Jay Cutts, Author, Barron's LSAT (Now Cognella LSAT Road Map)
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Four Year Plan |
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Four Year Plan |
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Junior Year |
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This includes all of the elements of the Four Year Planner but you do them in a shorter time.
Junior Year |
Two Year Plan |
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Keeping Your GPA UpA strong GPA is really a ticket into law school. Students who have a 3.7, 3.8 or higher GPA have a much easier time getting admitted. You won't need to work quite as hard on the LSAT and the rest of the application. You will have more choices of where to go.How can you keep your GPA strong? I don't want to suggest that you only take easy classes. That wouldn't be fun or interesting. However, if you find yourself in a class that you aren't going to get at least a strong B in, you might consider dropping it. If you are having trouble in a class, talk to the instructor right away. Don't wait till the middle of the semester. Ask what kind of help is available. Ask what you can do to make up for poor work so far. Teachers certainly respect someone asking for help. Rearrange your schedule. If you need to drop one class to do well in the others, do it. It may mean taking an extra semester or two to graduate, but it will be well worth it if you can maintain a great GPA and earn academic honors. If you have to work while you are in school at it is affecting your grades, rethink your financial plan. There should be enough financial aid available to you so that you can concentrate on your education. There is no point getting through college only having learned half of what you could have. Go to the financial aid office to ask for information. |
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Choosing Prelaw ClassesThere is no particular prelaw curriculum. Most law schools like students with a broad education and with knowledge related to their specific interest in law. However, there are some courses that will help. Try to get these in soon. Public Speaking: Be sure to take a course in public speaking. If it's an area you are not great in, take a second course as well and try to get some practical experience. Essay Writing: Take courses that require essay type writing in which you can get direct feedback. Law school homework and exams are mostly essays. You need to refine your skills in this area to do well in law school. You may need to ask the teacher for specific feedback. Really push your abilities here. Logic: Take at least one or two logic classes. This is a critical skill for many attorneys. Debate: Also a critical skill for many fields of law. If there are no courses in it, join a debate team. Leadership: You may not find a course in this but it is an important quality to work on. Demonstrating leadership ability will make you a stronger applicant to law school but it will also help you in your career. Core Courses: Many prelaw students take classes in political science, history, philosophy, sociology and business. Other General Courses: Depending on your interests, it can be helpful to have coursework in public administration, religion, ethics, economics, accounting, criminology, languages other than English and/or international issues. Special interests: Take courses that would make you more knowledgeable
in your area of interest in law. You might major in such an area or simply
take extra coursework. For example, if you are working with violent criminals,
you might want a background that includes social work, psychology and forensics.
If you want to work in environmental law, take biology, chemistry, geology.
These are just examples. Do some research to see what classes would help
you out. |
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Making Prelaw ContactsFind out who the prelaw advisors are and make an appointment to meet them. You don't have to have anything in particular to discuss, just a chance to introduce yourself and find out what they have to offer. Check out prelaw organizations. You don't necessarily need to join but at least find out what they are doing. This is a good place to get some leadership credentials by becoming an officer and/or organizing projects. Meet other prelaw students in your classes and talk over plans and ideas together. Keep an eye out for prelaw events on campus. |
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Researching Law as a CareerThis is your big project for the year. You already have a sense that you are interested in law. You may even have a specific area that you are interested in. Even if you do, and most certainly if you don't, you will need to do deeper research into the fields of law that you might pursue. Why? Three reasons. First, when you apply to law school, you need to show that you have a realistic sense of what your field of law is about, what the issues are in that field and how you fit in. You may have some ideas now but the only way to know if your ideas are realistic is to do the research. Second, you will need to get some practical experience in your area of interest. You will start doing that soon. So you need to have a clear and, again, realistic sense of what you are interested in and what you would hope to in that field of law. Third, for your own sake, it is important to find out, even if you already have an idea, what the people in your area of law actually do, what the working conditions are like, what job opportunities there are. And of course if you don't have a specific area of interest yet, this is the time to start looking into the options. You don't have to have a specialty when you apply to law school but applicants with a well researched and realistic focus have a much better chance. How do You Start Researching Law? One of the best strategies is to find lawyers who are practicing in an area of law that you might like. Make an appointment to sit down with them and find out what the field is like. (Obviously you are looking for someone who will do this for free.) You are trying to find out: What is the daily work like? These are just some of the questions involved in a career choice. If you want to put some extra effort into doing this well from the beginning, you might want to work with a professional career counselor. For this month, you can start thinking about what you are looking for in a succcessful career. What are your personal goals? You can brainstorm with a friend. This is an excellent first step. If there is a course offered in career research or career decision, that would be good to take next semester. You will also want to talk with professors teaching in those areas. However, when you do this, remember that these professors maybe be on the admissions committee when you apply. In fact, any contact you make may have repercussions later in your career. Any lawyer you talk to could be a future potential employer or colleague. So when you make these contacts, you need to be fairly professional, well mannered and to follow up with a thank you note. In doing your research you might find organizations, either non profit or governmental that are doing interesting work in your area. Whoever you talk to, you need not limit yourself to one geographical area. Find the best, the most interesting, the most innovative. That way you can get a good picture of the whole field. |
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What Is the LSAT Really About?All law schools require you to take the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test). Whether you are even considered or not depends largely on a combination of your GPA and your LSAT score. Of course there are many other factors to getting accepted as well, but a low GPA and LSAT score will keep them from even looking at you. The LSAT does not test any prelaw information. It is not a test of any facts at all but rather is supposed to be a test of certain skills or aptitudes. There are three types of sections - Reading Comprehension, Logical Reasoning and Analytical Reasoning. The test is scored on a scale of 120 to 180. 150 is about an average score and it is difficult to be competitive with anything lower than a 150. Since there may typically be 8 to 10 applicants for every law school slot, it is important to be as competitive as possible. It is easy to take a diagnostic LSAT exam. There is a free one on the Law Services website www.lsac.org and it also appears in the paper registration information booklet which you can get from the UNM Law School office. If you get a strong score right off the bat, you probably only need to do a few months of practice using actual LSAT exams. A "strong score" means you are scoring about 2 or 3 points above where you would ideally like to score to be assured of acceptance. WHAT IF I NEED TO IMPROVE? If the LSAT were actually a true aptitude test, there would not be any way to improve. They would simply be measuring your inherent ability. But the LSAT is indeed learnable. There are many hidden patterns built into the test and with good guidance you can learn to spot these. The Cutts Graduate Reviews has been preparing students to succeed on the LSAT since 1990. To give you an idea of how our course works, please visit http://www.cuttsreviews.com/jcutts/lsat/lmenu.htm. To look at what the Cutts Graduate Reviews LSAT program does that a Kaplan, Princeton or other commercial course cannot, click here. |
Back to Freshman Calendar | Back to Sophomore Calendar | Back to Junior Calendar | Back to Senior Calendar |
Back to Freshman Calendar | Back to Sophomore Calendar | Back to Junior Calendar | Back to Senior Calendar |
Back to Freshman Calendar | Back to Sophomore Calendar | Back to Junior Calendar | Back to Senior Calendar |
Back to Freshman Calendar | Back to Sophomore Calendar | Back to Junior Calendar | Back to Senior Calendar |
Back to Freshman Calendar | Back to Sophomore Calendar | Back to Junior Calendar | Back to Senior Calendar |