This post, however, focuses on a very specific piece of advice for your LSAT day. We’ve written in the past about the relatively new LSAC policy which requires test takers to present photo ID upon entering their testing center.

Amazingly, LSAC has posted a litany of unintentionally hilarious photos on their website as example of what type of photo is NOT acceptable on test day. How is one to resist poking some fun at this?!

Here are my favorites of the unacceptable photos:

“Head too big” is the heading on this one. If only the LSAC really did deny test takers who suffered from an inflated ego – or people with mustaches.

The family portrait is frowned upon as well. Save it for the Holiday card!

All kidding aside, here’s the nitty gritty in terms of what you need to have with you on test day in terms of photo identification:

• The photograph must be clear enough so there is no doubt about your identity.
• It must be no larger than 2 x 2 inches (5 x 5 cm) and no smaller than 1 x 1 inch (3 x 3 cm).
• Your face in the photograph must show you as you look on the day of the test (for example, with or without a beard).

Good luck on Saturday!

No, no – it’s not that bad. But, it is slightly more inconvenient: you now need to bring a photo of yourself (along with your approved photo ID, your ticket, etc. – read about all of it on LSAC’s website). The picture must be of you within the last 6 months, and if right before test day you dye your hair, put your beard into dreadlocks, or pierce your forehead with a horseshoe, be sure to have  a picture of you with your new look. The photo needs to be no larger than 2 x 2 and no smaller than 1 x 1. Basically, get a passport photo. It’s definitely annoying – and what irks me most is that I now have to wonder whether people have actually gotten away with sending in an LSAT geek-double to take the test for them (or is the question, how many have gotten away with it?). Apparently, the usual photo ID and the affidavit that LSAC has you write in cursive were not enough to scare away evil-doers. (In case you’re wondering about the cursive requirement, studies prove that writing in cursive legitimizes a statement more than any other type of writing except for using Comic Sans.)

On a related ridiculous note, back in the 70s, a guy traveled the world using a passport in which he had replaced his photo with that of his dog. This speaks volumes for one of several things: the sense of security that existed in the world in the 70s despite the cold war, the theory that people look like their dogs, or the general state of that guy’s face or his dog’s.

So, off to your local drugstore for the picture. Say something witty as the camera clicks to bring a smile to your face as you prepare to destroy the LSAT on test day.

The other good news is that this is another way to study on the cheap! Since so many LSAT preppers are ramen-noodle fueled college students, let me outline a cheapo method for prepping for the LSAT on your own:

1. Buy some LSATs: 10 More… The Next 10… and, introducing…. 10 New Actual LSAT PrepTests w/Comparative Reading. (Only a lawyer could appreciate these gripping titles.) By the way, you can no doubt get most of these on Amazon for cheaper. Also, you can buy some pretty cool collections of questions from Cambridge LSAT – (if you go this route, you probably you won’t need the first book above, 10 More…)

2. Buy our guides. (And hey, go right ahead and save a few bucks and buy them on Amazon – let’s be real.)

3. Download our syllabus (you get free access to a syllabus and a bunch of online resources when you buy our books). Follow the directions. Stir frequently over medium-high flame.

All in all, this should cost you about $120. Then, if you need to, you can buy recordings of our classes for a couple of hundred. Boom, you’ve got quite an arsenal.

Anyway, congrats, LSAC! I will say that the covers are getting increasingly depressing, but let’s face it, this is the LSAT, not The Master and Margarita (my favorite book).

Our last self-study group continue to do logic games together, years later.

Man is a social animal. And women are too, but more polite usually. And thus it makes sense that you might be hankering for a group to study with. Let’s face it: the LSAT might not make you feel so good about yourself, especially if it’s forcing you into a dark cave of untamed intellectual training. Have no fear. We’re psyched to put you in touch with some other LSAT geeks and let you get your prep on together.

We’re starting up a group in a weekend or two. You’ll all meet in an online classroom on Sundays (or more often if you like), work on assigned problems together, and one of our teachers will come and help out the group every few sessions.

This might be the motivation you’re looking for. (Or, perhaps this is how you’ll find your soul mate. And, if you do end up hooking up with someone in a serious way, bravo – you took LSAT prep to a whole new level – and you need to invite us to the wedding if you can get over your fear of commitment.) One of the benefits of this arrangement is that you end up having to explain ideas to other students (that’s a part of our classes as well).The other is that you are more likely to do the work if there’s a group that’s going to cheer you – or give you an awkward silence when you haven’t done squat.

We’ll assign you some HW, we’ll toss your group some surprise problems to work on, and we’ll mail out stickers (no, we won’t – grow up).

If you want to join up – shoot an e-mail to studentservices(@)manhattanlsat.com and we’ll plug you in.

It’s going to be fun – and serious. And free to anyone who owns a shred of one of our books, self-study courses, or is a course student. Buckle up.

