<p>How would taking honors classes look on law school applications? Are honors classes usually alot more difficult or about the same as normal classes? Would they be worth the potential hit on ones GPA? Other suggestions?</p>
<p>I have completed my applications for the entering class of 2007, so I can tell you how Honors courses literally look on the documentation sent to the law schools - On your LSAC report, there is a box under your biographical information for any "notes" LSAC found on your transcripts (in case you hadn't gone through this, LSAC will collect all of your undergrad transcripts, including JC's or Comm Coll's, and use a standard of translation to help make transcripts "easy" for admissions people to read quickly and in a meaningful way in order to compare you against others). If you have taken honors courses, then LSAC will usually see that on your transcript and put "Honors" in that little box - which is nice because unless you have other negative notes in there as well (I'm assuming examples of this could be any instances of academic probation or dishonesty type offenses) this is a nice little note for them to see right after reading your name. </p>
<p>Now if its worth it - I don't know. It would be cool if an admissions person could comment on how much value a committe places on that. I can tell you that while I like that "Honors" note on my report - I'd rather have a higher GPA without it. The schools rankings are determined in part by the GPAs of their admitteds...and they don't get allowances for taking someone with a lower GPA with honors. So based on pure numerics its in their ranking's best interest to take the regular Joe with the higher GPA. </p>
<p>I'd also say though that you can be strategic about it. In my situation, I am degreed with a BS in Mathematics. My GPA is lower than I'd like (3.36). Had I skipped the honors liberal arts stuff, my GPA would not have significantly improved. That particular degree is just tough. So in my situation I'm glad I did the honors stuff because they can see that even if I do have a 3.36 (actually 3.45, LSAC just applied their formulas and it dropped) at least I was cum laude / honors credits. </p>
<p>But again, I may be completely off - this is just what seems intuitive to me. I could be wrong...they may not care at all about the Honors notes and I'm kidding myself....in that situation I guess I'll just hope that they like my 179 LSAT. :)</p>
<p>WOW....congrats on your LSAT score....thats my dream score + 9 points</p>
<p>Great score makalika! How'd you do it? Is it true that certain mathematical methods help you to solve logic problems and perhaps do better on the LSAT?</p>
<p>makalika, you should be sad about your LSAT score! You missed one! :p</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I unfortunately was involved in a car accident that lead to a law suit over damages and such about a year ago. The lawyer my insurance company hired to settle it was the only attorney I knew at the time, so I asked her how she approached the LSAT and now that I've completed it my advice is identical to her's: Practice. </p>
<p>I got a set of books from the Princeton Review ( yes, I did enroll in the class, but in retrospect, aside from an hour or so with an instructor to watch how games are diagrammed well I would say the class is unnecessary as well as quite expensive - in truth, I stopped attending my class pretty early on which made it seem even more expensive) and worked exercises whenever I had the opportunity - I mean it, like DAILY. For months. I didn't limit myself to just the 5 PR books either. I bought a couple books on ebay (Kaplan's "LSAT 180" is on my suggested list) and from the book store (LSAC releases books with about 10 full practice exams each, I recommend getting one or two of the most recent books). </p>
<p>And when I say "months" above, I mean I studied for 11 months. That wasn't the plan - I had some really non standard things happen that prevented me from making it to both the June and September 06 exam - but I think it was all for the better now. Maybe it's because I've been out of school for almost 3 years now, but you have to really get a hang of the language usage in the LSAT and the question/answer patterns. You also have to get the hang of knocking out a decent amount of questions (between 22 and 30) in 35 minutes. That's actually a large amount of text to process in that time frame, especially because you need to read every answer choice on the LSAT. It would be a mistake to read the question, see choice A or B that you think is the answer and move on - you must read C, D and E to make sure its the BEST answer. </p>
<p>In addition to developing the necessary problem solving/analytical thinking skills needed to answer the questions correctly, you also need to spend time training yourself to read quickly enough to answer all of the questions. In fact, thats such an issue that many of the classes even suggest that students strategically NOT answer all of the questions, because for many they struggle to get to all of the exercises in 35 minutes and in that situation its better to attempt only 2/3 of them carefully and with accuracy than rushing through all of them. So my point is, on top of the practice, you can't "crash" practice/study. You need to plan well and give yourself multiple months of preparation in order to do your very best...unless you're a lucky brilliant bastard that takes your first practice and scores a 180....which definitely was not the case for me by the way...</p>
<p>Good Luck everybody!</p>
<p>This is rather funny: as of tonight, I have heard of students preparing for the LSAT anywhere from 11 months to four years in advance! All ended up with outstanding scores, but I'm not sure the LSAT is really serving its purpose when the taker has had several years to prepare for it.</p>
<p>Edit: I mean no offense to anyone in this thread. I guess I'm just slightly bitter because I can either take the February LSAT or the October LSAT. One is too soon, and the other too late.</p>
<p>I spent three and a half weeks, speds. On the other hand, I didn't have school.</p>
<p>Yeah I was in a similar boat - believe me, when I had to miss the June exam, and then again miss the October exam (both quasi long stories - life is a biatch sometimes), I was devastated. I just took the December exam and although I'm happy with the result, I want to cry because I wanted to compete earlier rather than in the dead heat of admissions time. </p>
<p>However, I have to comment on the "I'm not sure the LSAT is serving its purpose" comment, and I also don't mean to be offensive or overly contrary. But - and of course there is a but - the law schools want to get people who have demonstrated they can read and then think in such a way to make logical interpretations of their reading quickly. For the most part, if you have that then they teach you everthing else you need to know, including even how to write. If you are able to do that (demonstrated by your kick ass LSAT) then it doesn't matter if you invested the 4 years to get there. If anything, good for you for taking the time to do it, because being the best doesn't count for less just because you worked harder and longer than the other competitors. If anything, I would just take care to consider that in law school you don't get 4 years to get the hang of courses.. so you would have to work on your pacing. ;)</p>
<p>I have a question. If one took a dual-credit course in a secondary institution (the course itself was taken at a high school, not a CC), would the grade in that course be factored into the LSAC GPA?</p>
<p>Impressive score, btw :)</p>
<p>
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I spent three and a half weeks, speds. On the other hand, I didn't have school.
