Success

Well today I took the October 2005 preptest, the second most recent exam I have. I took all four sections with no break, finished with extra time on each section and scored a 169!

I was really excited. Now to clarify, I certainly do not think that this is what I will score on test day, but to know that I am capable of scoring this high is really exciting. Hopefully I will perform well on my final recent exam at the beginning of next week. Tomorrow is the test from Nova, and after that it is old exams once I find a way to print them off without wasting tons of my ink!

I feel good about prep till tomorrow (one day of good scoring will do that to you!) I feel like if I keep up the pace I could end up in a good place in a few weeks. Hopefully I can keep up the intensity.

My task for the next week: develop a way to convert extra time into extra points. I have been lucky lately that I have been finishing with 3-6 minutes left on logic reasoning sections. I need to figure out how to turn these minutes into a higher score. Suggestions are welcome, though I realize this could be a mute point if I have difficulty concentrating on test day and lack this extra time!

Friday I visit Indiana University, I will post a my thoughts here when I get back. Hopefully it will be worth the trip.

Days Remaining: 12
Mood: Happy

Drop

Well today I took another practice LSAT and as I feared, my recent success have been a HUGE fluke. Today I fell back to earth with a 168 on the scale from that year (October 2001, Preptest 35). I felt really good taking the test but apparently made an unwarrented assumption at one point and that cost me four questions on logic games, combined with some random misses set my score tumbling. The one bright spot: 25/26 on the first logic reasoning section.

Today I decided to lighten up the mood a little bit. In honor of a great post I read today on another blog, I have decided to compile a list of jobs that it is not acceptable to say are what you plan to do when you get older. These are not jobs that it is not ok to dream about, these are jobs that are an unacceptable answer to the question: "What do you want to do when you get out of school." These are all unacceptable for one reason: it is so unlikely that you will get them it is almost like saying "i just want to win the lottery" or "i want to fall backward into money."

Here are the 10 jobs it is not acceptable to say you want to have after college:
1. President of the United States.

2. Sports agent (unless you have a lot of family in the pros and tons of connections dont claim this one.)

3. Senator, Governor, National Representative, or mayor of a large city.

4. Professional athlete

5. Professional gambler

6. Sports broadcaster for a top league (MLB, NHL, NBA, or NFL).

7. CEO of a fortune 500 company

8. Federal Judge

9. Founder of a multi-million dollar law firm

10. World famous singer, actress, etc.

Now the logic behind this list is simple: these are jobs that are in short supply and that lots of people want. Moreover, many of these jobs are jobs that you cant get without lots of luck and other people's help. I am not saying it is impossible to get these jobs, clearly Scott Boras succeeded, we have presidents, and middle age looking men win contests to become famous singers, however on the whole the odds are EXTREMELY small. Please do not counter with "i know somebody that did X" or "I can do whatever I want if I put my mind to it." No matter how hard I try, I will not be a professional basketball player. Period. These are all technically "atainable" but they are so far off and so unlikly that they are not an acceptable answer to what do you want to do after school. Get over it.

Days Remaining: 12
Mood: Confident and excited.

Something seemed odd

I finished the final lesson in PowerScores Full Length LSAT course today. I still have the challenge review which is one section of logic games and one section of logic reasoning, but other than that, I am complete with the course.

I noticed something odd as I completed the course however. The course finishes with a logic reasoning marathon, a selected games section, then a reading comp challenge. I made some mistakes in logic reasoning but compared to others this section of logic reasoning seemed easier than normal. Additionally, the entire reading section seamed easier than normal to me: I completed the entire reading section in under 25 minutes without missing a question. I am not that good at reading. Do you think that PowerScore puts easier material at the end of their course on purpose to 1. make you feel as if you have greatly developed your skills and 2. to increase your confidence level heading into the exam? I cannot decide.

I plan on doing the challenge review tomorrow and starting the logic games bible. I also plan to get to the Nova prep material at some point. Tuesday will be a generic LSAT, Wednesday will be a recent test, thursday will be whatever I feel like. Each day will also include some of the logic reasoning bible. For some reason, I feel ok about games. I have not been testing that well on them, but I still feel good. I think it is the feeling that I can gain more by improving at logic reasoning.

