Orientation Week--Humiliation , Experimentation and Vindication!

What a week this has been.

My school has students take a class during orientation week, an introduction to law and legal reasoning. It sort of operates as a mini-class, giving you an idea of what a full-length class is like. We have reading to prepare, we are examined under the Socratic method in class, we learn some substantive and some procedural law (as well as a bit of legal history and a bit about American and British legal structures) and we take an abbreviated exam at the end of it, part multiple choice, part legal essay/short answer.

I am so glad they have us do this. It has given me some time to sort out exactly how I want to learn this year—because it is not like anything I have done previously. We’re students and, of course, we read and study written material. But from here on out, our reading is pretty much going to be confined to case law. There will not be a lot of exposition and we will have to derive principles of law from the cases themselves—they will not be laid out for us. This class has been essential in giving us a conception of what that’s like. It has also been crucial for sorting out the mechanics of how I’m going to work. I mentioned earlier how I’ve been using OneNote. At first I was loving it and I loved that you could make lecture recordings right alongside your note-taking. Now that I’ve finished this little class, I’ve decided I probably won’t use OneNote anymore. (There are certain inconveniences about it that mean it would be easier to just use Word. And... like anyone is going to want to listen to their lectures one more time, right?) But at least I’ve decided definitely to use the computer for note taking. I also think I have a strategy for how to prepare for exams, which is the most important thing. Everything depends on exams in law school, so you’ve got to get your strategies down. I’m glad I had this small class to experiment with before the real classes start.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We did our volunteering one afternoon early in the week; it had rained all morning. A group of 40 of us got bussed out to a nature trail where there were some park rangers waiting for us in the parking lot. They told us that they had cut down a bunch of baby trees from the forest—because they take nutrients and light from other trees?—they had all been piled up about a quarter mile down the trail. We were to bring them up to the wood chipper parked in the parking lot. Pretty simple. So we just did trip after trip after trip. Of course what happens when 40 people march up and down in a moderate rain on a woodland path—oh—by the way—dragging trees behind them? It turns into a mudslide and everything gets filthy, including the people moving the trees. Despite which it was actually kind of fun. My mood was significantly elevated by a particular circumstance, which I will relate now!

The dean of admissions was in our group (also getting filthy, he’s a nice guy) and, seeing my name tag, he told me that he was sorry if I had suffered some distress over the confusion with the deposit because, in fact, the IT people had looked into and it turned out that I had NOT made a mistake! The online program logs people off after 30 minutes without their knowing it. They have since fixed this problem. And there was actually one other person whom this defect effected. He said that if it had been just one person who reported this problem they might not have believed the story and they might not have looked into it. So I must thank that poor other person who went through the terrible time I went through. I wouldn’t normally wish it on anyone else but thank goodness it happened to just one other person!

Oh sweet, sweet, delicious VINDICATION!

I hope that takes me off the shit list, but I don’t think it does because all the admin people seem to know my name, and not in a good way.

Moving right along...

My class has been really interesting. I made some serious studying mistakes, which I will not make again, thanks to this class. (More on that later.) I have been really enjoying the material and the work—the mental processes are... I hesitate to say it because it’s so nerdy... but it’s fun. After taking this exam, I was embarrassingly thinking, I wish I could write more! I may not think that if it turns out I did really poorly. I don’t know what it is. I’ve always enjoyed studying law.

In class, I felt I should sit tight for the first few days and not try to volunteer, lest I make a fool of myself early on and develop a reputation as a dolt. But on the second day, I did volunteer. HINT: If you don’t want to get called on, just volunteer when you have something worth saying. I thought I had this whole case figured out and I was thinking no one else was getting it but me, and I’d just sort them out by stating the obvious. So I volunteered. And I was promptly shut down. My cheeks burned for a moment, but then I decided others had said dumber things and that we would all say some dumb things this year. And if anyone was thinking I was stupid, well they were stupid! Let’s just give everyone a break, shall we?

