As usual, LSAC  released the October LSAT scores a couple of days before schedule and test-takers are currently receiving the news via Email. The official curve out of 101 questions was -12 for a 170, -19 for a 165, -28 for a 160, and -46 for a 150. If all of your hard work paid off, congratulations! It’s now time to seriously direct your focus to those law school applications.

If things didn’t go as you were hoping they would, don’t freak out–we’re here for you. Start by taking a few deep breaths and have a look through our Retake Manifesto to decide whether it is worth your efforts to reregister for the exam. If you decide that a retake is your best option, be aware of some of the upcoming dates and deadlines pertaining to the December  2013 LSAT.

For anyone who knows they still have a little more LSAT work to do, you’re invited to sit in on a free Manhattan LSAT online trial class tomorrow night, October 29th at 8:00PM (EDT). You’ll be able to experience one of our 99th percentile teachers in action, learn techniques for solving numbered ordering logic game problems, and receive full-course discounts. If you can’t make it tomorrow, we have another free online LSAT event coming up on November 13th.

Kudos to everyone for making it this far and if you’re still waiting for your score, may the LSAT odds be ever in your favor.

Hey October LSAT takers! Here are a few tips for the rest of the week.

DO get a good night’s sleep this week! Start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier if you don’t already so that your body is not shocked by the time on Saturday morning. Better yet, wake up the next couple of mornings and do an LSAT problem or two.

DON’T work too hard on Friday. If the idea of taking the day off to watch the new Arrested Development on Netflix panics you, read over your notes or do a game or two, maybe a few hard logical reasoning questions you’ve done before. But it’s not the day to take a full-length test.

DO continue to do timed, mixed practice through Thursday.

DON’T make the mistake of believing that every practice test score from now until Saturday is exactly what you’re going to score. While they are certainly in the range of what you should expect, just because your practice test drops from a 169 to a 167 tomorrow doesn’t mean you’re suddenly 2 points LSAT-dumber. Learn from your mistakes, review carefully, and move forward.

DO get a passport-size photo of yourself this week if you haven’t already. (This is in addition to your identification. See the email you recently received from LSAC for details.)

DON’T dwell on what you wish you’d done differently over the last few months. To do so is a waste of critical energy at this point, and your mind should be focused on…

DO think positively. Someone is going to teach this test who’s boss, and it’s not Tony Danza. It’s you. YOU. If you don’t believe you’re going to do your best, you’re less likely to. If you do, you’re more likely to. And if you can see that those two statements are not contrapositives, give yourself a high-five right now, please.

DON’T forget your analogue (big hand, small hand) watch. (If you want, set it to 12 o’clock at the beginning of each section so you can easily track your 35 minutes without arithmetic.)

DO take a snack.

DON’T mistake the LSAT for a mythical tool that measures your self-worth. It’s just a test. Plus, you have more friends than it, and they’re cooler.

Now go put those red and blue and yellow balls in order like you’ve never put them in order before!

We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Say it’s officially late September and you’re still ten points under what you want to be scoring. What do you do? Do you take October? Or do you push it off a few months? Read more

Ahh! Four weeks from Saturday! The October LSAT is less than an official month away. For those of you who will be nervously assembling your pencils and tearfully parting ways with your cell phones/girlfriends/boyfriends/over-eager roommates, there’s something else you should be struggling to part ways with. It’s called The Super Pile. 

Was this your reaction when you saw your LSAT score? Yes? Keep reading.

Each time LSAC releases LSAT scores, there are thousands of test-takers who are less than satisfied with their results. Luckily for those folks, you are allowed to take the LSAT up to three times in any two year period. Unluckily for them, the decision as to whether a retake is “worth it” is hardly a straightforward one. Enter the Manhattan LSAT Retake Manifesto.

In the coming paragraphs, we hope to address all of the concerns that a potential LSAT retaker may have – or really should have – before deciding what their next course of action is.

Initial Considerations

Let’s start with a dose of reality. Most people see very little improvement in their LSAT score after retaking (an average of roughly two points for folks who scored between 150 and 167 the first time), and some even see a decrease in their score. Take a look at the below chart for some analysis of the success of 2010-2011 ‘retakers’ with various initial scores:

*Data courtesy of LSAC.org’s 2010-2011 “repeater” statistics (pdf).

The most important take away from this data is the marginal nature of the score increases that repeat LSAT takers tend to achieve. Just because something is unlikely, however, does not make it impossible, especially when there are some repeaters scoring worse, telling us that some people do significantly better than the 2 or so point average increase. Furthermore, there are very legitimate circumstances that may have applied to your first attempt at the LSAT that prevented you from realizing your full potential.

Check back on Monday for Part 2.  There are many pages more of the LSAT Retake Manifesto to come.