The 7Sage Podcast

Is Your PT Score Fraudulent?

Going to an LSAC forum this fall? Learn what actually makes a good impression (hint: don't ask anything that's already on the school's website) and how to turn a quick conversation into gold for your "Why X" essay. Then meet Sebastian, a Navy sailor with his sights on Vanderbilt and a practice test high he admits is "very fraudulent." Bailey explains why a fluky score shouldn't mess with your head (your PTs are a thermometer, not a thermostat) and breaks down the LSAT strategies you need as you get started: the major Logical Reasoning question families, why you should always spot the gap before reading the answer choices, how to approach Reading Comp, and a simple pattern for cracking must be false questions. We also cover how to translate military experience for admissions readers, why "I want to clerk" isn't a reason to go to law school, and why applying can feel like a fresh start. Plus: LRAP basics, why loving frogs might help you get into Texas, and exactly how big your name should be on your resume. Waiting on your September score? Join our live episode this Wednesday, 5 to 6 p.m.

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We Ranked LSAT Study Advice

Ever wondered whether "Legally Blonde made me want this" is actually the worst personal statement topic you could pick? Ethan and Pauline blind rank five of them, and the results might surprise you. Bailey does the same with LSAT advice and immediately regrets locking in her top slot. Then we meet a paralegal plateauing in the low 160s with her sights on Columbia. Bailey pulls up her analytics live, finds the two tags holding her back, and builds the exact drill she'd run to fix them. Alex breaks down her study routine and where five hours a day starts working against you. On the admissions side, she asks whether her personal statement should be about the family cleaning business she grew up working in. Ethan and Pauline explain why the answer is no, where that story actually belongs, and how splitting it across two essays turns a strong application into a standout one. Plus: what to do about a resume gap you created to study for the LSAT.

Special Episode: Do Not Miss These Law School Events!

LSAC's law school forums put you in one room with close to 180 schools, a table of practicing lawyers, financial aid experts who will actually answer your specific questions, and a few hundred other people in exactly your position. Most applicants have no idea what to expect walking in, so Alex sat down with Kyle McMcEntee, Senior Director of Prelaw Engagement at LSAC, to map out the whole day: what's in the main hall, what's outside it, which sessions are worth your time, and the new pop culture lawyer exhibit debuting this year. Kyle also gets blunt about how to behave at the school tables. Don't hand out your resume. Don't lead with your numbers. Ask the questions you genuinely can't answer from a website, and don't treat a friendly conversation like an admissions interview. 7Sage will be at every domestic forum this season, plus a run of campus law fairs. Come find the booth, spin the wheel, grab some merch, and say hi if you listen to the show. Forum dates: Toronto 9/28, Houston 10/3, Atlanta 10/9, Digital 10/13, New York 10/16 and 10/17, Chicago 10/24, London 10/29, Los Angeles 11/7, Boston 11/14, Digital 11/18, Digital 2/4. Full details at lsac.org/law-school-forums.

The Assumption Rule Everyone Gets Backwards

You know the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. So why do necessary and sufficient assumption questions still feel like a coin flip? Bailey breaks down the mix up at the root of it, plus the negation test done properly, what "not all" actually means, and why a too strong answer is never a reason to eliminate on sufficient assumption. Ethan attempts his first ever LR question on air. Then there is Mia. Big score, strong GPA, and career goals running from the White House to immigration law. Pauline and Ethan explain why that reads as an undergrad application, and why the strongest profile in the room can still get waved off for another year.

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Some Right Answers Aren't Worth It

Stephanie keeps switching right answers to wrong ones, and her blind review score is eleven points higher because of it. Then we pull up her analytics and find something worse: five minutes on one question she got right, and three or four questions she never reached because of it. Plus the “never pick a strongly worded answer” myth, how to tell a knowledge problem from a timing problem, and non-traditional resume advice from Ethan and Pauline.

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The LSAT is Hard, Actually

Cory is scoring in the low 160s, aiming for mid 170s, and about to leave for six months backpacking Europe. He wants to know how to hold his focus when people are shuffling around the testing center. Bailey answers with box breathing, the anxiety page that talks your brain down, and the untimed to timed drill that turns understanding into points under pressure. Then the conversation turns to the application: what admissions officers do with your writing sample now that they've started reading it, whether to submit early or wait two more months for a better score, and Ethan on what is actually happening to your file after you hit send. It involves contract readers, software nobody wants to name, and about a million dollars in scholarship money to move a median one point.

