LSAT AMA

(upbeat music) Hello everybody, we are back for the final episode in navigating law school admissions with Miriam and Christie and the LSAT mini series. This episode is gonna try and fill in any missing pieces about the LSAT that we didn't cover in the prior episodes. It will be a veritable grab bag of LSAT questions and answers. That's right, we're going to be answering questions that we came up with and also some that we heard directly from all of you. Shout out to everyone who interacted with the Instagram story we posted calling for questions to incorporate in this episode. It should be fun. And once again, we are thrilled to be joined by our LSAT expert, Laura. Hi, Laura. - Hi, ladies. - Hello, Laura. Hello. Alrighty, we'll kick off with our game, of course, and Laura, I believe it's your turn to play host. This is an honor, Laura. We've never let anyone else host the game before. I feel honored, oh my gosh. Okay, so I've always been a fan of would you rather, so I'll give you two situations related to the LSAT and Miriam and Kristi, you say which one you'd rather be in. You ready? - So ready, ready. - Okay, situation one. Would you rather take the LSAT with paper and pencil or on a tablet? Miriam, you go first and then we'll swap order for each question. This is easy for me, I am super old school and 100% paper and pencil, just like when I took it. - Oh, Kristi. - Absolutely, old habits die hard or, as one might say, old habits die screaming and I, I'll never let go of kind of interacting with the page and crossing things out for process of elimination. I have never taken a standardized test another way and I'd be nervous to do so. - Would you rather take an all reading comprehension LSAT or an all logical reasoning LSAT? Kristi, this time you're first. - I would rather take an all logical reasoning LSAT, reflecting on everything we said in episode two about those longer reading comprehension passages and I kind of, I guess I like the more bite sized approach. Same. This one is close for me actually. - I do have one more for you. Would you rather retake the LSAT or rewrite your law school application essays? - Oh no, am I first on this? - You are. - Oh gosh, oh those both sounds so terrible. I guess I would rather rewrite the essays but I really don't wanna ever write application essays ever again in my entire life but I just think he would be more short term pain versus like the long term pain of months of study. - Kristi, I'd rather retake the LSAT. - Oh, you're so brave. - Maybe I just really like standardized tests but you could prep for it. You'd have test day. I don't know, it might kind of feel fun and still. - Test day. - I always drink orange juice on test day when I had a standardized test starting from like elementary school state standardized testing. - Let's start with some questions related to studying for the LSAT. So Laura, I think you will probably be our primary answer for most of these but we shall see. So what would you advise an applicant to do if they find that they can't match their practice test score on the actual LSAT? Which I think is something a lot of people struggle with. - Absolutely and I mean, it is a tough one. If your actual test score the first time you sit for the exam is say three to six points below your PT score average and that last month of prep, that just means that you performed at the low end of your potential on your first attempt and I'd recommend keeping that score but retaking. If that happens on your retake too, there might be something else going on. Make sure you've gotten enough practice tests under your belt to become consistent. I like to see at least 10, preferably 15 or more. Make sure you're simulating the test day environment as best you can on those practice tests. So if you're testing in person, test at the library to get used to testing in public. If you're testing remotely, be strict about the timing, the breaks, reading aloud, food at your desk, that sort of thing just don't get too comfortable. And if you think the culprit is performance anxiety, meditation, other lifestyle practices like exercise can be a big difference maker. So can some supplements that help you regulate your stress hormones? - I'll just add that performance anxiety is definitely a real thing and something that many of us work through in our academic lives and in our professional lives. Sometimes it's helpful to even speak with someone if you feel like anxiety is getting your way of your ability to perform to your potential, whether it's on the LSAT or at work or anywhere in your life. I know for me that's been very, very helpful over the years. Next question for you, is it possible to over-study for the LSAT? - Oh, absolutely. See it all the time, burnout is real. So I do not advise students to study every day. I do not advise making every study session as long as the actual LSAT. And I don't think you should take every available prep test. These are sure fire recipes for burnout. If you're testing a lot and you find your scores dipping or you find yourself getting exhausted or confused every time you so much as a look at the exam, you're probably over-studying. But the good news is that LSAT skills don't disappear overnight. You can take a week or two off to recover from burnout without losing any of your