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Thinking LSAT

Ep. 194: Gaming the System

Thinking LSAT

Nathan Fox and Ben Olson

Education

4.8868 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2019

⏱️ 83 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nathan and Ben are just back from a weekend in DC delivering a Personal Statement Workshop and they jump right into the show debriefing each other on their experiences teaching the class. And while Nathan laments he couldn’t spend more time causing mischief with Ben’s kids, they both had a blast going deep on personal statements with 2020 1L hopefuls. After the workshop recap, the guys touch on a bunch of topics ranging from how to properly time yourself during practice tests to whether community-college grades can be a boon to your LSAC GPA. They also take a look at a listener-submitted graph covering 5 months of practice-test data, and they break out the knives and blow torches for a personal statement review. As always, if you like the show and you want to get more from the Thinking LSAT community, check out the links below. You can connect with other folks studying for the LSAT, and get more useful resources from Nathan and Ben. Thinking LSAT Facebook Group Instagram (upcoming events) LSAT Demon Strategy Prep Fox LSAT Personal Statement Review Package Upcoming Events 6/3/19 - The June 3rd LSAT! 6/4/19 - Last day to register for the July LSAT 6/27/19 - June scores released 7/15/19 - July LSAT Thinking LSAT Personal Statement Workshop If you missed out on Nathan’s and Ben’s personal statement workshop this weekend, don’t fret. The guys have posted the class online! Check it out here and follow along with the personal statements they cover in the workshop: The workshop. The personal statements. (https://www.strategyprep.com/admissions/ps-workshop-190518.pdf) 6:21 – Gaming the system? Listener of the show Will recently asked a question via the comments section on the Thinking LSAT website. Will’s sitting pretty with a 176 official score backed up by a 3.9 LSAC GPA. Pretty sweet, huh? But ‘not so fast,’ Will says. It turns out that Will had a GPA of 3.7. It was only when he factored in his good grades from (non-transferrable) community college classes that he got this boost. Now he’s worried that the elite schools he’s planning to apply to are going to scour his transcripts and determine that he “gamed the system,” with community classes. Should he worry, he wonders?

Watch Episode 194 on YouTube

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to episode 194 of the Thinking Elseat Podcast in Los Angeles. I'm Nathan Fox with me in

0:14.4

Vienna, Virginia is Ben Olson. Ben it was nice seeing you last Saturday.

0:19.2

Yeah, that was nice seeing you. Thanks for taking my son to Lincoln Memorial

0:25.4

and keeping him from getting lost in the big city.

0:29.9

I had a great time with him.

0:31.1

I am really sorry that I didn't get to corrupt him at all as promised. I mean that is the job of an uncle is to sort of do subversive things with the with the eight-year-old or not eight-year-old eighth-grader

0:45.9

kid. Yeah. Instead we just had a very sweet conversation about books the entire

0:50.7

time. Yeah, very like the opposite.

0:53.0

Right.

0:54.0

Now you're going to motivate him to read more.

0:56.0

Yeah, well, I'll start giving him some subversive literature.

1:00.0

How about that?

1:01.0

Good.

1:02.0

At some point. Yeah, whatever works that? Good. Yeah, yeah, whatever works,

1:04.3

communism, stuff like that.

1:05.4

Old school, really old school.

1:08.6

You a bomber manifesto.

1:09.6

Yeah.

1:10.6

Well, he might be like, is this for real?

1:15.0

No, it was, uh, that was really fun, so nice to spend some time

1:20.0

with the kid.

1:21.0

Yeah, you did good.

...

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