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Special Episode: August Score Release

August scores are out, and the number on the screen does not tell you what to do next. Alex, Ethan, Kevin, and Bailey break down how to decide whether to retake, how schools actually read a score history, and why a pending score can stall your application at every school you send it to. You'll also get the honest version of the cancel question, the case for keeping takes in reserve, and what to fix in your studying if you're going again in the fall. If today went your way, congratulations. If it didn't, you're in far more common company than you think.

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Why a 180 Can Backfire in Law Admissions (& More)

You've been told a 180 must be better than a 175. It isn't, and the reason has less to do with math than with what an admissions officer thinks when they see it. Ethan explains why retaking a 174 is a mistake and what schools actually spend to move their median by one point. Plus Pauline on her first week at Yale, advice for first gen students, and whether reading The Economist will do anything for your RC score.

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Special Episode: LSAC GPA Change

Alex and Ethan come to you with a special announcement: LSAC is backtracking on a change to GPA calculation it announced just a couple of weeks ago. So what does this mean for you? Probably nothing, and if it was something that worried you, you can relax for at least another year. LSAC was planning to drop high school dual enrollment grades from its CAS GPA calculation starting July 28. Now it won't, at least not until summer 2027. According to LSAC, the delay is to let schools and candidates adequately prepare for the change. Here's what that actually means for you. If you're applying in the 2026-2027 cycle, your CAS GPA gets calculated exactly the way it always has, dual enrollment included. The change now lands on the 2027-2028 cycle and applies to everyone in it, new applicants and reapplicants both. And either way, law schools still see your full transcripts on the CAS report. Alex and Ethan break down who this helps, who it quietly hurts, and why you shouldn't be building an application strategy around a number that keeps moving.

Why Your Personal Statement Sounds Fake (& More!)

Most personal statements don't fail because the writer has nothing to say. They fail because the writer decided who they were supposed to sound like before figuring out what they were writing about. Alex explains the two bars you have to clear, professionalism first and personality second, and why the second one looks completely different at a T50 than at Yale. Pauline breaks down when personality helps and when it reads as filler, including why Law and Order keeps showing up in personal statements and why it never works. We also get into jokes, resume tense, and why naming the ACLU as your career goal can quietly work against you. The first half is the same problem in a different form. Our myth this week is the advice that timing doesn't matter, which falls apart the second you think about it. Bailey lays out a timing strategy you can actually run, explains why reading faster makes you slower, and admits to the mistake that kept her stuck: studying for the score she wanted instead of the score she had. Then we hear from Ethan, who keeps missing easy questions while doing fine on hard ones.

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The LSAT Skill Some People Will Tell You to Skip

We open with a bonus segment: Dean explains how he rebuilt 7Sage's free Admissions Predictor to account for the way your LSAT and GPA interact against each school's medians. Then the news. LSAC just stopped counting dual enrollment grades toward your LSAC GPA. If you took community college classes in high school, that could be worth real points, and you can request a recalculation. Devin, our student of the week, asks how to know what should be diagrammed on test day when practice sentences feel so much easier. Bailey covers the indicator groups, which question types reward diagramming, and when you're supposed to start caring about speed. We pull up his analytics along the way. On the admissions side, Devin is planning to write about a late autism diagnosis and worries he won't be taken seriously. Ethan and Pauline get into what admissions officers actually think when they read about a diagnosis, an addiction, or a chronic illness, and how to decide whether owning the story is worth the risk.

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Stuck Between Two Answer Choices?

You get it down to two, agonize, switch your answer, and the one you left behind was right. Sound familiar? Alex and Bailey break down why this happens to basically everyone and what to actually do about it: the rule for when it's okay to switch an answer, why "many" and "most" don't mean the same thing on this test, and why obsessing over your down-to-two record is wasting your time. This week's student video-in is aiming for Duke with a tech background and no pre-law resume, and Ethan digs into what that actually means for the application.

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LawHub's Tester Changes Again, and How to Crack Conditional Logic

There's a change to the LSAT testing interface that most other platforms haven't adjusted for yet, and if you're drilling anywhere but 7Sage or Law Hub itself, you're training on an easier version of the test than you'll get on test day. Kevin breaks down exactly what's different, down to the highlighter tool and how answer choices behave now. Then Harvard quietly dropped one word from their essay prompt, and the panel spends way too much time (and way too much fun) trying to figure out why. Later, Miranda joins as our Student of the Day. She's gone from a 139 diagnostic to 159, and she's stuck on two things: conditional reasoning and how to write about her accomplishments without sounding like she's bragging. The panel walks through both, plus how to build a personal statement that actually shows growth instead of just listing it.