edge. - Okay, this one was submitted by listener via Instagram. What should a test taker do if they hit a plateau while they're studying for the LSAT? And how do you get past that plateau? - Can I just ask a question? How do you know if it's a plateau or a peak? That's like my subsidiary question. - Okay, so both hard questions. I think almost everybody plateaus at some point. Often you see an early plateau when people haven't gotten the rhythm of the time sections yet. And so they're learning a lot, but they're unable to execute it timed. A late plateau is the scarier one, right? That's the one where you're like, is this the plateau or is it a peak? But here's some things that I've learned. A lot of times people plateau because they've studied a lot and just aren't able to successfully execute things they've learned when they test. And if that sounds like you, if you're like, well, it all just kind of goes out the window when I see the time start ticking by. Take a few weeks to really review and consolidate everything that you wanna do for each type of question or each type of argument that you encounter and really practice recalling and deploying those strategies. First in untimed mixed practice, then in timed mixed practice. And then work your way up to full sections and then full tests. Another common culprit of the plateau is overemphasizing testing to the exclusion of in-depth review. Also just reviewing the ones that you got wrong. It's way more helpful to review questions without knowing if you got them right or wrong the first time. So I suggest students either review their full timed test untimed before checking the answers or make practice sets of every question that they missed plus those that they flagged or took a long time to get right. And if your study platform can help you identify what features those questions have and help you locate practice questions with similar features, you can really specifically target the things with the most potential to move your unique score. Good analytics are the mortal enemy of score plateaus. - One thing that what you said Laura raises a question for me is this idea of how do you take a practice test or a practice session and then you're going through and you're like, oh, right, right, wrong, right, wrong. How would you advise folks to make the best use of that time? So you might have got to something right, but for the wrong reason, you might have gotten it wrong, but you don't really know why and that feels like a really important learning moment. - 100%. So I got it right, but for the wrong reason or I had it down to two and I just gut checked and guessed correctly is something that you can learn so much from and you miss the opportunity to do that learning if you only review the questions that you got wrong. Figuring out what you did wrong is also so much harder when you're looking at a question and you already know that the answer you picked the first time was wrong. And so reviewing every single question that you do or at least everyone that you had it down to two on or took a long time to answer and got wrong really gives you so much more opportunity to learn from every test that you do. - So Laura, what have you found to be the biggest hurdles that applicants face when they're setting for the LSAT and how did they get through them? We talked about some section specific hurdles during our prior episode, but I'm wondering a little bit more generally what you see. - So general study hurdle, I think the number one is just finding the time. Most people prepping for the LSAT are already in some sort of high intensity, high pressure environment, either working full time or going to school full time or some combination of the two. And so the busier you are, the longer your runway to test day should be, plan on at least six months if you can't find 10 hours a week. And also, of day matters. Don't study when your brain can't absorb. Better to get up 90 minutes earlier and study for an hour before work or school than to try to study every evening when you get home. It's just not a great time to learn. All right, we'll close out with what I thought was a really nice question submitted from Instagram. What are some ways for LSAT test takers to find and build a supportive community? I'm so heartened that this listener is even thinking of it in these terms. So good for you, listener. So if you're prepping with a company, see if they have a discussion board that you can contribute to, try to make a friend on, find a study buddy. LSAT Lab has a discord channel. I think seven sage has a good forum. If you're taking live classes, ask the teacher if you can pull students and see if anybody wants to join you in a study group. You can also look on websites like meetup.com or Facebook groups for online study buddies and you know, cast a wide net figure out which community is kind of going to work best for you and then go for it. Christy, you had you had a study buddy. I did. My friend really well for you. Yes. I took the LSAT when I was a senior in college and I think if you're on a college campus, it can be even a bit easier to find folks who are also thinking about law school may also be taking the LSAT at the same time that you are. I also think they don't necessarily have to be studying for the LSAT. If what you want