Anyway, the next day I said something really smart that no one else knew and felt totally awesome, until I got over confident, volunteered again and said something sort of moderately stupid. I do not think I am one to go on the law school emotional roller coaster, so I’m letting these roll off my back and will just do the very best I can and hope everyone else does the same

There are those who are making nuisances of themselves in class... yes—the gunners have announced themselves. Now, how do you know if you’re a gunner? It seems that gunners don’t really seem to know they are gunners, so here is a little checklist:

1.) If you are quoting Kant and no one asked you to, you’re a gunner.
2.) If you are asking questions about substantive due process, and we’re working on ‘what is a statute?’, you’re a gunner.
3.) If you think you’re at the head of the class because you were a philosophy major and did pretty well on the LSAT, and you want everyone to know it, you’re a gunner, and you’re an idiot.

We had an orientation session with upperclassmen with no professors or administrators around, for the really candid questions. The best piece of advice was, ‘Just calm the fuck down.’ So much of law school stress is self-induced and really, you must just calm the fuck down. This was also the primary message I got from Scott Turow’s book, One L. I meant to post a proper review of One L but, heck, I don’t have time to do that anymore. So I’ll just say that One L was really interesting. He talks a lot about the stress and the oppressive workload, but he never explains how he got through it. It would have been useful to learn how one person managed to handle the law school workload, especially at Harvard Law School. So don’t go to One L looking for study tips. Do look at 1L of a Ride by McClurg (can’t remember the first name). It’s full of useful information, and I think it even helped me during the introductory class and certainly on the exam. So many people at the law school don’t seem to have a clue what is going on. Do some research before you go to school, because you don’t always have to learn as you go, especially when that has such high-stakes consequences.

Other random tips I learned this week:

--Read footnotes—they’re interesting and sometimes hold key information.
--Brief every case, but brief it keeping in mind what you’re looking for—know what you’re supposed to be getting out of it by contextualizing it. I went to bed the night before the exam feeling okay about how I reviewed. Then, at some point in the night, I realized that I had been studying all the wrong things. I had been studying the substantive law, when actually this course was about and I should have been studying the legal reasoning and basic legal principles in the judgments. I woke up early in the morning (as I had been doing all week actually) and made a quick cheat sheet (open book exam) of some basic legal principles and the development of some legal reasoning in lines of litigation. And this cheat sheet was absolutely crucial for me in the exam. Of course, I could not rely heavily on it, it was just to have the exact language laid out and in one place. But it was crucial.
--DON’T just highlight in your book without going back immediately and extracting the main points in a note format. I read and highlighted everything for my introductory class the week before and it was a complete waste of time because I did not retain any of it and I had to go back and take actual computerized notes on it anyway. It was annoying. Particularly with cases, because they’re so dense, highlighting just will not do. You have to extract the facts and rules and, very important, put them in your own words as much as possible.

I think it’s going to be a difficult but rewarding three years.

LNAT: Clarification

Hey, since people are still freaking out about their LNAT scores (one of the search terms that lead to this website was 'has anyone ever gotten an 11 on the LNAT') let me just clarify what I was saying before.

The LNAT is a bad exam. It's bad like Charles Manson. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do and it screws a lot of people.

The thing to remember is that the LNAT score is only one of many criteria used to assess you. It won't kill your application necessarily. The average is really low precisely for the reason that it's a poorly written test and that makes it extremely challenging to get the answer they want you to get.

Let me also caution future LNAT takers about one thing. When you practice LNAT, it is fine to start with the practice books, because they are very useful for learning the content and format of an unusual standardised exam; and they're good for learning strategies to tackle the exam, in a broad sense. When you want to really gauge how you're going to do on the actual exam, please, PleasE, PLEASE use official old exams from the LNAT website.

Here is a dirty little secret.

Prep books and prep book writers/publishers want you to think that they have helped you improve your performance on the test. They are always going to end their book by giving you practice tests that are either official but easier than the average exam, or tests that they have written themselves which are easier than the average real exam. I have used 3 or 4 prep books in my LSAT/LNAT career, from various publishers (including Kaplan). They all end by giving you practice exams which are easier than the actual exam. Do yourself a favour and don't get too excited when you get a 25 on your practice test. Go to the LNAT website and get the three official practice tests available there. They will give you a more accurate picture than anything else.

