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Thinking LSAT

Ignore the Cycle Hype (Ep. 517)

Thinking LSAT

Nathan Fox and Ben Olson

Education

4.8868 Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ben and Nathan push back against hype-driven decisions, urging students to ignore rising August LSAT registrations and wait to test until their practice scores consistently reflect readiness. They caution against chasing perceived trends, whether that means rushing to take an “easier” test or relying on gimmicks like diagramming. Even if more conditional logic appears in Logical Reasoning, the path to success remains the same: focus on intuitive understanding and resist shortcuts that only complicate the test.

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0:30 – August 2025 Registrations

Despite an increase in August test registrations, Ben and Nathan stress that this shouldn’t affect your personal test date. Wait to sign up until your practice test scores indicate that you’re ready. They remind listeners that perceptions of an “easier” test are misleading. 

14:26 – Still No Need To Diagram 

Henry asks if LR sections now contain more conditional logic. Ben defends the intuitive approach even on the most conditional-heavy questions, while Nathan notes that LR will never match the complexity of logic games. Diagramming, among other gimmicks, are magic beans sold to students. These strategies only complicate the test and inhibit meaningful understanding. 

22:17 – Michigan AI Essay

Jordan sends in a Michigan Law prompt inviting applicants to use generative AI. The guys are critical of the prompt but applaud the school for acknowledging AI’s role. They discuss how this reflects evolving attitudes toward AI in legal education.

30:06 – Why Don’t You Want Me to Go This Fall?

Lizzy expresses pressure to apply quickly despite not feeling ready. Ben and Nathan explain why waiting until you have your best score matters most. They warn against a “one-and-done” mindset and emphasize that rushing leads to lower scores, worse offers, and possible regret.

40:20 – Listing Awards

A listener asks whether they should list awards they haven’t officially received yet. The advice: yes, include them—just mark them as “expected.”

42:08 – Online JD Programs

Are online JDs respected? Do they get scholarships? The guys argue there’s little meaningful distinction between online and in-person programs. Applicants should still apply early and broadly to maximize scholarship offers.

51:22 - Word of the Week - Unless

Innovation cannot thrive unless organizations embrace risk-taking.

Get caught up with our ⁠Word of the Week⁠⁠ library. 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What just clickbait bullshit.

0:02.4

It's taking advantage of people.

0:05.4

It's selling magic beans.

0:07.2

That's all it is, you know.

0:15.8

Hello and welcome to episode 517 of the Thinking Elseap podcast.

0:20.7

I'm Ben Olson. With me is Nathan Fox.

0:23.5

We're the co-founders of ElSatDemon.com and the ElSat Demon Daily podcast. Today we have a graphic that was sent

0:30.9

into us from Demon team member Robert. It is of the LSAT test registration numbers.

0:42.4

The bottom line, test registrations are up 50% from last year.

0:48.8

Yeah, August 2020, 3 was a little shy of 17,000.

0:53.5

August of 2024 was a little north of 22,000. August of 2025 is over 33,000. So yeah, that's a 50% improvement

1:01.5

August over August. Or I shouldn't say improvement. Yeah. That word struck me as well. Just an

1:07.8

increase, I guess, whether that's good or bad yeah yeah what do you think this

1:13.0

affects test takers or applicants at all no fundamentally what matters is did you improve your score

1:22.1

to a point where you can go to a decent school for the right price. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if you're a golfer, you know, yeah, okay. Your competitors are hitting it farther and farther these days. There's more and more of them. Yeah. What's that mean to you? I don't know. Do you like golf? Do you want to play golf? If you want to play golf, then, like, okay. Like, there's a lot of good golfers out there. So go, have fun. Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't, you know, I think this might be possibly, well, I don't know, I guess, because there are percent first time test takers here.

2:01.6

If we wanted to dig in a little deeper,

2:03.7

we could look at how that has changed.

2:07.0

So August of 24 was 61% first time test takers.

2:18.4

August of 25, sorry, I guess it's August of 23.

2:25.6

It was 61%.

2:27.2

August of 24, it's 63% first time test takers.

2:33.3

And I guess we don't know what the first-time test takers number is for August of 25.

...

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