Wish me luck, its the stretch run!

Days remaning: 15
Mood: Optomistic

visit

So yesterday my mother came to visit. It was a nice change to be relaxing and see my mother again. We kept things quiet, movie, food, exercise, and shopping. I spent a large amount of the trip explaining the finer points of the law school application process to her.

I also finished Lesson 11 this weekend. Things went ok, I can't believe I am almost done. Two weeks left until the end of LSAT prep and then the real thing happens. I sure hope I get the score I need or things might get UGLY, I don't know if I can handle preping for this exam again.

Anyway, I feel generally good. I will be taking last December's exam after I finish PowerScore which should give me a solid measure of how I will do on the real thing. I am also starting to do five sections at a time next week. The following week I will be taking the exam's starting at 1 PM, with 5 sections. I dont plan to prepare for the writing section because it just isn't a priority at this point.

I am also planning school visits this summer, I will make sure to let you know my opinions on schools. Additionally, once prep is over I will return to focusing more and more on school choices and application plans.

I am still looking for ideas for my personal statements, any suggestions would be more than welcome. Also returning soon will be my comments on legal and political goings on.

Frat Boy:

Letters to community leaders were drafted today, will be sent out soon.

Days Left: 16
Mood: Worried

Blah

Well I took another prep test yesterday. The result: 170. I should have been excited! For the second time in a row I broke the 170 mark, however I was stuck on one fact: I missed enough questions that I would have scored a 166 last June. It puts things in perspective for how much prep classes and old tests are worth: As time has gone on, the scale has gotten more difficult because people have been more educated about the test before taking it.

Today I start Lesson 11, I hope to finish by the end of tomorrow!

Anyway, I walked yesterday, the weather wasn't nice and I didn't want to run in the humidity. Today I hope to run, we will see.

No Greek stuff this week, thought I got my partner for the summer enrichment camp that I will be teaching. She is involved which makes me think she will be good. I'll let you know!

Blah

Well I took another prep test yesterday. The result: 170. I should have been excited! For the second time in a row I broke the 170 mark, however I was stuck on one fact: I missed enough questions that I would have scored a 166 last June. It puts things in perspective for how much prep classes and old tests are worth: As time has gone on, the scale has gotten more difficult because people have been more educated about the test before taking it.

Anyway, I walked yesterday, the weather wasn't nice and I didn't want to run in the humidity. Today I hope to run, we will see.

No Greek stuff this week, thought I got my partner for the summer enrichment camp that I will be teaching. She is involved which makes me think she will be good. I'll let you know!

Light at the End

well I finished lesson 10 in PowerScores today. For those of you that do not know, the problems associated with Lesson 10 are over 100 pages long, so when you start it seems like the last big hurdle (especially because it is the third lesson in a thick book and the book containing the final lesson and the challenge review in a much more reasonable size!)

So back on topic. I finished lesson 10 today and I finally feel as if this test may eventually happen. The biggest problem I have with prep is that it seems like the day I am preparing for might never come. The proximity is giving me LOTS of extra motivtation.

The only flaw in my prep today was my lack of tolerence for "Logic Reasoning Marathons." I hate them and after question 45 or so I start to loose concentration and my score suffers. I hope I have completed my last LR marathon.

Tomorrow is a prep test, I have not decided between a new one and the last superprep. I am thinking the last superprep, then finish PowerScores, then a new one, then lots of old ones and then a final new one, however I have not fully decided on a course of action.

I have also been doing a good job of getting a jog in during the day. I hate exercise but I do find that the jog helps clear my mind to go back to working.

Days Remaining: 20
Mood: Refreshed and excited

Balance

Prep:

So today I found what seems like a good balance to my studying.

I woke up, talked online till I felt awake, then began to study. I did a moderate amount of work, then went shopping with one of my fraternity brothers. When we were done shopping, I went for a jog for 45 minute (a horrible and wonderful experince at the same time). I then studied for about an hour, cooked dinner, ate and studied for another two hours. I met up with friends to enjoy life (new theory) and came back and finished out my study guide for the day.

I think this might be the way to go. It leaves a lot of work for the evening, but it keeps me sane and I don't feel as if I exist only to prepare for the LSAT, which is a major advantage.