There, I've spoken my piece.

Response to Comment Regarding LSAT and LNAT

How exciting, I got an actual question in the comments section! I will now dutifully answer it.

This comment comes from DA, who I hope will answer my question afterwards. The comment was

hi, I'm in almost the same situation as you...I'm an american, but living in the states trying to get into law school in London. I'm trying to figure out if there is any LSAT/LNAT conversion scoring, I've taken LSAT, but want to try and predict my results on LNAT. Any advice or are they wholly incomparable? Thanks!

Well, DA, you came to the right place.

First, as far as I know there are no set conversion tables and they would probably be pretty useless because the LNAT and the LSAT are two very different exams. In order to learn some of the basic differences between the two, check out this post. Also check out this post to learn why the LNAT is a stupid, stupid, stupid test.

Now as far as predicting your outcome, your guess is as good as mine. I took three practice exams and got one quite low score, one average score and one quite high score, which suggests it's not a very reliable test. The best thing you can do is just take some practice tests yourself.

My advice would be, first, to get a prep book on the LNAT and familiarise yourself with the format and content. Second, I would start reading the British newspapers because most of the excerpts in the LNAT come from there (especially the London Times and the Guardian) and it's always useful to learn their style. Third, I would take as many practice tests as you can and very, very carefully try to dissect the answer explanations, trying to learn what it is they want you to be thinking as you read. There are three practice tests available on the LNAT website and several prep books are available.

Now, I hope DA will answer some of my questions!

First, why are you trying to go to law school in London? I hope that's not impertinent, I'm just curious because it's an unusual choice. What are your career plans? What schools are you applying to? When are you going to be applying?

Yay internet.

My life is a series of shambolic episodes

I took the LNAT, law national admissions test, today. It's the admissions test for studying law in Britain.

Let me tell you something about my life. It is a series of shambolic episodes.

Avid readers will remember the episode of my being almost too late to take the LSAT.

Today I took the bus down to central London at an indecently early hour to take the LNAT. I had my test confirmation ticket, which they said to bring and ID. Now, this is what their website says are valid forms of ID:

A current signed passport (an unsigned passport will be acceptable only if it is of a biometric type that does not allow for a signature)

A current signed photocard driving licence (full or provisional)

A current identity card, issued by the government of the country where the test centre is located, that carries your photograph and signature

Now I'm no lawyer, but it doesn't seem to specify that the driving license has to be issued by the government of the country where the test centre is located, unlike the current identity card option. So I think, 'Great, I don't have to needlessly carry my passport into town, I can just use my valid driver's license from my home State.' NO, NO YOU CAN'T. It doesn't say it has to be British BUT IT DOES. DIDN'T YOU KNOW THAT???

Reader, I did not know this because the LNAT website is a piece of shit. So is the LNAT for that matter.

It wasn't a complete disaster. I just had to go back home and get my passport and come back, which isn't a big deal except that is a 2 hour round trip in London. I did it though and got through the exam.

It's funny all the prep books tell you that just before the exam you should take your mind off it, distract yourself with something else. Well, I was certainly distracted.

Now my complaints about the exam itself.

This exam is ridiculous. First, I took several practice tests and got massively widely differing scores on each one, which shows that it isn't a very reliable measuring tool. Second, for each question you could make a strong argument that a different answer was correct. The exam simultaneously requires you to think less, making intuitive generalisations and to think more--for some questions you have to make several assumptions or logical jumps to get the correct answer. In other words, some questions require a gospel reading, some require further interpretation and you never know which is which. Third, it is an extremely badly written exam. The question stem will ask, 'What are the people in the article arguing?' but their correct answer will answer the question, 'What is the author of the article arguing?'. These are clearly different questions. Fourth, although they claim no outside knowledge is required to answer the questions, sometimes it really is. You would be at a particular disadvantage if you were not British or British-educated. The passages are often about British politics and education and require certain foreknowledge about such things as the European Union or Council of Europe political mechanisms or about British standardised testing. Luckily I have been here long enough that I'm familiar with most of it. How is someone outside of the UK supposed to know what GCSEs are? I don't think I had ever used the word 'accession' before I came to the UK and studied the EU. Fifth, the LNAT makes up its own definitions for words and expects you to know them. Assumption, assertion, opinion, suggestion, fact--you would have to have foreknowledge of how they define these to answer the questions correctly.