more is like someone to hold you accountable that I'm going to put a certain amount of time in. If you have a friend studying for a different test or maybe putting together, you know, grad school applications, you can even just say let's meet up once a week at a coffee shop. I'm going to study for the LSAT over come my applications and you're going to do your thing and then at least it will do accountable to the time. So I would, I would really cast a very wide net for some people might be less stressful to be study buddies or accountability buddies with someone who's doing something different. So you don't have that to wreck comparison. Okay, now let's turn to some questions about the best way they think about retaking the LSAT. So Laura, very generally when is it worthwhile for an applicant to retake the LSAT? When a student comes to me considering a retake, I always look at the data first and first thing I look at is the average of their last five weeks of practice test scores. If they didn't hit at least that average, a retake could be a good idea. If there's a lot of variability in their PT scores, I look at why that might be and what they could do to stabilize. Maybe they could change their time management or study a few things and make some big gains. That all points to a retake. If a student hit their five week average score and still wants to retake though, that's a really different calculation, then the question isn't so much, could I retake the LSAT with my existing LSAT knowledge and just execute better? It's more about how much untapped score movement potential do I still have? And that's harder to assess and it really helps to know the student personally. But if you studied long and hard and still aren't getting the results you want, you should change your approach as you prep for another retake. Give yourself at least two months if you actually need to get better at the LSAT. Consecutive test retakes like you take August and then three and a half weeks later you take September are really only appropriate if you're already getting PT scores that you would be happy with. If you're not getting PT scores that you would be super happy with but you want to go for that test that you're already registered for and then plan to retake. Plan to retake at least two months out. Give yourself time to really change your approach. Go deeper on your analytics and just change the way you're studying. You also got to be honest with yourself about your bandwidth. Retaking in the hopes of getting a score that you've never gotten or have only hit once or twice in practice is admirable. I love the growth mindset and the tenacity that this reflects. But prepping for that retake is a lot more work and you have to be honest with yourself about how much gas you have left in that tank. Yeah, I agree with that and I just really want to emphasize that every time you take the LSAT you're outlaying resources which are not you know infinitely available to you. That includes your time, your money and you're just stress. So the calculus about one to retake the LSAT should evolve every time you take it. What might be reasonable after one take is less likely to be reasonable after the second take and even less likely after a later take and it's okay also just to say I'm done and to hit that point and say I've done the best I can I am at my limit I need to now reallocate these resources to something else. So give yourself the grace to do that when the time is right for you. So Kristi I wasn't sure whether we should touch upon this in this LSAT mini series but I decided that we should be brave and do it. So there is one piece of advice from way back in season one that I would like you to weigh in on and that's whether there's ever an LSAT score so high that it would be viewed negatively to retake. But I think it's important since that is advice that I think is out there that we talk about whether we stand by that and more broadly is there ever a point where the score is so high it would hurt you to retake it. I think it was me who said this and this is the danger of having a podcast where we spend a lot of time like riffing and talking to one another just the way that we avoid and our words. That's a little bit good but dangerous. Exactly. So this this question aligns actually with one that was submitted via Instagram from user name the anonymous chinchilla. What is the appropriate cutoff to absolutely not retake the LSAT? So I do have complicated feelings about this because on the one hand it's generally true that all else being equal you'd rather have a higher score than a lower score. That's true both for admission to school and also for scholarships that utilize test scores. Harvard and Yale are completely need based in our allocation of resources but many many other schools do think about your LSAT score when they're thinking about the so-called merit scholarships that they are handing out. But you need to always remember as an applicant that the score is situated within a plus or minus four score band. And schools really shouldn't be putting too much weight on those small LSAT score differences. In fact LSAC and its guide to understanding the LSAT is really clear that you shouldn't be you shouldn't necessarily think of a 174 as evidence that somebody is just so much more