Hmm...Law School?

Last week, a couple of my friends were telling me about their daily struggle to improve their LSAT scores for admission into law school. They were both telling me how incredibly difficult it has been for them to improve their scores and get out of the 162-166 range.

"Man, you're so lucky you don't have to go through this," they said to me.

I just nodded my head and smiled. "Yeah. After all, I hate lawyers anyway."

Despite the fact that I really had never considered heading to law school after graduation from Syracuse, I kinda viewed my friends' "you're so lucky" comment to be a bit of a challenge. So, that night, I went home and thought to myself, "Hey, just how does this exam work anyways? Is it really that difficult?"

So, I jumped online, found the LSAC.org website, the group behind the LSATs, and printed out their complete sample test, and actually took it according to their prescribed simulated test conditions. After 190 minutes (including their prescribed 15 minute break after Section III), I sat down and calculated my score.

I got a 178...

...out of 180.

I recounted just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. 178 it was. I got up, looked at myself in the mirror and shrugged my shoulders.

"Well, whadddya know?"

I called up one of my old TAs who's currently attending Syracuse's Law School and asked her what my score meant in terms of law school admissions.

"Ray, with that score, you can get into any law school you damn well want to." Her voice kept getting more excited as she kept on talking. "Seriously, Ray, you need to stop what you're doing and start thinking IVY"

Law school? Ivy League? All of a sudden, it was as if this entire new world had opened up for me that I had never even considered before. I went into Syracuse to study journalism. Newswriting was my passion, and my thirst for information was insatiable when I first started. And then, after 9/11, my entire world changed. I saw news media for what it truly was: a corporate machine whose only interest was to make money and please corporate sponsors. I saw coward newspaper journalists afraid to ask the hard questions, and an overall zero-tolerance for a difference of opinion. And I saw Newhouse professors (Syracuse's journalism school) tell Michelle that she had to be "less ethnic" in front of the camera. I couldn't take it anymore after that. I lost my heart for journalism soon after.

Still, I figured whatever I did, it would involve communications. So, I never strayed too far from it. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I figured it was all going to work out in the end. And then, Apple came knocking, opening up the field of marketing as an option. With the very real chance that I was going to get a job offer from Apple after graduation, it looked as if that was going to be my field of choice in the short-term.

But now this comes along. Me...at Harvard Law School?

The more I say it to myself, the more I like it. Especially since I'm beginning to think of all the wonderful elitist brats I could eat for breakfast...yeeeaaahhhh... :-)

I'm still not sure if this is what I want to pursue when I graduate, but it is definitely an option that I will fully explore. I've decided that after I graduate in the fall, I'll dedicate the spring semester to practicing the LSATs. And hopefully, I'll be able to score at that level consistently enough to actually get admitted to these institutions.

These are interesting times, indeed...