I will get my LNAT score in January. By the way, what the hell is that about? You get your LSAT score in 3 weeks and it helps you decide what law schools you can apply to. Here you have to finish your applications before you even have to take the exam. And you don't get your score back until after you've been interviewed? Surely that doesn't make sense.

Sometimes you have to give up questioning why Britons do things the way Britons do them. Thinking about the fact that I spent 4 hours on a bus today makes me really excited about studying law at my Midwest State School where a commute is 20 minutes tops.

This concludes all application activities for British universities. It is entirely out of my hands now.

LSAT Score

We got back our LSAT scores this past weekend. I did achieve the goal I set for myself but didn't see much improvement overall which was disappointing. I guess in the end Ivey was right that it isn't worth it to retake the LSAT. I also think I was right that I simply hit my natural wall. It's a disappointingly low wall.

I was about to go into a rant about standardised testing, but I'll save that for another time!

Anyway, I guess this is pretty much what expected, though not what I hoped for. I hope it will at least be enough to get me into my Midwest State School. I don't know what will happen if I don't get into a law school. I'll probably just curl up into a ball and die. I can't think of any other thing I want to do as much.

One of my British applications was one day late! It was a paper application that I had to mail in. There have been postal strikes all over the UK which have been extremely disruptive. I sent it FedEx to avoid that problem. It was meant to be delivered next day. The day after that I got a call that it hadn't been delivered yet because the envelope covering had been ripped off. So it actually didn't get delivered until the day after the deadline. I have no idea whether the university will take it.

It's like the universe doesn't want me to get into law school.

The LNAT exam is one week from today and I haven't cracked a book for it yet. I figure all that work for LSAT didn't help much, it probably won't help with LNAT, so I'm not going to work too hard on it. Cynical, cynical, cynical and pessimistic.

**************

In happier news, we have our tickets to come home for Christmas. I'm looking forward to blissful peace, cold, warmth, food, family, friends, driving in the snow and some R&R.

Post-LSAT

I took the LSAT last Saturday and I meant to write about it much sooner, but happily I've been too busy living life to write about my life.

I was almost too late to be allowed into the LSAT test facility. If you take it here in London, it is scheduled for the early afternoon so that it is done simultaneously with test-takers in the US. That meant I had a whole morning to be nervous and to worry about getting to the test centre on time. I looked up the route for getting there on the Transport For London website. It calculates the best route for you.

I should have known better.

It told me to take 2 buses, the first down to Angel, the second to the location of the test centre. It said the whole trip would take about 45 minutes. I decided to leave 1 hour 15 minutes early, so that I would get there in plenty of time. Big mistake! It took 45 minutes just to get to Angel. I was sitting there, waiting for the next bus, which I estimated would take half an hour to get to the test centre. Yet there was... No bus in sight... and just 25 minutes before the test was to begin. I decided there was nothing for it but to do what I should have done in the first place. I topped up my Oyster card and got on the tube. I had to go down two stops, change lines, go one more stop. I got to the change and walked to the platform--guess what??? unannounced line closure!!!!! I then had 15 minutes to get to my test centre which was still one tube station away. So I got out of the station and half-speedwalked, half-ran to the test centre. I was pouring sweat when I got there but I made it. Only 6 people got in behind me before they started turning people away for being too late. Fortunately, the room where most people were seated got filled up and a bunch of us had to be put in a different room. I had a few moments to catch my breath while they sorted out the chairs and tables.

