Four Tips for the Week Before the LSAT

So you are taking the LSAT and it's only a week away. Like most law students you probably have a type A personality and are freaking out. Don't worry, you are not alone. Everyone that does well on the LSAT has a bit of test anxiety, it's healthy.  Below are a few tips to help make your week before the LSAT a little easier so you can perform your best on test day.

1) Set Your Routine

In order to perform your best mentally you need to perform your best physically. This means you have to condition your body to be at its peak performance on test day during the test time. Seven days prior to the test begin to practice your test day routine. Wake up, eat breakfast, have your coffee and go off and be active the entire morning. Setting your routine during the hours you will be taking the LSAT will help you perform your best because your body will know when it needs to be at work. You don't want to suprise your body on test day by waking up early and dumping coffee in it. Nobody likes bad suprises.

2) Practice Trouble Areas

Everyone has one test subject area that gives them trouble. Use the last week before the LSAT to study your trouble area. If you try to marathon study by doing full practice tests at this point you will overwhelm yourself. Take a deep breath, calm down, and make your studying count - quality over quantity.

3) Prepare Your Test Materials

Gather you admissions ticket, pencils, erasers, ID, and any other materials and put them in a clear plastic bag on the Thursday before the test. You will thank yourself on Friday night and especially on Saturday morning for being prepared because you do not need any additional stress on the night before and day of the LSAT.

4) Take it Easy

On the night before the LSAT you need to let your mind relax. Do not do any practice questions. Instead, take a run, watch your favorite tv show, and be confident that your preparation is going to allow you to do your best on test day. As scary as it may sound, there is nothing you can do on the night before the LSAT that is going to prepare more than the studying that you have done for the last few months. Be confident in yourself and go kick butt on the LSAT!

Is Law School Admissions Turning a Corner?

It is no secret that law schools have had it rough the last few years. Since 2010, the number of applicants to law school has dropped by 28,100 applicants (32%) from 87,500 applicants in 2010 to 59,400 applicants in 2013. This drop played prominently in the media and was likely exacerbated by bandwagoning bloggers. Whether the attention was overzelous is debatable, however, law schools heard the call to action and are reinventing legal education to better prepare lawyers for the challenges of the 21st century. It appears that these changes are making an impact and the precipitous downward trend in law school admissions may be turning a corner.

According to the latest (1/24/14) Current Volume Summary distributed by LSAC, applicants are down 12.6% nationally. Although the drop is in the double digits, it represents the smallest drop in applicants at this point in the application cycle since 2011 when the law school recession first began (down 12.3% on 1/28/11). 

Much more interestingly, however, for the first time since 2012, when LSAC began consistently publishing applicant trend data based on LSAT scores, there is actually an 8.5% increase in applicants who scored a 175 or higher on the LSAT. Moreover, there is only 0.7% decrease in applicants who scored between a 170-174 and that margin is quickly narrowing. It is possible that there may be growth in the 170-174 range by the end of the year. 

Although this growth is only happening at the top of the LSAT range, it could signify a significant change in the future as higher "quality" applicants return to law school.  2014 will likely be another down year nationally but as law schools reinvent themselves 2014 may also be the turning point where students begin to return to the legal profession.

Introduction

Welcome to the Law School Admissions Counselor blog (or "blawg" as the ABA likes to put it). This blog is intended to cover a wide area of subjects which relate to law school admissions. Many other blogs will give you advice about how to write a personal statement, who to choose as a recommender, and what is important to put on your résumé. This blog will include all of those useful pieces of information as well; however, it will also provide information about the market trends effecting law school admissions in order to give prospective law students as well as admissons professionals a fuller perspective on these turbulent times.