likely to succeed than somebody with a 173 sure it's one point higher but you're all kind of within that plus or minus score band. And as you just said Miriam every time you retake the LSAT there's a cost there's money there's time there's kind of emotional bandwidth there's the opportunity cost to be doing something else with your precious time. So it's just something to think about. I do also find that when I see people retaking something that's really really high where you're already kind of in the your plus or minus four we get you to 180 perhaps even. It can look a little like a perfectionism streak might be driving it so it's hard to it's hard to know. So just to TLDR it a little bit we are not saying that you should never retake a 172 or a 173 which is what the online law sort of suggest we're simply saying that once you are in that range the circumstances would have to be pretty compelling to suggest that a retake is the way to go. Miriam a question for you how do schools view multiple takes of the LSAT? So I have fairly strong feelings on this. We understand how much pressure applicants are under and that pressure is coming from law schools writ large to do well on the LSAT. So I never view it negatively when an applicant retakes the test even if the score stays the same or even goes down by a few points. I view that instead as a show of determination assign that the person is hard working they are willing to you know keep plugging away at it and I think it would be frankly a little bit hypocritical if we as the quote-unquote law school industry rewarded applicants for higher test scores and then penalized applicants for working hard to achieve those exact same test scores. With that said I don't want to pretend that there's no difference between someone who is one in done 178 versus someone who has a 162 162 162 162 178 that is contextually important but around the margins and a relatively small margin but I do think that we do not penalize retakes. Miriam a few folks in Instagram were curious about retakes and addenda. One listener asked if you have taken the LSAT five times and improved would an addenda be necessary? What would you say? Oh Christy you gave me an addendum question thank you you know how much I love to talk about addenda. So as our regular listeners will know I am something of an addendum minimalist but maybe more accurately I think that addenda should be used wisely and well and that they are often overused. So I would say if you're just improving each time or you know your scores the scores are relatively close to each other just let them speak for itself. I think that I would suggest an addendum only if there is one or more scores that just don't align at all and I think even more if there is an external reason why it didn't align. So if there is a massive tech disruption on your second take and your score is just way below the others that would make sense to write an addendum but I don't need at wireless an addendum that is along the lines of I was I studied and I did better that is what we will sort of assume to be the base case if your scores is trending upwards over time. And for more on Addenda, check out our episode from season one Good Judgment Day. Yes, listen to Miriam Rant's more about Addenda in that episode. Another retake question from Instagram. How do admissions officers view multiple LSAS scores taken over multiple years? So that's an interesting one. I will notice if there's a big break from a time perspective between scores. So for example, the applicant takes the LSAS for the first time, maybe their junior year, early in their senior year in college, and then they take a few years, they graduate, they get some work experience, and then the retake and the score is completely different. Maybe the more important and broader point is that we do look at the testing history as a whole. That includes the scores themselves, any trends over time, any outliers, and the timing aspect of it. And that's all the contextual information that we take into account. All right, Christy, are you ready for a question on this chart? Sure. Okay, what about the average score? Do you pay attention to that and if so, in what way and how much? So the actual average score. So if someone's taken it four times, yes, the LSAS reports on the cast report. So I actually have to confess that I don't look at it at all. It is, it is right there on the cast report. And so I'm sure, I mean, I'm seeing it, but it's not really registering in my brain when I'm reading an application and it's not how I think about it or how my teammates think about it. We take each score as its own data point and think about the trend over time, not the average at all. I'm going to bust a myth, which I think most people know is not true, but I think it's still there, which is that the average score is what's reported. That is historically true. There is a period way back when when law schools would report each applicant's average LSAS score to the ABA. For many, many years now, that has switched to the highest score for each applicant. So I think some of this focus on average scores might be a little bit of that historical fat creeping in. Okay, one final retake question. When would you advise an applicant that they should definitely, definitely retake? Oh, good question. All