Lesson: Don't trust bloody public transport, and don't trust god-less computer programmes!

As for the test...

I'm not supposed to talk about the actual content of the exam until the results come out, so no specifics. But generally speaking, it went okay. Not great, but okay. First, I've been doing a full practice test every Sunday for months now. It was an excellent way to practice and paid off great dividends on the big day. The heart attack-inducing arrival notwithstanding, I was generally very calm. I could very easily tell myself it was just like sitting down to another practice test. In the LSAT it is especially important to stay calm, because a section like Logic Games can very easily spiral out of control. It's also a very mental test and particularly for me; I was competing against myself, my old score, and therefore my greatest natural competitor! Also, in practical terms, you're used to the time put in, your neck doesn't get stiff, your bum doesn't get sore. You make good use of your short break. It's nice to feel that you're in control of the situation.

That's all the good I can say about the exam. The rest is ambiguous or downright bad.

The logic games... the logic games. Well for some reason they seemed a little too easy which is a sure sign that in my excitement I missed some important detail. But then I don't really know. In truth, I have no idea how I did. I will find out in two week's time.

One thing that isn't going to help at all is that when I didn't finish the last 5 or 6 questions in the logic games section, time was called and I had forgotten to fill in the bubbles. You're not penalised for taking a guess in LSAT so even if you can't answer the question, you should always guess. On probability, I would have gotten 1-2 more points. That is a significant number of points in the LSAT, and I spent the entire following section yelling, 'Shit, shit, shit!' at myself in my head.

Overall, I have no idea how I did. I didn't feel strongly about any section--I might end up scoring the same or lower than my first score! In the Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions, Anna Ivey highly discourages taking the LSAT more than once and says most people do not improve on taking it a second time. (By the way, I do highly recommend that book. Ivey was an admissions officer for the University of Chicago and the book is an excellent resource.)

I've not done things the way she recommends, but... I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait for my score to see if I've been vindicated.

LSAT Tomorrow

I'm taking the LSAT tomorrow and I think it's a good time to describe my thoughts about it.

I took the LSAT once before after doing a 5-week Kaplan prep course and I did better than average, but not by much. I don't have too much difficulty with reasoning and reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is probably what I'm best at. I am slightly less successful with logical reasoning my greatest weakness being formal logic statements. My downfall, my Everest, is the logic games section. What logic games have to do with being a lawyer or even with studying law I have yet to understand. I think it has to do more with mental dexterity and juggling multiple details under pressure than solving problems. I've always been terrible at logic puzzles, since I was a child and could do them in math for extra credit. If it weren't for logic games, I would probably score pretty high on the LSAT. So I tell myself.

When I first started practicing them, I was lucky if I was able to finish one game out of four. I found them really, really difficult. Then I took the Kaplan course and improved somewhat, but not as much as I had hoped to improve. I was disappointed in the Kaplan prep course's approach to teaching logic games. I will explain why in a moment.

The first time I took the LSAT was two years ago. I had just started my master's degree and was already in classes when I took the exam. Once in my classes, I had very little time to keep up the LSAT prep and I felt that I did not do as well as I could have done. I also felt that I had failed to focus adequately on the area that gave me the most trouble and the area in which I could potentially see the most improvement, the logic games section.

This time around I began studying earlier in the hopes of improving, especially by focusing most of my time on logic games, while not ignoring improvements I could potentially make in the other sections. I kept up a fairly rigorous study schedule throughout the summer, accommodating holidays and special occasions as best I could. I worked long and hard, I have to admit that. I also have to admit I could have worked harder, although that would be true no matter how much I worked. I did LSAT practice between 1-3 hours every day for the past 17 weeks, and a practice test each Sunday morning. Looking at my little printed schedule right now, I'm faintly proud at how much I worked. But also disappointed. I can never seem to shake the thought that I could have done more.

In my study schedule, I spent 4 days each week doing logic games exclusively, then the other two between a mix of logical reasoning, reading comprehension and more logic games.

