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Articles published in August 2013

Free LSAT Events This Week: August 5- August 11

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free greHere are the free LSAT events we’re holding this week. All times local unless otherwise specified.

8/7/13 – Online- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM (EDT)

8/7/13 – Los Angeles, CA – Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/11/13 – Online – Zen and the Art of LSAT with Brian Birdwell– 8:00PM- 10:00PM (EDT)

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page

Friday Links: The Law School Debate, LSAT Sanity, & More!

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LSAT NewsWe’re just over two short months away from the October LSAT! When you need a break from studying, have a look at some of our favorite law school news and tips from the past week:

Revenues Up at Larger Law Firms (The National Law Journal)

The revenue picture for law firms in 2012 was bright for large law firms — and bleak for smaller shops.

Law School Problems, Proposed Reforms Could Affect Colleges (U.S. News Education)

Extending gainful employment regulations could help ensure the federal government receives a good return on its investment in legal education.

Is Law School Worth it? The Debate is Reignited (Deseret News)

Deseret News shares some info from a recent draft paper, “The Economic Value of a Law Degree,” by a Seton Hall law professor and a Rutgers economist.

Ignore the Haters, Law School is Totally Worth the Cash (The Washington Post WONKBLOG)

The Washington Post discusses whether the amount of money law graduates make is greater than the amount they would have made if they hadn’t gone.

LSAT Sanity: But I Studied This- I Should Know How To Do It! (Part 1) (jdMission)

Manhattan Prep instructor Stacy Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments or tweet @ManhattanLSAT.

LSAT Course Selection: Size Matters

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Raised fingers in classIf you’ve taken a Manhattan LSAT course, you know that we keep our classes small (or at least you know that your class was small). We cap in-person classes at 18 students and live online classes at 25 (where there are two teachers for the class) because, as research increasingly shows, students learn better when they are engaged. Engagement is hard (and often impossible) in a lecture of 75 or 100 people. 
 
In that article I just linked to, Harvard Physics Professor Eric Mazur notes that the lecture course has become obsolete–in no small part, of course, thanks to the internet. Now that information is so widely available, the classroom is no longer as valuable as it once was when it comes to simply imparting information: “Ever since the Middle Ages, the primary vehicle for conveying information was the lecture, but this is the 21st century.”
The internet has created an opportunity for the classroom to be re-imagined, and one way of re-imagining is to incorporate more doing, less telling.
 
This is a good thing for teaching people how to think, as we do when we teach the LSAT. Students don’t learn to think in new ways by listening; they learn how to think differently by doing it.
 
Dr. Tim Lahey, Associate Professor of Medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, echoes Mazur’s points. As the head of the school’s curriculum redesign, he told Mind/Shift that one of his main goals is to incorporate more interactive work: “Our students can access lots of information really efficiently now online, probably more efficiently than we could ever relay it, so the added value of interactions with faculty should be talking through difficult concepts, refining difficult decision-making, and otherwise doing the challenging stuff that can’t be done with a laptop or phone.” Lahey says it’s clear to him that students working together in small groups produces superior outcomes to lecturing.
 
In sum, I suggest you consider class size when choosing an LSAT course … or a course in anything, for that matter. If all you want is information, I have a website I can refer you to.