right, Laura, you go first. I'm going to try to glide off of you. So again, it's all about the data. I tell students to average their last five weeks of prep tests and then consider the score band of that average, so plus or minus three or four points. If they're lower than that score band, definitely retake. You can 100% go in there without continuing prep in a whole like long and arduous way, just go in there and execute better. The other definite retake scenario for me would be a score lower than 150. It's just so hard to get into law school with a 140 score and if you do get in, you're so unlikely to get funding because most of the schools that will let you in with that score are only merit-based when it comes to aid. Okay, we talked a fair amount about score cancel in our first episode's game, but I think there's some maybe bigger picture questions we haven't talked as much about. So let's start from the beginning about score cancel. So Laura, when, if ever, should an applicant cancel their score this this very first time that they take the L side? Really only if it's below 150. Even if you're consistently scoring way higher than that, a 150 will get you into law school. So keep it. Just in case you aren't able to beat it in a retake or because life happens and you don't get the opportunity to retake. If you beat it by a lot, I don't think anybody is going to care about that first low score. As you all both said, you don't pay attention to those averages. So if you get a 152 and a 172, nobody's really thinking about that 162 average. Kristi, I'm interested in how you view the score cancels when you see them on the CAS report and you literally see them because it's a C next to the administration. Oh wow, that's a cash. But don't do. So usually I don't think about them much at all if it's just one cancel. I've read so many addenda over the years about tech issues and I just digestive difficulties. So I always just figure that there was some problem that impacted that particular administration. When there's multiple cancellations though and when I say multiple, I mean like three, four, I've seen five cancellations with the little C's all lined up. You kind of start to wonder what's going on and whether the applicant is using the score cancel option to avoid sharing scores that that applicant doesn't want us to see. I think that's exactly right. When I see a cancel score, I just assume it wasn't very good and I may in fact assume that it's worse than it was because I think folks can be risk averse and and cancel scores that maybe were actually pretty decent. And very selfishly, I really like seeing the whole testing record, which is what we get, for example, with a GRE where we require people to send us all the scores. I think it provides really helpful contextual data about the applicant. For example, is there steady improvement over time? Is there one lower score that's a clear aberration? Is there a higher score that might be an outlier? I'm not convinced that canceling is advantageous for either applicants or for schools at least most of the time. I think a lot of us also worry that some applicants end up canceling what would have been their highest score. And I hear this all the time from pre-law advisors and sometimes even from applicants themselves. And there's no way to get it back after it's been canceled. So let's say you get a, I'm just going to name numbers. Let's say you get a 168 the first time you're disappointed, you cancel it. And then the next two administrations you get a 166 and a 165, you're not able to kind of go back and try to resurrect that 168 since you've canceled it. Okay, so I'm going to give a counter example to attempt to disprove my own thesis. So let's say I'm an applicant to law schools, I get this 168. I don't cancel it because I listen to the podcasts and I took all of our advice and then I retake and I get a 164. Is that bad? Or what if let's give another scenario? It was a 168, 164, 166. Better to just have a 168 CC or 168, 164, 166. I think the, in the scenario of a 168 and then you retaking, you get a 164, it kind of goes back to what we were describing earlier. I would infer that you thought you could improve on the 168. You ended up with a 164, but I kind of gave you points as it were for, for trying. And for the attempt, it showcases that, it showcases something about your response to disappointment. It showcases an ambition too. Yeah, a certain kind of ambition for yourself, that you're aiming big and you really wanted to put the work in to try. Although, which I like to say, would it cancel, demonstrate that as well? Because a cancel does show that you sat for the exam. Absent. If you just see 168, see. Again, I always just think it was a digestive issue, but to the extent I, I wondered to myself, I wonder what the number was, what it, what if it was like a 152? Like, no, no one thinks she did better. Yeah, we know you didn't do better and we assume you did a lot worse. Okay, so that's super helpful context, I think. Like, as an LZ teacher, you would say cancel the 164? Not necessarily, but here, here's what, what I say, because I don't work in admissions, right? Like, when I see a 168 and a cancel, I would know that it is worse than a 168. But I don't know how much worse. And so in true LSAT fashion, all