It’s mid-summer, the September LSAT is just weeks away, and the guys are in the thick of LSAT prep season.

04:24 – Email 1—Jumping right into emails! Ted had been averaging around 158 on many of his recent practice tests, but scored a 161 on the June LSAT. That’s awesome. Congrats on the bump, Ted! Since his GPA isn’t too hot, he’s wondering if there’s a way to find schools that give more weight to the LSAT score when considering applicants.

11:18 – Email 2—Isabel writes in with a stunningly well-crafted email to ask if and how she should study before taking an LSAT prep course. Having already scored a 160 on a cold diagnostic (holy shit. congrats, Isabel), she recently audited an LSAT prep class from a local company. And guess what. She saw value in taking the class! Sadly, when she approached the instructor about preparing to take the course in the fall, they gave Isabel a whopper of a turd of wisdom. 

19:20 – Email 3—After earning five—that’s right, five—bachelor’s degrees, Shane wants to know how he should explain his myriad degrees and lowly 2.1 GPA to law schools during the application process. 

42:46 – Email 4—Carly is wondering if her personal statement and her addendum will sound too repetitive given they contain elements of the same story. Having grown up gay and in-the-closet in Texas, Carly was concerned she’d end up a sad old lady, and otherwise lonely but for her 99 cats. The anxiety of being in the closet hurt her GPA until she came out to a (surprisingly) welcoming community. 

49:30 – Email 4—Anonymous writes in with some rapid-fire questions that are shared by oh so many folks. How can they overcome test anxiety? Given their high scoring range, would they benefit from private tutoring? What’s the best way to disclose a poor (but upward trending) GPA on their application? And, lastly, how will having a criminal record affect their chances of getting into law school? 

01:00:11 – Email 5—With a cold diagnostic of 140, and no budget to take a prep course, Anonymous writes in asking for some silver-bullet-style tips to bump their score in a big way. The guys, of course, mention Nathan’s free online class and Ben’s free videos. The boys serve up some tough love for Anon, then each give their one “most valuable” pearl of Logical Reasoning wisdom.

01:26:35 – Email 6—You guys know that drawing diagrams and creating worlds can be an effective way to tackle the Logic Games. But correspondent Jaime took a recent diagnostic in which he missed only a single LG question without creating a single “formal” diagram. Basically he wants to know: is this cool? Is this a one-test fluke? And is there a particular method of diagraming that is more efficient or effective than the next? 

01:34:52 – Email 7—Anonymous recently rocked a 170 on the June LSAT (congrats!), which was right in line with their practice-test range of 168-174. Their LSAC GPA, however, is weighed down by poor performance in a community college summer course they once took. Is this something to highlight in an addendum? 

Watch Episode 103 on YouTube