<p>I'm planning on going to law school after college. I've narrowed down my college choices to two--Carleton and Dartmouth. Part I: Which of those two colleges would be better suited to law school admissions four years from now--meaning, which has the highest proportion of undergraduates that go on to attend top law schools (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, etc.)? Part II: Is now, over the summer, too early to begin to prepare for the LSAT or just the right time? Additionally, would you say too much preparation over time yields diminishing returns?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you do well. Go where you will get a fulfilling undergraduate experience. </p></li>
<li><p>Wait until at least your sophomore year of college to start studying, if not later.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Not just diminishing but actually negative returns as you get bored/tired/burned out. LSAT studying takes six to eight weeks.</p>
<p>I agree that starting now is way too early for LSAT preparation. Waiting until at least sophomore year sounds about right. However, I disagree with bluedevilmike’s comment that “LSAT studying takes six to eight weeks”. The amount of time you need to study really depends on both your natural ability and your goals. For me personally, I needed to study for the better part of three months to really push my score to where I wanted it to be. On the other hand, I’ve known people who studied for less than a month and did fine and yet others who studied for half a year and still underperformed on test day.</p>
<p>I mean, I spent six to eight feels to me like it’s already stretching for me to suggest six to eight. If cereal wants to advocate eight to twelve (three months), I guess I can see that, but that sounds to me like a recipe for burnout for most kids.</p>
<p>I’m convinced that this is part of the reason so many kids see test-day drops; they’re too burned out and overstudying has killed their capacity for adaptation. Plus, bluntly, once you exceed that point, you really want to be careful about getting too stressed out about it. The test is best taken in a cool, adaptable state of mind, and there really is such a thing as overstudying.</p>
<p>I’ll stand by six to eight weeks, from everything I’ve seen, but of course there are exceptions.</p>