that necessarily communicates is that it was at least one point worse. And so that's how I would feel like logically that I needed to view it. But I'm really glad that that's not how you all view it, because this is really helpful information. And I think like my takeaway from this conversation is no shame in the game. If you're going to retake it, retake it boldly, be proud of what you got and lay your cards on the table. I think that that's a pure logical response to it. But without the human behavioral element, I think it would be extremely unlikely that you got a 168, 167 and canceled the 167. I think we assume it's like reasonably below, or else you wouldn't bother to cancel. That's at least how I would read that cancel. All right, I think we've done a lot on score cancel. We beaten the dead horse. I know I feel like I can keep going on all these different hypotheticals, but I'll force myself to move on. So I think the next topic we wanted to talk about was the cast report and how schools use the LSAT related information on the report. We talked about the cancel just now. Miriam, what do you do with the score range data found on the cast report? I think we've talked about that a little bit today already. And so maybe just to double down on it. This is something I've been thinking about a lot and trying to talk to my team about as well, especially given the changes that we've seen to the LSAT over the last few years, I really try very hard to view an LSAT score as a fuzzy number. So not as a crisp on 67, but a 167-ish. And that's because of this score range. So that's why I like to see the whole testing history because it puts that fuzziness into context and helps you interpret it better. And so we've tried increasingly over the years to really remind ourselves that it's the score range that matters, not just a single number. I've had to do some education on this topic myself and with the staff team and the faculty team at HLS to really ground us in the score range and think about the actual predictive value of the score, vis-a-vis the score range. And one important note is that that the score ranges have changed over time, the bands used to be much more narrow many years ago. So if you have a faculty reader who's been reviewing files for a decade or more, they might be still thinking that they're looking at a much more narrow score band from 20 years ago, rather than the plus or minus four, which if you think about it, it's really pretty broad around a singular number. So something we've discussed a lot internally, too. All right, Questing. Now, one cast report question for you. Can you describe the information that we see about the undergraduate institutions LSAT scores and then talk a little bit about how you use that information? Sure. So to just ground risk listeners on what we're talking about, the cast report includes a distribution of LSAT scores for your own undergraduate institution, the institution that you graduated from, what percentage of people from your school scored in those various score bands over the last few years. So how many scored in the 95th percentile and how many in the 90th to 94th and so on? The information does provide really helpful academic context. First, it gives us a sense of the rigor of your undergraduate institution and how competitive the law school applicants are from that school. It's not a perfect proxy, obviously, but it's a little bit of a hint. And if you're from a school with a lot of high scoring applicants, it means you were likely surrounded by very high performing peers. And conversely, if you're from a school with many fewer high scoring applicants and you're performing much better than most of your peers, it can show your relative academic strength in a really different way. Again, none of this is perfect, but it's giving the reader a sense of the context and kind of where you sit in your undergraduate institution. Okay, so we've been talking about the LSAT ad nauseam and I have excited to turn our attention now to some drum roll please test alternative. So there's some other standardized tests that are in various stages of use across the law school rules. So, Christy, what is the other primary standardized tests that law schools, many law schools accept? It is the graduate record exam, the GRE. First accepted by a few schools in the 2017-2018 application cycle and now at this point accepted by, I say most, but not all schools. And it's explicitly swept into the test requirement in ABA standard 503. There's also a couple of other tests that are accepted by schools, not nearly as widely as either the LSAT at the GRE, such as the GMAT. My first big decision when I took this job was to make a recommendation on whether while I should accept the GRE and we do, but I remember feeling very overwhelmed by the weight of that decision so early into my tenure. All right, Laura, when do you think an applicant should consider taking the GRE instead of the LSAT? Well, they're very different tests. The GRE is a lot of math and vocab, whereas the LSAT is critical reading and reasoning. So if math and vocab are your strengths, you might consider taking a practice GRE and a practice LSAT and see how you do on each one. Study for the one that suits you better. And if that's the GRE, you could always study for the LSAT