Over the 17 weeks, I have raised my LSAT score, according to my practice tests, by 6-7 points. I set an initial goal and have surpassed that, but find I am still disappointed, as on further research my goal score is still not good enough to bother applying for the Top 14 schools. They have gotten a lot more selective, competition has gotten stiffer with more people going back to school because of the recession, and my grade point average is not good enough to make up the deficiency of my LSAT score. I'm heaving a great sigh.

I am disappointed that my 'numbers' are too low to make me a serious contender for the top schools because my subjective factors are pretty good, I think, and I'm fairly certain I would do well at any school. And I was really looking forward to a good legal education at a law school that educates legal minds, instead of just cramming minds with law.

Despite losing that opportunity, I am still really excited about the prospect of studying law at the Midwest State School, for all the reasons I have articulated before. In fact, it will be a form of bliss.

Now about the Kaplan LSAT course. I said I was disappointed in their method of teaching logic games. I felt their teaching style was based too much an assumption of intuitive understanding. The teachers they hire are basically anyone who scored higher than 170 on their LSAT. I have a strong feeling that people who score higher than 170 have an ability naturally that the rest of us who take prep courses are trying to learn artifically. Their style of understanding is much more intuitive and automatic, because they're simply that bright and clearheaded. I however, am not that bright or clearheaded and I need things explained to me, step by step. The Kaplan teachers and the Kaplan method I felt assume you will understand something, or that you will become aware of something, simply by your own brilliance, a characteristic which I lack.

That's not to say that logic games can only be done using intuitive reasoning. Quite the opposite. People who don't get them naturally can be taught to do them, I firmly believe that, they just need more help and more instruction at each step to see the patterns and inferences which seem axiomatic to those more fortunate. I felt Kaplan did not teach to this type of student.

Now, for a digression. My Midwest State School has a study abroad programme for law students to come to London for a semester. I was not aware of that until day I saw a girl walking by on the street with a big sweatshirt of my Midwest State School. I stopped her and had a chat with her (another digression: I was coming home from a bad day and it was too irresistible to not take the opportunity of speaking to someone from home, when I knew it would be so comforting and familiar, and it was both). She told me about what she was studying at Midwest State School, and we discovered we had some friends and acquaintences in common. She also told me she had been a teacher for a prep course that was a rival to Kaplan and that they also felt Kaplan's method of teaching logic games was deficient. She recommended that although I couldn't take one of their courses in London, I should get one of their books.

Well, this year I got one of their books, the Logic Games Bible. If you struggle with logic games, I cannot recommend this book enough. It gave me exactly what I needed in terms of instruction and more importantly it taught me the cues or tools to recognise when there is an intuitive inference to be made. Suddenly it became far less intuitive and mysterious and incomprehensible and much more like a game with defined rules and recognisable patterns. It put logic games in a context such that they were amenable to being solved by skills rather than by luck or intuition.

From using this prep book, I was able to go from completing 2 games in one section to completing 3. The fourth is still elusive and there are still some types of games that I struggle and struggle with endlessly. I am still prone to inaccurate transcriptions, misread rules, a failure to understand the global view of a game (losing the forest for the trees, in a way) and I am still far too slow. If I had another 4 weeks to focus solely on logic games, I might improve.

Then again, I might not.

Sometimes I think I have simply hit my natural plateau and no amount of work will make me better. I struggle with the knowledge that I'm not as smart as I wish I was. Things don't seem to come as easily to me as they do to other people and I seem to need two cracks at something before I can do it right. Obviously, life rarely affords that kind of opportunity. Yes, I think I may have hit my natural wall on logic games. On the day of the exam, that is to say tomorrow, the types of questions they put on the logic games will determine how well I do on the section. If it's 3 relatively simple games and 1 hard game, I might come out all right. If it's 2 simple and 2 hard, I probably won't significantly improve my score. If it's 1 easy, 3 hard, it could very well be a complete disaster. I am doing practice sections from old exams. Sometimes it's a disaster, sometimes it's pretty successful. I guess my success will depend on my luck on the day.

