This blog is brought to you by a special guest, Ana the Analyst. As we gear up for the 2021-2022 law school admissions cycle, there has been a new wave of posts asking, “what are my admission chances?” A number of websites and methods exist to bring aspiring applications tiny margins of hope. However, like all things on the internet, these websites need to be taken with a grain of salt. Two Student-Based Admission Chances SitesThere are two … [Read more...]
Certainty vs. Uncertainty in Logic Games
We focus a tremendous amount of time and attention in our courses and books emphasizing the importance of inference making in Games; determining the truths of the relationships between variable sets. In making inferences, what we’re really focused on is establishing notions of what I’ll refer to here as positive and negative certainty. That is, determining what must occur in an absolute (consistent) sense, and what cannot occur in an absolute … [Read more...]
Canadian Law School Application Deadlines and Latest LSAT Score Allowed
Planning to attend law school in Canada? You may be thinking about which LSAT to take and wondering whether the January or February LSATs are too late. Schools in the US often accept scores from tests as late as July and application deadlines extend into the summer. But that is not the case in Canada.The majority of the 24 law schools in Canada list January as the latest LSAT they will accept. Application deadlines are generally in November … [Read more...]
Controlling Test Day Anxiety, NASA Style
A number of years ago I listened to the National Public Radio (NPR) podcast Fresh Air. They had a fascinating interview with a Canadian astronaut, Col. Chris Hadfield, who was promoting the release of his book, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. Col. Hadfield is an interesting guy. From his Facebook description, he was "the first Canadian to walk in space and the first Canadian to command the international space station." Col. Hadfield's … [Read more...]
Law School Job Placement: Top States and Portability
This blog is brought to you by a special guest, Ana the Analyst. The ABA job reports show an important facet of outcomes: job locations. The location information can have a big effect if you have a preferred city where you want to work. In these cases, than recruiting networks of many schools matter more than their arbitrary ranking. For instance, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to go to #25 Alabama if the only place you’ve ever wanted to live … [Read more...]
How Does the Law School Application Process Work?
Unlike applying to college, which is a pretty straightforward process (at least in retrospect), applying to law school can feel a little labyrinthine. Transcripts, Law School Reports, letters of recommendation, the Credential Assembly service, addenda...after a while, it can all start getting jumbled up.Right around this time of year, I start getting so many "I'm confused. Help!" emails that I find myself there was a quick and easy guide to … [Read more...]
Podcast Episode 85: Causal Reasoning Part II – Causality and Question Types
Wrapping up their comprehensive coverage of LSAT causality, Dave and Jon move from conceptual discussions of causation to an application-focused look at how causal reasoning is treated in the test’s various LR question types. Specifically, you’ll hear them address what to look for and how to best respond to causality in every context—from Weaken to Strengthen to Flaw and more—before touching on advanced cause and effect constructions, ensuring … [Read more...]
Logic Game Types and Frequency of Appearance
Anyone preparing for the LSAT is well aware of the unique difficulty presented by the Logic Games section. What is occasionally overlooked is that certain concepts are far more critical to success than others. That is, specific game types and ideas routinely appear and regularly serve as the basis for the entire section. Other outlier notions are tested so infrequently that they deserve far less attention.Basic Game Types & Frequency of … [Read more...]
Should You Cancel a Potentially Lower LSAT Score?
There's a common situation that pops up for test-takers after taking their second or third LSAT. After the exam, feelings of doubt creep in. "Should I cancel my score? It might be lower than a previous attempt! That would look bad on my application! What should I do?" It's a question that pops up a lot on our LSAT Forum and it's definitely worth addressing. Both Dave Killoran and Jon Denning have weighed in the debate countless times, so here's a … [Read more...]
The Diversity Rankings That Almost Were
This blog is brought to you by a special guest, Ana the Analyst. As you may have heard, USNews originally intended to release new “diversity rankings” with the 2022 Law School Rankings. The diversity rankings were to be stand-alone rankings that analyzed a school’s demographic break-out and rated schools on how diverse they were. However, due to several controversies (discussed on The PowerScore LSAT PodCast), these rankings were delayed until a … [Read more...]
Ignoring a Possibility vs. Making an Assumption: What’s the Difference?
If you're taking the LSAT, you'll encounter Flaw questions in the Logical Reasoning section. Students commonly struggle with determining how the author talks about a stimulus. Specifically, when reading and analyzing a stimulus, how do you determine whether the author has ignored a possibility or has made an assumption? What clues within the stimulus and/or what reading strategies help differentiate these two author approaches in … [Read more...]
Top 50 Schools for Public Interest Jobs
This blog is brought to you by a special guest, Ana the Analyst. There can be a tendency, on the internet, to focus on a school’s BigLaw + Federal Clerkship numbers (discussed in the first post of this series here). However, many students tend to self-select into public interest jobs. ABA employment reports breakout public interest and government jobs into two different categories. Since many jobs in the public interest are government jobs … [Read more...]
Top 50 Schools for BigLaw & Federal Clerkships
This blog is brought to you by a special guest, Ana the Analyst. Law school employment reports are out! We’ll be digging into some of the more fun details in a series of posts, but I wanted to start with everyone’s favorite topic: Big Law & Federal Clerkship amounts. What Are ABA Employment Reports? Each year since 2010, the American Bar Association has asked law schools to publish employment reports. These reports provide detailed … [Read more...]
Should I Take the LSAT “Cold?”
All too often we hear about students that took the LSAT “cold,” meaning without studying. It’s not uncommon for some students to believe they don’t have to study, especially if they’ve proven they can test well. Another common reason students do this is to get a feel for a “real” LSAT without preparing. In both cases, the LSAT often delivers a harsh reality. You need to study for this exam to really do well. Of course, there are exceptions, … [Read more...]