Trent Teti talks about Blueprint LSAT Prep

Trent Teti gives an interview to LawSchoolPodcaster describing Blueprint's live and online course offerings.

Posted by Jodi Triplett

The Golden Age for Law Professors

Things for legal educators seem to be going quite well right about now. According to the National Jurist, during the latest decade law schools increased faculty by 40% on average, in stark contrast to what’s happening to Humanities faculty these days (they’re being fired a lot). This is good news for law students, as it raises the student-to-faculty ratio and gives the lecturers more time for legal scholarship. But this is also sort of terrible news for students of the law, as this increase is what accounts for nearly half of the tuition increase witnessed in the last decade. You win some, you lose some…

So, would the average law student (or pre-law student) prefer a more intimate setting or a lower price tag? I, Jodi Triplett, walked around and surveyed about eight people, who coincidentally all work in the Blueprint office, and in this very representative sample the answer was a resounding “lower tuition, obviously. Is this a trick question or something?”
Consider this: I swap my thirty-person graduate school class for an identical class, but with ten times the people, and in return I get a grand off my loans. Would I go for it? Jodi Triplett says: definitely. Even if there weren’t a financial incentive, I’d prefer the bigger classes; it’s a lot easier to get away with not doing the reading when you can hide in a gigantic crowd, gchatting the hour away.

But it’s not quite as black-and-white, as it turns out. The National Jurist reports that the increase in faculty is made to satisfy two very different goals. First, there is more and more specialization in the law, and you need more specialists to address and teach the corresponding concepts. Makes sense. But the other big goal they’ve had in mind is to increase their rankings with USNWR. By lowering the student-to-faculty ratio they get ranked higher. That added prestige leads to a higher sticker price for your education. Once again, USNWR is making the world a much better place.

By Jodi Triplett

Why are students still going to law school?

Vault looks into why there are so many students applying to law school when job prospects have flattened recently:

LSAT Advice: Eschew the Facial Tattoo

So you also probably know that Michelle McGee, the woman who had an affair with Jesse James (Sandra Bullock's ex-husband) is highly tattooed. Soon after the affair graced the cover of a bevy of highly reputable magazines like US Weekly and In Touch, Sandra divorced Jesse. It was clear that his adultery was a motivating force. However, as much as the public denigrated the adultery, it seemed that Ms. McGee's heavily tattoed appearance exacerbated the crime.

That thought made me, Jodi Triplett, a bit mystified. Why should McGee’s facial tattoos make us even more condemning of James' adultery? I think the LSAT can shed some light.

Sandra Bullock is an actress known for being in entirely wholesome, middle-of-the-road fare. She’s about as all-American as they come. This might lead one to assume that James is attracted to this type of woman, and thus the next woman he would be with would likely be cut from a similar cloth. Sort of like when Pam Anderson started going out with Kid Rock. This wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone, given the fact that she had previously been with Tommy Lee. She’s clearly got a type; scummy rockers with bad boy reputations. Brad Pitt going from Jennifer to Angelina is still pretty unsurprising – they’re both famous celebrities, and they’re both very attractive. One might be vanilla and the other lemon chiffon, but they’re both variations of cake.

But assuming that this must be the case is highly fallacious, and the McGee-James-Bullock love triangle demonstrates rather pointedly. Sure, James went for the all-American white bread candidate the first time, but we can’t assume anything about his future picks in women based on one single solitary case, an extremely limited sample if there ever was one. If we think he’ll go for another Bullock incarnation, then we’re committing the sampling fallacy (covered in lesson 6, if you’re taking Blueprint LSAT Prep).

When you’ve got a sample of some sort, three things have to happen: the sample has to be intelligibly related to any conclusions being made; the respondents cannot have to reason to lie (or be purposefully misled), and the sample has to be representative. If any of these conditions fails to be met, you’ve got a big old sampling fallacy on your hands. Here, the sample size is too small to know if the sample is representative. It turns out, (as US Weekly was so quick to show us), it wasn't.

by Jodi Triplett

Free LSAT Help in New York

Blueprint is sponsoring a free meetup in Manhattan for the October LSAT. So if you're interested in prepping for the October LSAT and could use a little knowledgeable help (for FREE), check it out here.

Start Studying for the October LSAT

The October LSAT is a bit less than 3 months away. If you're smart, you've already begun studying or will begin soon. The LSAT is not a test of memory, and there is no good way to cram for it. Instead, it tests a way of thinking and approaching arguments and problems - skills that will help you in law school and as a lawyer.

So if you haven't already begun studying for the LSAT, now is the time to start!

by Jodi Triplett

The First LSAT Practice Exam

As thousands of LSAT takers around the country begin their sojourn to becoming lawyers, the initial hurdle of many looms on the horizon: the first practice test. This LSAT rite of passage has occasioned self-doubt, renewed vows of studying, and countless trips to KFC.

To explain. For students taking courses for the LSAT, the first class typically begins with a practice exam. Note: for those of you self-studying for the LSAT, a practice exam is a good way to begin your studies. This is because the exam gives you a baseline from which to track your progress during your study. However, for many their first practice exam score grows, hydra-like, past this initial purpose and becomes a measure of their self worth, imposing a ceiling of dread in the form of a score they believe will define their progress for the duration of their LSAT study.

So, in an effort to bolster self confidence and inject a modicum of practicality into the process, there are two important items to remember about your first practice exam:

1. You haven't studied for the LSAT yet. It's understandable and even expected that you won't have a great score on your first shot out of the gates.

2. Your score does not define how high you can rise. Blueprint (the LSAT company I own) has an average 10 point increase per student.
However, we also have students who increase their scores by 20 points or more. It all depends on how much effort you put into your studies.

So take your first practice exam with a very large grain of salt. Preferably one from the KFC double down. A chicken sandwich where the chicken is the bread? As glorious as a first practice LSAT score, kept in perspective.

by Jodi Triplett