It’s tough to remain optimistic right now. It’s the doldrums of winter, everyone is sick, the Midwest is still mostly a solid block of ice, and we all just watched a successful band of cheaters (who somehow convinced everyone they were the underdogs, despite that designation being definitionally untrue) win a joyless slog of a professional sports game for what felt like twenty interminable hours.
To put it politely, the legal industry is not exactly known for its rapid adaptation to change. In light of that fact, with the recent changes to the LSAT — the shift to a digital format and the addition of twice as many testing dates per year — there are seismic shifts happening in the prelaw world this year.
In the greatest musical in recent history, Aaron Burr queries of Alexander Hamilton: “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?”
For those of you taking the January LSAT and hoping to apply to law school this application cycle, you should soon start writing like you’re running out of time.
For those of you applying to law school this cycle, we are now in the later stage of the law school application period. I’m sure many of you have noticed there is one constant to this whole process — waiting. You have to wait for your LSAT score, you have to wait for your letters of recommendation, you have to wait for a school to make a decision on your application, etc. Unfortunately, even when a decision is made, your waiting isn’t necessarily over. This post is about two different ways that schools can make you wait longer: by putting you on hold or by putting you on a waitlist.
Ever since the recession, law school admissions cycle have garnered a tremendous amount of discussion. Prior to the economic downturn, applications and enrollment were steadily increasing for years. The law was seen as a safe, stable profession. Following the recession, everything went haywire. Fewer students got jobs, class sizes decreased, and the once predictable application cycles were thrown into disarray.
There’s a brave new world of LSAT opportunities for those students planning to take the test in 2019. Not only are students choosing among seven test dates, but they also have the option of taking the exam multiple times and (potentially) in different formats.
At the risk of sounding like I’m trying too hard to relate to the youth of America, I’ve been playing a lot of battle royale video games lately. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this new gaming craze, a battle royale is basically the same concept as the hunger games — a number of players are dropped onto an enclosed space, which shrinks over time, and they attempt to survive until all the other players are eliminated.
Now that Halloween is officially over, we should be preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas, right? Well, yes, but not if you’re planning on taking the January LSAT. With only a few months out before the exam, now is the time to register for a class, purchase an online course, or find a tutor.
If you’re preparing for or have taken the LSAT, I’m confident there were times during your studies that you resented the law school admissions process, LSAC, and everyone else involved that forced you to spend months of your life dedicated to another standardized test. For most of people, the resentment subsides — students resign themselves to the reality of the system, take the test, and move on.
No prospective law student likes how expensive law school is. A lot of people take on tons and tons of debt to go to school. Then, when they graduate, the pressure is on those lawyers to chart a career path that lets them have a chance at getting out from under that debt. For graduates of lower-tier schools with lots of debt, it’s often hard to find such a career path.