Episode 57: Leveraging Scholarship Offers, When to Start Law School, and Tips for Campus Visits

Thinking LSAT

Nathan Fox and Ben Olson

Education

4.8 • 868 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2016

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After a bad test day and a “questionable” prep guide got him a 147 on the LSAT, Torvald* uses the Thinking LSAT podcast to jump his retake score to a 165 — Gratulerer, Torvald! As he considers law school options, Torvald wonders how to leverage scholarship offers from lower-ranked schools to get the best offer from his top-choice program. We advise him to apply broadly and discuss how to make the most of any offers. (2:25)

*not his real name, unfortunately

Muhammad has already been accepted to his top choice, Brooklyn Law School, but is starting to doubt his decision after seeing the new rankings that drop the program from 78th to 97th. Nathan dismisses the drop, while PI Ben conducts a thorough investigation of Brooklyn Law School and uncovers some disturbing trends. (12:50)

An anonymous listener writes in for advice after her less-than-perfect session with the assistant admissions director at the school she is interested in. We discuss the potential effects of such a meeting and suggest ways to ensure you make a good impression on your law school visits. (25:25)

We talk Socratic method as Nathan rants about professors who don’t employ the approach correctly and Ben shares his personal Socratic method faux pas. Learn from our mistakes as we tell you how to deal with this notoriously intimidating teaching style. (28:55)

A string of listener emails lead to discussions about starting law school in the summer vs. starting in the fall, reasons to go to or skip public events held by schools, and whether a particular LSAT prep audiobook is any good for studying. (44:10)

We wrap up with Question #18 from the June 2007 LSAT. Download the free test and try it for yourself, then listen in as we work through it. (59:41)

Got questions you want us to answer in a future podcast? Send us an email! Follow us at @thinkinglsat and tweet us a question!

Take a listen and let us know what you think.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to episode 57 of the Thinking El-Sat Podcast.
0:13.3	In San Francisco, I'm Nathan Fox, and with me in Washington, D.C.
0:17.1	is Ben Olson.
0:18.1	Ben, how's it feel to be back in the United States?
0:21.5	It feels good.
0:22.3	I feel like we were there long enough and we're kind of
0:26.4	starting getting ready to come home. So I'm glad to be here and teaching this round of classes has been
0:32.4	fun.
0:33.0	So yeah, I'm excited.
0:35.8	Cool, you already started, huh?
0:37.4	I don't start for another week or so.
0:39.4	I do have a funny story from class about saviche actually.
0:45.0	Oh, can't wait. You told me, right, to try it out?
0:49.0	Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so in class the other night, during the break I asked people to get to know their neighbor and just like one thing about them.
0:57.0	And some random, people then share this random stuff and one person said that their favorite food was Civiche and when they said that I said hmm yeah I have I've no idea what that is what is that and they're like really you don't know what that is
1:13.4	blah so they're telling me and then I can't remember who it was but someone in the
1:17.9	class was like Nathan told you about Civiche on the podcast.
1:24.0	I know, isn't that weird?
1:29.0	I get that similar stuff too, yeah, my classroom students who I've I'll have never met
1:35.1	them before but then they'll know so much about me because of the podcast they'll be asking
1:39.8	any questions about my life and stuff. Yeah, yeah.
1:43.9	Someone just told me that the other night too,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nathan Fox and Ben Olson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Nathan Fox and Ben Olson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.