Don’t Let LSAT Results Anxiety Get To You!

Don’t Let LSAT Results Anxiety Get To You! 4 Tips To Get You Through To Results

From everything we’ve heard from students, the September 2017 LSAT was particularly grueling. While we hear this after every administration of the test, that’s probably small comfort to you. Now that it’s over, if you still have LSAT results anxiety based on your experience, that’s normal! Most people feel terrible when they come out of the test. In this post, we’re going to give you some tips to help get you through until results come out!

Don’t Let LSAT Results Anxiety Get To You! 4 Tips To Get You Through To Results

1. You cannot change the past, so try to affect the future.

Yes, this is the most cliched advice in the world. But if you have LSAT results anxiety, it really is helpful to try to let test day go. There is no point in beating yourself up over how you did on the test. Even if you were not as committed as you would have liked during your prep, fretting over it now is not going to change anything. Instead of reliving the past, use your LSAT anxiety toward other more useful pursuits. Remember that there’s more to law school admissions than just your LSAT score. So, spend time you could be using worrying about your performance to write a knockout personal statement, or engage in some extra curricular activities, or really excel in your classes. All of these are much more productive ways to channel your LSAT results anxiety.

2. You might have done better than you think.

Everyone walks out of the LSAT thinking that they did horribly, and that they never want to go through the experience again. That is perfectly normal! Everyone we know who took the LSAT felt this way. When we hear back from students after their scores come in, they generally do about where they anticipated, based on their practice beforehand.

As an example, I had a multiple time LSAT taker who came to me for her third attempt at the exam. She had mitigating circumstances (deaths in the family) that really affected her first two scores.  In addition, she also took the LSAT at a time when you only got three attempts, which has recently changed. She was also enrolled in a program in the Detroit area where she could enter law school after 3 years of undergraduate study without completing a separate major. She was on the verge of having to drop out of that program and reconsider her career goals. Suffice to say, she HAD to nail the exam.

She felt terrible after the test, and thought she was in big trouble. However, when results came out, she had increased her score by 7 points and was able to gain admission to her law school of choice. So, don’t always trust your first gut instinct after the LSAT.

3. If it did not go well, you have plenty of time to retake.

The great thing about taking the LSAT in September is that, if it does not go your way, you have plenty of time to retake the test. In general, most law schools get a ton of applications over Christmas break. This is roughly around when December’s results come out. So, you will not be late in applying to schools. In fact, your application will be one of many arriving in that time period.

So, don’t let LSAT results anxiety ruin your life until then. Remember, you have plenty of time to retake the test before you need it for law school applications. Yes, ideally, it would be nice to focus on the application process for a few months. But, if you really want to go to law school, a few bumps in the road shouldn’t stop you. Which leads to our final tip…

4. Use LSAT results anxiety to jump back into studying if necessary.

We’ve danced around the issue so far, but if your test day went horribly, you might need to channel your LSAT results anxiety into studying more. When we say your test day went horribly, we mean:

1. Repeatedly ran out of time in most sections.
2. Did not answer/understand most of the questions in each section.
3. Had a serious distraction (illness, death in the family) that precluded you from concentrating.

If this applies to you, it sounds like you will need to retake the test. In this case, you can channel your LSAT results anxiety into really motivating you to study. When the test results come out, although it may be painful, use them to really analyze your performance and guide your preparation moving forward. If you consistently ran out of time, or struggled with Logic Games, or did not understand some of the Logical Reasoning section, those are issues that can be addressed between now and the next LSAT.

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