Breaking Down the New Rankings (Ep. 403)
Thinking LSAT
Nathan Fox and Ben Olson
4.8 • 868 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2023
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After months of delays, the new law school rankings have arrived. Will changes to U.S. News’s methodology mean fewer merit scholarships? Ben is joined by TLP producer Erik to discuss the new rankings and how they might affect prospective law students. Later, Ben and Erik dig into the correlation–causation flaw, discuss the trouble with study timelines, and advise applicants on whether and how to write a GPA addendum.
1:57 - Law School Rankings - Ben and Erik recap U.S. News’s tumultuous year and consider how the new ranking methodology might impact law schools’ admissions and scholarship decisions.
- LSAC claims the LSAT is the most accurate predictor of law school success.
- A Journal of Empirical Studies article questions the correlation between LSAT and LGPA.
31:57 - Correlation vs. Causation - Ben breaks down the correlation–causation flaw. While correlation alone doesn’t prove causation, it is evidence of causation.
38:40 - Study Tips for a Marine - An anonymous student who’s also an active duty Marine officer asks for advice on how to study for the LSAT. Ben and Erik explain why LSAT Demon is the perfect study tool for a student who frequently travels. They also encourage Anonymous not to settle for a 155 target score.
44:15 - When Should I Start Studying? - Listener Rebecca asks for help plotting out her LSAT study timeline. Ben and Erik advise Rebecca not to plan backward from a particular test date or admissions cycle. Instead, she should start studying without a timeline and to take a gap year if needed.
51:11 - GPA Addendum - Erik and Ben review listener Spencer's GPA addendum and offer some general rules for how to approach your GPA addendum—or whether to write one at all.
1:01:43 - Work-Study vs. Law School - Listener Breanna asks for the guys’ opinion on a program that would allow her to take the bar exam after a four-year work-study program with a judge or attorney in lieu of attending law school. Ben and Erik are optimistic but encourage Breanna to do her due diligence on the program’s job outcomes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 403 of the Thinking Elsap podcast. I'm Ben Olson. |
| 0:12.1 | With me today is Eric Johanson, our producer. Nate is not here. He is on |
| 0:18.3 | vacation, I believe in Scotland playing golf. So you don't need to feel too bad about him but he is |
| 0:24.8 | still emailing us every day keeping his inbox zero anyways I am the co-founder of |
| 0:32.0 | Elside Demon.com and the Elsad Demon Daily podcast and Eric is the producer for both thinking |
| 0:39.5 | Elsat and Elsad Demon, Eric, what's it like creating this agenda for me and Nate and then |
| 0:48.4 | hearing us comment on it? Is it at all like what you expected or do we usually just go off in some random direction and you go, okay, well there there you go. |
| 1:01.7 | I frequently, well, I've lived with you guys in my head for years now because even |
| 1:07.5 | before doing more of this producer stuff I've edited the show for a while so I've |
| 1:11.6 | been a podcast listener and editor for years |
| 1:16.0 | So I usually have a pretty good sense of how you're gonna respond to things when I put them on the agenda |
| 1:22.1 | Sometimes you surprise me, sometimes you go off |
| 1:25.4 | on a tangent that I wasn't expected. |
| 1:27.0 | Sometimes you get more or less agitated |
| 1:30.0 | by certain things than I might have expected. |
| 1:31.9 | But, yeah. It's always fun to hear those |
| 1:34.9 | those surprises you know I do my best to pick out because we can't get to every |
| 1:39.8 | email that comes in but I do my best to pick out the ones that seem like they would be helpful that you might find engaging to talk about. |
| 1:47.0 | No, well we appreciate it. |
| 1:49.0 | Yeah, you make our job much easier. |
| 1:51.0 | If you want to be Elsat famous, if you want to share news or ask |
| 1:54.8 | questions, you can do so on our website that's thinking-Eelsat.com and that will go to |
... |
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