Villanova Law School has recently made headlines after their dean, John Y. Gotanda, wrote a letter to students and alumni admitting that members of the school staff had knowingly passed along bogus data about the GPAs and LSAT scores of the students they admitted “for years prior to 2010″.

"What rules through yonder window your LSAT reporting breaks.."

In the letter, Gotanda promised that the university would deal with these deceitful acts “swiftly and thoroughly”.  Apparently Gotanda went so far as to retain the legal counsel of Ropes & Gray to determine the “nature and scope” of the data fudging.

Lest we forget, the US News and World Report weighs LSAT and GPA scores quite heavily in their evaluations of the top schools in the country. Love them or hate them, these rankings are widely considered to be the authority in determining who is who among institutions of higher education.

So a law school has been inflating the GPA and LSAT statistics of their admitted classes in order to achieve a higher ranking from US News and World Report – hardly earth shattering news there! You can bet that Villanova is not the only law school out there that has “cooked the books” when it comes to the LSAT and GPA statistics of their students, and in my opinion, Gotanda deserves some credit for coming clean about these past transgressions (although this confession must have been made easier by the fact that Gotanda was not the dean of the school at the time of these forgeries).

What’s more important to glean from this article is the fact that - despite flashes of opinion that suggest otherwise – the LSAT remains as important today as it has ever been when it comes to differentiating oneself from the rest of the law school applicant pool. If a prestigious institution is willing to risk its good name through dishonest LSAT and GPA reporting, imagine how favorably they will look upon an applicant with the type of LSAT score they are pretending their students have.

Here are some interesting tidbits on this story from across the web:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/new_villanova_law_dean/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=ABA+Journal+Daily+News&utm_content=Netvibes

http://articles.philly.com/2011-02-09/business/27328846_1_director-of-data-research-rankings-law-placement

http://www.collegenews.com/index.php?/article/villanova_law_law_school_rankings_11777/

We want YOU to wait!

It’s been days and days – where the f@#$%@#$ is your score? Yeah, the folks at LSAC gave themselves until the 10th, but the LSAC operates like many airlines, giving us unreasonably late arrival times so that they have a spotless record of ontimeliness. We want to eat! We want to eat!

While you’re waiting, sign up for our Review the Dec. 2010 LSAT workshop (Tuesday, Jan 11th, 8pm EST, be there or be square sort of thing). We haven’t seen the test yet – we’re friends with the LSAC, but we’re not that close. We’re planning on focusing on the games, probably with an eye towards how to speed up. The scuttlebutt is that there was nothing new under the sun, but people got bogged down.

So what could LSAC be doing right now? Some possibilities:

1. Researching each and every one of your lives to figure out what score you deserve. (i.e. finding out if you’ve been naughty or nice)

2. Hand erasing your stray pencil marks as a gesture of good will.

3. Editing/laughing at/doodling on your essay.

4. Calculating the relationship between the raw scores, scaled scores and percentiles.

Don’t sweat it, the scores will be here shortly – good luck!

Until then, finish up your applications, make sure all your letters of recommendation are in, and get ready to hit submit when your score comes in.

Our fingers are crossed for you!

While you’re waiting, sign up for our October 2010 LSAT Review Workshop where we’ll review that LSAT and serve tea and cookies (if tea and cookies could be served live online).

Hang in there! That score’s coming any minute…

And so it shall be...

It’s always strange to see the LSAC embroiled in a legal issue since it’s the group that assesses everyone’s ability to be a lawyer, but unlike with the Testmasters lawsuit, in this one LSAC found itself a defendant.  The case was US vs. LSAC. And they’ve settled (with LSAC paying a $20K fine…)

From what I’ve heard from students, it’s been rather difficult to receive accommodation on the LSAT. Mostly folks have complained about accommodation for learning disabilities – but this case is actually about physical disabilities. In the settlement, LSAC has agreed to a streamlined process for evaluating whether candidates should receive accommodations. Obviously good news for those who need these accommodations!

I’ve heard LSAC talk – it’s a very ethically-minded organization. So why would LSAC find itself in this boat? Probably it’s because LSAC works hard to maintain the LSAT’s usefulness as a predictive tool. There’s a line of thinking: if folks receive accommodations during testing that they would not receive in law school, should we do it? The thing is, law schools will accommodate those with physical difficulties — and if they don’t, I’m sure the ADA will be after them! If you’d like to hear more about how this case fits into a broader struggle for greater accessibility, take a look at the New Hours broadcast that discusses the LSAT case.

To be clear, this agreement only covers physical disabilities – for those who are seeking an accommodation because of ADHD or something similar, here’s a run-down by Steve Schwartz of what you should do to apply for extended time. It’s pretty interesting how the LSAT is different than other tests out there. Sort of the same way that the LSAT is still paper and pencil. No doubt the LSAC is saying that if it ain’t broke…