afterwards. If you don't get a GRE score that will get the job done, the reverse is not true though. If you have an official LSAT score on file, don't bother with the GRE unless you need it for a dual degree program. And on that note, if you're considering the GRE, probably some of the biggest reasons to take it are joint degree programs, the fact that it's administered much more widely across the world and administered much more often. So it can be just more convenient and thus more accessible for people located outside the United States. And you know, if you've, some people will apply to law school having already taken the GRE for another graduate program. And so if it's a score that you're happy with, maybe that's kind of one less item off the to-do list. Miriam, a question for you, can applicants submit both the GRE and the LSAT to Wild Less and how do schools generally hand it when an applicant has taken both tests? So you would think this was a question with an uncomplicated answer, but unfortunately it is actually a little bit complicated. So Wild Less and many other schools that take the GRE will only allow applicants to apply with a single standardized test in any given application cycle. But if you have a valid LSAT score and reminder that's an LSAT score from the last five years, we are automatically gonna receive that LSAT score. So in that case, you don't really have a choice. If you have a valid LSAT score, we only take one test. That is what you have to apply with. The GRE score on the other hand, we will not receive unless you choose to send it to us. So if you don't have an LSAT score on record and you do have a GRE, then you have the choice where you can decide I wanna take the LSAT, that's what we'll get. Or I will send the GRE score that I have off to law schools. So there is a good reason for this. And that's because we have to report these standardized test scores to the ABA. My very first year that we took the GRE, we allowed folks to submit both if they had them and it got unbelievably confusing with the ABA where we had more test scores than incoming students. And it was just very unclear how that was all gonna get calculated and reported and some people ended up double counted. So now we allow applicants to report only one test to us, which we then report to the ABA. To add in a final layer of confusion, I will just say that this year, the ABA is now changing as they frequently do their data collection practices and they're allowing schools to choose which score to report. Between the GRE and the LSAT or any other testing alternative, if they have taken multiple types of tests. And this year, we're still sticking with our policy, one type of test only, but depending on what the ABA does in the future, if they stick with this new change, we may end up or not changing our policy as well. - Sorry, that was way too much detail, but it's very niche, but I think kind of interesting. - It is interesting 'cause the things like ABA reporting practices are not something I would have even considered when I was in the applicant's shoes, but it really drives a lot of the decisions that law schools and law school admissions offices make. While you were talking about that, Miriam, I was just feeling exhausted and wanting to crawl back into bed because the ABA reporting for test scores has changed every year that we've been in this job. Every year, in so many different ways, it is all just a big moving target. For applicants though, I continue to just try and provide the same advice that I've provided for a lot of years now. And it goes back to something larger said, if you're debating between the LSAT and the GRE, try out some practice questions for both, get a bit familiar and then pick a test and stick with it. Okay, to layer on the confusion, there are also two newer alternatives to the LSAT and the GRE and the more traditional standardized tests that operate quite differently. Kristi, maybe you can start by describing JDnext, which is one of these. Sure, so JDnext is being used as both a pre-law program, so a program that helps incoming law students get ready for law school, and also as an admissions test alternative. In both scenarios, participants take an eight week course that's modeled on an actual law school first year class. I believe it's contracts. I think so. I think so. And then you take an exam based on that course. So it's much more content based than either, for example, the GRE or the LSAT. The score on the exam is currently accepted by about a quarter of accredited law schools as an alternative test score. JDnext was initially developed by University of Arizona in conjunction with ETS, the folks that bring you the GRE and with support from Access Lex Institute. There's been a bunch of reachups done on JDnext correlation with law school performance, both by the individuals who developed it and an independent expert hired by the ABA. So the one thing that's a little bit different with JDnext is how it interacts with standard 503, which we talked about way back at the beginning of our mini-series, and that's what requires schools to admit applicants who have taken a valid and reliable admissions test. So the LSAT and the GRE are automatically swept into that. In contrast, JDnext requires schools to apply for a variance to standard 