Other LSAT:

I'm sick of people asking me where I want to go to law school. Actually, that is not true. It is not that I am sick of people asking where I want to go, I have a prefect answer: I'll know where I hope to go in July, I am sick of people saying, well what is your dream. If I say Harvard, they would role their eyes and think I'm arrogant. Well, you did say dream. What they are really asking is "what school that is possible at least a little would you like to go" and that is a question I can't answer until I take the LSAT. It takes too much effort to explain that to people, so I just answer with a random school.

Inflation, prep, baseball

Application GPA Notes:

So I feel confident about my GPA heading into the law school application season. I have, for the most part, done well in my classes, I earned straight A's all year, and ended up at the high end of the 3.8 range when my community college classes are figured in.

That said, my schools grade inflation issues will almost certainly come back to bite me in the ass. To provide a few pictures of how bad grade inflation at Bradley University is, let me offer a few statistics. First, the 3.85 GPA that I currently have places me just outside the top 7% of Bradley students. Think about that.... I have earned 4 B's since I came here ad 7% of the school is doing better than I am. Additionally, this past semester the average GPA for students here was over a 3.0. A student that earned straight B's is below average. Now, I know that some professors do not like to give out C's and that a B is nothing to write home about, but still. We essentially have a 3 letter grading system: Good (A), Average (B), and Below Average (C). Isn't that really what we have? When was the last time a student got a C and said "well, at least im average." Almost never.

LSAT Prep:

Ok, now that that rant is over, I finished Lesson 8 in PowerScore yesterday, I have been working on lesson 9 and have to complete the "Logic Reasoning Marathon" which is going to be a HUGE pain in my butt. I'll update you on how that goes when it is finished.

Baseball:

Man, the Cubs players are just generally stupid. So first you have Barrett, who throws a punch at A.J. then expects everybody to think its fine. What a fool. I saw the play 8 or 9 times, and I don't think A.J. did anything wrong. When Barrett said he didn't see A.J. hit the plate, his case became even weaker. I dont care if you have the ball, you were in front of the plate, you dont get to just stand there and force the other guy to run around you. If you block the plate, they run through you, thats the way baseball works. So after this idiot throws a punch (and the Cubs loose) Hill stands up and talks about how it was garbage and cheap and all this other stuff. 1. How do you get through the minor leagues without knowing that a blocked plate gets the catcher run over? 2. Why are you talking when you haven't won a game all year and have an ERA over 5? 3. How is th bus ride back to AAA treating you (he was sent down later that day). Then today, A.J. goes deep and so what does Zambrano do? Points at him to indicate he is going to throw at him. Thankfully he isn't as stupid as he looks and sounds and decided to throw 5 pitches away (and walk A.J.) but still, how stupid can you be?

Greek Stuff:

The Greek mens GPA and our GPA missed the campus average however because of the (previously discussed) huge grade inflation, our numbers didn't seem so bad. I can only wonder what it would have been like if somebody in our chapter didn't earn a .90 (and I say EARN a .90 because he worked hard to be worthless).

Too Bad it Is Not for Real

Well I took another prep test today. I wish instead of being in the middle of prep I had this score and was finished. Through some fluke, I scored a 175 on this exam! The exam was Superprep B for those of you that are interested. The worst part about this is that it sparked my ego into thinking a score like this was realistically possible when clearly it is not. It is a nice ego boost, I dont think it is accurate.

Next week I am strivin to complete lessons 8 and 9. Hopefully that can be done. I am chugging through this course but need to pick up the pace. At least parallel reasoning is done.

Frat Boy:

No new frat stuff, this is the summer of conferences for Pi Kappa Phi. Steve, will be going to Pi Kapp college to learn everything he can about recruitment and I will be headin to Texas with Scotty to attend our main policy making session.

Nothing new in the Greek community. I am looking for contact information so I can send people letters thanking them for their service.

I hate

Legal:

Parellel Reasoning questions. I really really hate them.

I have been dreading the time that I got to this section of LSAT prep, knowing that it would drastically slow me down, and the time finally came. It took me two days to get through the lesson related to these questions and the practice questions. It is a good thing I had time built in for a slow down.