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</p>
<p>I wasn't referring to you implicitly in my post. </p>
<p>I'm not sure though: law students do not have an indefinite period of time in which to prepare for their exams, and as lawyers, time is definitely of the essence. While I agree that the LSAT can be prepared for in howevermuch time it takes, I am unsure about the permissibility of taking an enormously long amount of time to prepare for it. M, I understand your circumstances, but I don't understand the circumstances of those who practiced for three years, pulling their score from a 150 to a 180 (there are indeed such cases).</p>
<p>If a transcript exists at a community, junior, online or any other type of college you must submit it to LSAC (god help you if you don't, if you do anything construed as lieing on your application, including an omission of transcripts, the law schools can really freak out and make an example of you). You also need to list this institution on your applications as one of your "Schools Attended." </p>
<p>Benefit in your situation: it totally gets included in your GPA. If its only one class then it probably won't effect your GPA out of your other 120+ credits that dramatically, but every little bit helps. </p>
<p>Another note on GPA: if your looking into how LSAC calculates things, pay attention to the negative things that can happen too...for example, at my school under certain conditions you can retake a course and substitute your second grade (presumably higher) for your original mark. I took advantage of that rule twice. 2 years after graduation I decide I want to be a lawyer, and I send my transcripts to LSAC. They process them and let me know that my GPA, which was a 3.45, is now a freaking 3.36. Those are the breaks...but had I known about these rules back then, I would of taken action and either taken some extra comm coll or online classes in the summer to fluff up the GPA a bit before graduating or even better, taken more care when going through courses the first time around. Just some food for thought...</p>
<p>OMG, my 2 Bs in AP US History will count towards my LSAC GPA!!! AHH, major freak out, if that is indeed true. I think this is unfair because I didn't take the class at the college but a transcript exists.</p>
<p>If you got college credit for it, it counts. So yeah, your shot at a perfect 4 point is gone, BUT LSAC counts anything for college credit that you take prior to graduation, so you can always take some extra elective classes to bulk it up to a 3.99 or something. </p>
<p>Don't freak out - 2 Bs wont kill your chances at any college, including HYS.</p>
<p>
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I wasn't referring to you implicitly in my post.
[/quote]
I knew, sorry; didn't mean to imply otherwise. Was originally trying to be encouraging ("You've got plenty of time") but then realized it wasn't quite applicable to your situation ("I wasn't in school at the time").</p>
<p>If I'm not mistaken, most colleges that will give you credit for your AP scores give you the credits but do not take the high school grade that you received in the AP course into account. Therefore, your high school AP grades should never show up on your LSAC transcript (or any other college transcript, for that matter).</p>
<p>rolen27,
I think taking the honors classes are valuable for the pursuit of knowledge. My son totally enjoyed his honors classes, and he got A's in them anyway. They were taught on a different level, deeper probing into topics, but were not necessarily harder. Like maybe he would delve deeper into theoretical physics rather than pounding out a few extra problem sets. Or, maybe the problems might be a little more abstract. If you would enjoy the mental stimulation, I would encourage you to try them.</p>
<p>BTW, sallyawp is correct. The college gives you credit for high scores on your AP exams, but there is no transcript grade associated with them. Although, I guess one could assume that if you got a 4 or 5 on your AP exam, you probably did quite well in the corresponding class.</p>
<p>Do you get duel credit for your AP courses? When I was in high school (which sadly was over 7 years ago now, geez!) we would take honors level classes like that at our high school, but becuase the instructors had the appropriate certifications and the school had an agreement with the JC...we got duel credit for the classes. And that was my understanding with the poster here as well...in which case wouldnt it count towards your GPA?</p>
<p>(Unless of course the college credit you get is just pass/fail...)</p>