a fun and insightful piece about making the most of your winter break.

In some ways, the wait for the December LSAT scores to be released by LSAC may be a little easier than the other three test implementations, given

The Art of the Sketchy Attorney Billboard - via Copyranter

the number of distractions that this time of year can provide. Try telling that to someone who has spent the last 8 months studying, however, and I’m sure they could convince you otherwise. When it does finally get released, be sure to join our Free December 2011 LSAT Review Session.

Regardless, I know most December 2011 LSAT takers are craving some sort analysis/advice as to when that crucial  email will hit inboxes. Past trends tell us that you can anticipate scores being released some time either shortly after Christmas, or shortly after New Year’s Day. Last year, scores were released on January 6th – but for SEVERAL years prior, scores were  released before the New Year.  It remains to be seen if last year’s January release date was an anomaly, or the start of a new trend of later December LSAT score releases.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for lawyer-ly things to pass your time, check out this hilarious blog entry from ‘copyranter’ depicting six hysterical roadside billboards advertising local attorneys. It’s worth a click- I promise!

I thought I would pass on some words of encouragement and an interesting article I came across on the web today.  First, the encouragement:

If you took the December LSAT and are feeling pretty good about the way the test “felt” a few Saturday’s ago, congratulations! Be sure to come by our free Review the LSAT Workshop happening on January 10th.

You’ve made it this far and you ought to be commended – it’s a long and often stressful road to law school! Hopefully now you are seeing the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ right in front of you. You’re almost there!

Law Enforcement: Putting the 'Prudence' in Jurisprudence

Speaking of roads to law school, I came across this excellent article in The Harvard Crimson this weekend. This particular article speaks to how nontraditional some paths to law school can be, and uses the example of three Harvard Law students who were police officers before deciding to go back to school.

T-2 days until the December LSAT. For those of you who are going to take the plunge, we’ve got some last minute tips for you. There are many great nuggets of advice in that article, so definitely check it out if you’re wondering what the best use of your final hours might be.

This post, however, focuses on a very specific piece of advice for your LSAT day. We’ve written in the past about the relatively new LSAC policy which requires test takers to present photo ID upon entering their testing center.

Amazingly, LSAC has posted a litany of unintentionally hilarious photos on their website as example of what type of photo is NOT acceptable on test day. How is one to resist poking some fun at this?!

Here are my favorites of the unacceptable photos:

“Head too big” is the heading on this one. If only the LSAC really did deny test takers who suffered from an inflated ego – or people with mustaches.

Artistic types need not apply.

Phillies fans are out of luck..

The family portrait is frowned upon as well. Save it for the Holiday card!

All kidding aside, here’s the nitty gritty in terms of what you need to have with you on test day in terms of photo identification:

• The photograph must be clear enough so there is no doubt about your identity.
• It must be no larger than 2 x 2 inches (5 x 5 cm) and no smaller than 1 x 1 inch (3 x 3 cm).
• Your face in the photograph must show you as you look on the day of the test (for example, with or without a beard).

Good luck on Saturday!

Just a little food for thought over this long holiday weekend:

The Commander in Chief does not have the authority to pardon poor LSAT score (we checked!)

So much has been written in the mainstream media this year about the decision to go to law school: is it a waste of time and money given the current state of the economy?  As I theorized recently, it seems that each time the economy goes in to the tank, the number of law school aspirants rises. I’m assuming the reasoning is something like this: why NOT avoid the increasingly difficult job market by spending time furthering one’s credentials?

While I could certainly poke holes in that logic all day, I thought this recent article that I came across on the jobs section of the AOL (yes, AOL still exists) website made an interesting case for why it is not a smart decision to go straight to law school from undergrad.

Here’s hoping that everyone enjoys their turkey, football, and time spent with family and friends – and may logic creep stay clear of your Thanksgiving table!

New statistics released by LSAC show that the number of LSAT-takers has declined over the past few years.