Tomorrow is the big day, practice exam day. I still have not selected an exam, but given the fact that I dont want to print one off from scratch, its looking like nova or a printed one. We will see. Wish me luck, I could really use a confidence boost right about now.

Anyway, I will post results when I have them.

Additionally, I am running into a prep problem. I had planned on working through powerscores quickly and then taking tons of practice tests, however things has slowed down significantly as I have continued with powerscores. I have told myself that I will block off the week before the exam for just tests, taken at the test time, but that means I realy need to get on the ball.

Wish me luck.

Mood: Relaxed

Days until the LSAT: 23

Frat Boy:

I have been slacking on the frat boy posts lately. Last week I spent an entire day (from 1 PM until 11 AM the next day) putting together awards packets for Pi Kappa Phi national awards. I also applied for two individual awards. I think that my application is fair and that I am qualified, however I am not holding by breath about either of them. There are tons of qualified Pi Kappa Phi's across the nation and though it would be awsome if I won (and basically seal the deal for me deciding to work for my national organization at some point) I am not holding my breath. Our local chapter applied for the following awards: Sound chapter operations, living the ritual, philanthropy success, new member education, and academics. I think the single category that we stand the best chance to win in is Sound Chapter operations, we really have fantastic chapter operations. The other categories would be nice but I am not holding my breath. We SHOULD win member ed next year when our new program goes into full effect.

I will try to keep some frat boy posts comming, however the focus of the summer is on the "legal" side. I will also continue to seperate the posts so that people can read what they want and not get stuck with the entire thing!

Setback

So I was doing really well this week. At one point I was two days ahead of schedule (2 10 hour days and thinking work would take longer than it did will have that affect) but not I am no longer ahead.

I am about where I planned on being, which, at this point is really depressing. I have a friend comming from home tomorrow, so that is another day lost.

I plan on doing double-time tonight. No fun, no going out, just LSAT. I hope to do well. Today is non-linear games. So far, they seem tough, I tend to miss an assumption and I have gotten 1 wrong on each section.

I will update more later.

Interesting side note:

I thought something was off with my grades. I thought I had 10 graded credit hours and 2 pass fail, however when I looked at my report I only had 1 P. I looked again and it turns out one of the classes I thought was pass fail is actually graded... thankfully I earned an A. It is like a summer bonus from the econ department!

Mood: regretful
Days left before the LSAT: 27

Grades

So today was judgement day: Grades were posted. I was really nervous because I was no certain how I would do in my Econ class, however I ended up doing well enough to earn an A, making this my first year with straight A's for the entire year.

I now have the GPA I will be applying to law schools with:
UGPA: 3.857
LSDAS: 3.875

Hopefully I can post a solid LSAT score and turn these numbers into solid results come next fall (crosses fingers).

In the mean time, I still have NO idea what I will be writing my personal statement about, anybody with any ideas is more than welcome to contact me and make the suggestion. $50 for an idea I end up using at at least one school.

For real this time

Ok, so this is the last time I will be making a statement like this. Starting today the blog is once again back up and running. More importantly, I am entering the interesting stretch of the law school application process, final LSAT preperation and applications.

So, as you know I have decided to buy the powerscore full length course book and some old tests and prep on my own. This was more a matter of necessity than anything else.

So I have restarted my prep schedule. Since I last wrote I have finished the first 5 LSAT lessons and am currently working on lesson 6. I have devised a weekly prep plan and will be taking a minimum of one exam each week.

Once again, the target score is 165, hopefully I will be able to meet or even better, exceed it. Please wish me luck, I will need it.

Anyway, the first priority for this week is to finish lesson 6. I have done the reading and find the assumption-negation technique to be really useful. I have the advanced games practice and the two reading section left to try.

I plan on taking the next prep test on Friday. I will be scoring it Friday as well, results will be posted.

Greek stuff is quiet at the moment, the only big task is finding Steve a flight to NC.

Grades come out this week, at which time I will be posting the Bradley GPA and LSAC GPA that I will be applying with.

Current LSAT Prep test statistics:

Mean: 166.4
Median: 167
Standard Deviation: 2.7
Mode: 169
Max: 169
Min: 162

Bare in mind those numbers are skewed by two, year old 162's.