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Why AI Essays Don't Get Into Harvard

A stack of applicants with 174-plus LSAT scores, all rejected from Harvard. The common thread? Most of them wrote their essays with AI. In a new format, the team digs into what actually separates a strong application from a competent one. The team hears from Jo, a Canadian applicant in the high 170s aiming for a 177 with her sights on Stanford and Toronto, and provides her with advice on how to make her application its strongest. Plus, you'll hear why AI raises the bar instead of clearing it for you, how admissions officers catch an essay the moment it stops sounding human, and why the perfectionism that wins on test day can sink your personal statement.

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Zero Offers to Full-Ride at Berkeley Law School

Jehieli went from a 148 to a 176 on the LSAT, had her score held, was waitlisted at Yale, and negotiated a full-tuition offer from Berkeley Law, all as a DACA recipient ineligible for federal aid. In this episode of the 7Sage Podcast, she walks through her three-cycle admissions journey: choking on a practice test, breaking into the 170s, a Sotomayor sighting at Trader Joe's, and the reconsideration letter that turned a $0 aid offer into a full ride.

This Risky Essay Got Him Into a T14 Law School

Bailey and Ethan start in the 7Sage forum: whether it's ever too late to start law school, how to think about the October LSAT timeline, why studying less can actually raise your score, and the real answer to "should I cancel my 158?" They also unpack a quiet red flag that sinks strong applications, including why quitting your job to study can backfire even with a 174. Then they talk to Jacob, an unrecruited walk-on goalkeeper headed to Michigan Law. He breaks down his LSAT score cluster, his 3.93 GPA, and the essay almost everyone would tell him not to write: a perspective statement on Israel and Palestine, written less than two years after October 7th. Jacob explains why he wrote it anyway, how he handled the topic, and why the risk paid off, plus how a soccer story about a five-foot-nine walk-on keeper became a pitch for a career in sports and NIL law.

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The Wedding That Got Her Into Notre Dame Law

At a friend's wedding reception, Ariel struck up a conversation with the groom's brother-in-law about his first semester at Notre Dame Law. That one conversation ended up shaping the most praised Why Notre Dame essay the 7Sage admissions team had seen. But the road there was rough. She signed up for the LSAT before she was ready, studied for four months, and improved exactly two points over her diagnostic. Then she took it again and scored worse. A year in Taiwan later, she scrapped every bad habit, rebuilt her process around real blind review and a wrong answer journal, and walked into test day at 172. In this episode she breaks down the exact shift that moved her score, why her first personal statement draft sounded fake, and how she chose Notre Dame over Georgetown. If you have ever wondered whether a rough start means law school is off the table, this one is for you.

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How Patience Got Her Into Michigan Law | The 7Sage Podcast

Leah was 35 and a decade into a political career when she decided to go to law school. This episode follows her whole journey, from that first decision to a 173, a T14 acceptance, and a major scholarship at Michigan. Ethan Madore traces the long runway she gave herself to study, the wrong answer journal that finally made things click, and the two disaster test days she pushed through anyway (a flooded house, a security check stuck on loop). They get into why her strong GPA from 2013 changed her score math, how she and the 7Sage team built a personal statement that made her make sense on paper, and the waitlist visit to Ann Arbor that turned into an offer. Plus how she handled scholarship negotiation without overplaying her hand. If you are a non-traditional applicant, or wondering whether waiting a cycle is worth it, this one is for you.

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Admissions Isn't Fair (& What You Can Do About It)

Is law school admissions actually fair? Ethan, coordinator of 7Sage's admissions program, sits down with writing consultant and Yale Law grad Pauline to grade every part of the application against a four-part test of fairness. They rank the LSAT, GPA, resume, and essays one by one, and the results aren't pretty. Along the way: what Ethan found when he researched the backgrounds of 59 current Yale Law students, why your GPA might say more about your school's grading policy than about you, the two types of people who end up at top law schools, and the real reason "just be yourself" is both the best and worst advice in admissions. Whether you're applying this cycle or just starting to think about law school, this conversation will change how you read your own application.

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129 LSAT to Penn Law: 5 Tests, 5 Essays, and a Shed in Nepal

Vivienne started with a 129 diagnostic, took the LSAT five times, wrote every optional essay Penn offered, and got the call from the dean of admissions. In this episode, she breaks down what actually moved the needle: study groups, JY's explanations, morning gym sessions before work, and a whiteboard full of scores she refused to forget. Plus her unforgettable personal statement, navigating a public interest narrative while working corporate, and what it means to leave everything on the field. Start your own LSAT journey at 7sage.com. Create a free account and take a practice test today!