If I Go to Law School in the States: Here is the Situation

I am trying to decide right now what law schools to apply to. Here is the situation: I don't have a great LSAT score so I'm taking the LSAT again this September. In about 10 days. I should probably be studying.

Anyway, I'm going to try to push up my LSAT score to make me competitive for the Top 14 schools in the States. This is because I want a 'good legal education', a concept I will have to define later (note to self). If I don't improve my LSAT score significantly, I have a difficult situation to deal with.

Here is the situation.

My Husband is a smart guy and he has done really well academically and is in many ways much smarter than me. He, like me, went to a large State University in the American Midwest on a full scholarship. He did really well and has since done post-graduate degrees at Oxbridge University (ie Oxford or Cambridge, I'm not going to say which) and is now doing a master's degree in Economics at a very highly regarded British... shall we say... school... of economics (I bet you can guess which). He wants to do his PhD directly after he finishes his master's degree this year.

Unfortunately, he married a woman who has not been as academically successful and--at least in America--would not be able to go to as good a grad school as one to which he might apply to do his PhD. There is the possibility that he and I could go to two different universities of different caliber which are in the same city or urban area. This is definitely a feasible option.

The problem with this option is that while Husband might be able to get funding, my law degree will be funded almost entirely on student loans. I have been strongly advised that before I take on $150,000 of debt to attend an expensive law school, I should consider my career goals and what I can reasonably anticipate will be my income in that career and decide how much debt I can take on accordingly. I want to be a prosecutor or possibly a public defender. Not high paying jobs. Kids do go to $50K-a-year law schools and fund it entirely on debt but afterward they often find their career options are severely limited by the fact they now have to start paying off that debt. That's okay if you can get a job in a big corporate environment or in a lucrative private practice. In light of my career goals and future earning expectations (and the fact that I am so. sick. of being poor) I think it is wise to graduate with as little debt as possible.

This means it doesn't make much sense to go to a lower caliber state law school in the same location as the Husband, particularly when I could just go to my alma mater's law school on in-state tuition for less than half the cost of out-of-state tuition at a second tier school or any of the Top 14 schools.

So my alma mater is a large State University in the Midwest with a law school that is in the Top 25. It has a good reputation and according to its statistics its gradates are working all over the country (sometimes it can be a problem that your school is not highly regarded elsewhere and you can't get a job outside your geographical region). It has a great library which I actually used for studying while on holiday during my master's degree. It is located in my Hometown, where I would have free housing and a much less expensive and much more comfortable lifestyle than a big city. I would live only 2 miles from campus and be able to bike or take a free bus. I would be nearer to family and friends. Why would anyone go to a lower-ranked state law school at twice the price when they have this great alternative?

Because I would have to be apart from my Husband. :( That's not a good thing and almost tips everything in the balance towards saying, fuck it, I'll pay the price, take on the extra debt, so that I don't have to be in a long-distance relationship with my Husband for three years.

My Husband could go to this Midwest State School to do his PhD but it would be a major step down, the Midwest State School is not great for Economics and, given his excellent academic record, he can do much better and indeed must do better than Midwest State School if he is to realise his career goal of being a college professor.

So at the moment it seems that what is best for me is to go to Midwest State School and what is best for Husband is to continue at his British Economics School for his PhD. We are at an impasse and have to weigh the issues carefully. And quickly. I should be applying for schools now and haven't even decided where to apply.

US Admissions

I was speaking to a friend who graduated from a top 20 law school in the States a few years ago. He said a few things that were really encouraging:


--I have always read that American law schools either won't accept two LSAT scores, or will average the scores in their admissions process. My friend said that in fact nowadays they are more likely to choose the higher score because then they can report the higher score in their admissions statistics. Good to know. I have taken the LSAT once and scored sub 160. I would like to take it again and score a bit higher.

--He said not to worry about taking a courseload geared toward any particular area. Rather, he said, just take classes that are interesting to you. I sometimes look through course offerings at various universities I'm considering applying to and there is never a shortage of interesting classes.