According to the statistics recently posted on LSAC’s website, there was a 16.9% decrease in LSAT ‘administrations’ (LSAC’s term for tests given) in October 2011 compared to October 2010. The number of October 2010 LSAT administrations was also down 10.5% from the previous year (when a record number of students–60,746– took the exam). October administrations aside, the data shows that overall, there have been fewer LSATs administered over the last two years:

Law School Aspirations, in Line Graph Form

Notice that there are two major “spikes” in LSAT administrations over the years.  Did law school suddenly become the “in” thing to do? Did LSAC and the ABA run some sort of blockbuster ad campaign for law school in 2002 and 2009?  Not quite. In 2002, right after the ‘dotcom bubble’ burst, LSAT administrations were up a whopping 23.5%!  In 2009, shortly after our economy plunged into a recession (that we’re still trying to climb out of), LSAT administrations increased by 19.8%. Correlation certainly does not mean causation, but hey – this isn’t an LSAT question – and I’m proud of my theory!

One explanation for these increases could be that during times of economic uncertainty, people are more attracted to careers that are seen to be secure routes to a comfortable income. Historically, a career in law has been held in this regard (although the New York Times would disagree). Perhaps this mini-dip in administrations means the recession is finally over!?

What does this news mean for you, the prospective law school student?  Well, you’re probably encouraged by these trends, as this likely means that there are fewer students applying for those coveted 1L spots in our nation’s law schools–here’s hoping!

What do you think?  Is the spike in LSAT-takers during times of economic hardship strictly coincidence? Are you feeling better about your chances based on this data?  Or do you think competition for the top law schools will be as stiff as it’s ever been?

There was a very interesting news story on the web this week about a professor from Utah who has been denied tenure (and is now bringing a suit against his former University) due to negative evaluations submitted by his students. In the negative evaluations, students cited discontent with the professor “calling on them when they did not raise their hands” and “forcing them to work in groups”. The audacity! Don’t these profs know that being called on involuntarily could cause one to lose a hand on pokerstars.com?!

Beware: this is what could happen to your brain if you sit in a non-interactive, lecture style LSAT class!

The method of teaching used by this professor, most commonly referred to as the Socratic method, is designed to engage students in discussion in order to put the focus on a dialogue that uses argument and debate as the main process for coming to meaningful, logical understanding. If the words ‘arguments’ and ‘logical’ are setting your LSAT senses aflutter, this is for good reason: the Socratic method  is incredibly useful in fostering the skills necessary achieve top scores on the LSAT.

If you’ve taken even a cursory gander at our website, you’ll likely have noticed that we tout our classes as “Interactive” and requiring “Hard Work”. If you read further than that, you’ll have seen us explicitly mention our use of the Socratic teaching method to best sharpen and build skills relevant to LSAT success. Read more

Yesterday around 4:30pm EST, LSAC began the process of releasing scores to students who took the October LSAT. The curve was -13 for a 170, which means this was an unusually difficult exam – we typically see the 170 curve at -10!

Calm After the LSAT Storm

Score release day is a nervy affair for students (first and foremost), parents, and test prep companies alike. We are all intimately familiar with the amount of hard work that has gone in to preparing for the LSAT, making the moment that you open that email from LSAC an impossibly sudden crescendo to the hundreds of hours of hard work put in by law school hopefuls.

As sweet as it was to hear the numerous success stories of our students in the early moments after the score release, our immediate attention is always turned to the people out there who still have a bit more work to do. There will be many students who should think about retaking the exam in December (or February, depending on when you are trying to start Law School), and many more who should not – much more on this decision will be forthcoming in my “Retake Manifesto” blog post later this week.

For the unsure student, (or anyone else curious about what was going on with this exam), we’re offering our free live online review of the October LSAT.  Mike Kim and Noah Teitelbaum will be presenting the answers to several of this exam’s more difficult questions, as well as providing insight in to whether or not you should be considering a retake.

If you already have your sights set on December for one last shot at this thing ahead of the Fall 2012 application deadlines, here is some helpful info:

• The deadline to register for the December 2011 LSAT is Friday, November 4th (receipt deadline)
• Ann Levine’s blog post regarding the retake decision is a useful read
• It’s not too late to self-study! Perhaps a bit of organization was all you were lacking from previous prep efforts.
• If you’re looking for more than self-study, we offer in-person and live online Private Tutoring – a fine option for the compressed timeline between now and the December test.
• Our live online Logic Games Intensive course begins on Sunday, October 30th and finishes up before the December exam. Try it free.