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Air Date
Length 01:02:31

LSAT Podcast Episode 48: Student Question Mailbag #4

Jon and Dave are back to provide further updates and expectations about upcoming LSAT administrations, and to answer another round of student questions! This time they cover concerns about prepping for retakes and uncertain test dates, the harsh realities of transferring law schools, how schools are handling GPA conversions in this semester of pass/fail grading, the reuse of prior test content as more LSATs are offered, and finally the logistics and ultimate fairness of at-home testing.


Episode Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro. Nirvana’s “Stay Away” and some strong “Quarantinis” set the distanced vibe of this student mailbag episode.

5:50 - This week in the LSAT world. A quick recap of the LSAC COVID-19 news/lack of news concerning the April and June LSATs, more comprehensively analyzed in our previous episode, and what are other standardized tests doing?

Student Mailbag Questions

17:48 - Prepping for a retake. I wrote the LSAT in January and my score was meh, so I've decided to retake the test, hopefully this September once COVID-19 has run its course. But with all of this downtime, I'm looking to be productive and improve my LSAT score capabilities?

24:48 - Prepping with an uncertain test date. My state just locked us down until June 10th...aka two days after the next scheduled test. Do you recommend engaging or waiting to see LSAC’s move? Is it naive to think the machine knows “my” situation?

30:02 - Transferring schools. What do you think about transferring law schools? I'd like to stay in Southern California and am late to the application cycle, so I'm thinking of applying to Cal Western at Argosy, University of La Verne, and University of San Diego, then transferring after my 1L. I'd be happy with UCLA or UCI, but am also considering most nationally accredited schools in Southern California and T20.

43:28 - GPA calculations. I have heard that many schools consider a course where a student has picked a grading option of Pass/Not Pass, that the law schools will consider a Pass a C for GPA calculations. First, to the best of your knowledge, is this true, and second, with many colleges and universities switching to remote learning modalities, there is a push for students to use Pass/Not Pass for their undergraduate non-major coursework. Any chance law schools will be more flexible for student's Spring 2020 records?

48:04 - Test content reuse. The other day I took prep test #60 and realized that one of the RC passages was in the January 2020 test. It was a passage concerning art forgery. I am curious if this is a rare occurrence, or if there are repeats from older tests on current test? I assume this only happens on non-disclosed tests (like Jan 2020)? Have you heard of this happening before? If so, it would seem rather advantageous to study all the prep tests, or at least familiarize yourself with all the RC passages.

52:34 - Fairness of at-home testing. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the podcast regarding the fairness of offering in-home administrations. Considering that individual testing rooms are considered an accommodation (and I certainly would have preferred one), not to mention the standard distractions that come with packing ten people into a small room together. It’s hard to imagine an at-home test not being a significant advantage.

1:00:55 - Outro. (Scholarship Vs. Prestige admissions podcast episode referenced)