503, and they have to do that on an individual school basis, and that's basically an exception to standard 503 that allows them to use JDnext as an alternative. A lot of schools have done so, over 50 schools have had variances approved to date in order to use JDnext at the admission stage. - So I know from Googling this, that Harvard and Yale don't accept JDnext, but is either institution considering doing so in the future? - It's something that we're keeping a really careful eye on to see how it develops. There's just been so many moving pieces with respect to testing. The GRE, all the changes to the LSAT, that at this point, it feels like it's enough, and we're gonna stick with the status quo, at least for a little bit longer, but that could definitely change in the future. - And HLS is pretty much in the same spot. We're really interested to see how JDnext develops in the coming years, and also very interested to see whether it actually gains traction with the applicants themselves. All right, Miriam, so much for JDnext. Can you tell us about Law Ready, another potential alternative to the LSAT? - I would love to, Christy. There's nothing I would rather talk about with you than Law Ready. So Law Ready is a program that was developed by LSA C, and they've been doing this over the last few years. It is also a pre-law program, and it is run in conjunction with a handful of undergraduate institutions as of the time of this recording, seven undergraduate institutions. Right now, the only way you can participate in Law Ready is if you are a current student at one of those seven schools. At its core, you would take a number of designated courses that are already part of your school's curriculum, and you can participate in some other programming as well. And then at the end of the Law Ready program, you get a certificate and a portfolio of work that you can submit to law schools. Importantly, at least right now, Law Ready cannot be used in a little of a standardized test, which is different than JD next. So some schools have agreed to consider Law Ready materials alongside the rest of the application, but that's as far as it's gone for right now. And what do your institutions do with Law Ready? So at this point, we're not accepting Law Ready materials. It's definitely an interesting program and we're keeping an eye on it, but we're just sort of in wait and see mode for right now. And once again, we are at the same spot. We're aligned so much, Christy. I love it. Okay, finally, some more general questions submitted to SVA Instagram. These all call for some nice quick Zippy answers to close things out. So first, will the LSAT still be weighed as heavily in admissions after the removal of the logic games? I will say that is a yes. Okay, also from Instagram is the LSAT favored over the GRE. I'd say no. What would you say, Miriam? Say no. There's always rumors about that each and every year, but it's still a no. Alright, also from Instagram, how different are international LSATs to domestic LSATs? I think the person means LSATs taking in an international setting versus those taking the United States. I wouldn't even know where the LSAT was taken. So I would definitely consider those to be identical. That's a good point. I don't know. Yeah, how would we know? How would we know? Maybe the administration date, if you really? Yes, maybe there's context clues, but I would never make the assumption that it's international or what I care if I could figure it out. And the international dates are actually the same as US dates, except there's fewer of them. So it's not like they are different. It's just there's not as many. Oh, so that's not even an indicator as well. Oh, so we could sometimes, so sometimes we could be confident it was domestic, but we can never know for sure if it was international. Exactly. Look at me with my logic. That's the logical reasoning right there. Logic game on. And there's such nerds. Okay, from username at Rhino, will LSAT medians among the T14 be higher or lower after the removal of the logic games? Let me peer into my cracked cloudy crystal ball. No, I have I have no idea. Your guest is as good as mine at Rhino. Laura, do you have a prediction? Yeah, I'm curious what do you think? What do you think? I mean, my crystal ball is as cloudy as the next gals, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we do see some quote unquote correction of the score inflation from the pandemic era. So if scores move back to pre pandemic percentiles, then I would expect that the mediums to also come down accordingly. I think that does it for our LSAT mini series. A huge thank you to all of our listeners for submitting their questions and Laura, thank you once again for joining us for this season. It's been a real pleasure having you here on the show. I've learned so much. Yes, I have learned a lot and I second the thanks to Laura. It was an absolute pleasure doing this with you and Christie. It is always a pleasure doing business with you. And thank you so much again to all of our listeners for listening to navigating law school admissions with Miriam and Christie. We hope you enjoyed the season. Go crush the LSAT or the GRE or JDNX or JDNX. That's right, crush them all. Bye everybody. This podcast is produced by Ryan McAvoy from the Yale Broadcast Studio.