Studying

This week, thousands of law school graduates will sit for the bar exam. The test -- two days in some states, three in others -- is the culmination of the law school experience and one of the final hurdles that you need to clear before you actually get to practice law.

The test itself is a miserable experience. Cramped rooms, students cramming material in the final moments, and mental and emotional exhaustion from months of studying create an atmosphere of stress and anxiety. Going home after the first night knowing that you have to do it all over again the next day (or the next two days if you are in New York, California, or a few other states) makes for a less than restful night of sleep.

A few random bar exams tips:

Tip: Practice and study using ear plugs and then bring a set with you to the exam. It's amazing how loud the sound of a sneaker squeaking on a hardwood floor can be in a room full of a thousand people...

Tip: Avoid the nuts. You will see people in the bar exam using study guides and outlines up to the very last moments before the test begins. Avoid these people like the plague. They will stress you out and ruin your focus.

Tip: Remember that it's not about how high you score -- it's about passing. Your entire law school career (and before that, college and high school...) was focused on not just passing an exam but doing so with perfect scores. You do not need to ace the bar exam, and you need to change that mindset. That's not to say you shouldn't study, but rather than you should resist the natural instinct to panic when you don't know the answer to a question. If you know the answers to most other questions, you're going to pass.

Students often spend thousands of dollars on prep courses and devote 2 months of their lives memorizing obscure legal concepts and mnemonic devices that they will regurgitate on the bar exam. I have relatively fond memories of my time spent preparing for the exam. I remained at law school after graduation and watched the BarBri lectures on video. A number of my friends did so as well. During bar exam prep your life is on a set schedule, so we decided to schedule mental health time by playing golf a few times a week at a fantastic local course. That's one other tip: be sure to schedule mental health time. Just because the bar exam happens in July doesn't mean it should ruin your summer.

With everything going on in your life as you prepare to sit for this test, imagine if you were told -- less than a week before the exam -- that a technical error was going to prevent you from sitting for it?

That's what happened to Sara Granda, a recent graduate of UC Davis School of Law. Sara spent the last couple of months preparing to take the California bar exam. She graduated UC Davis in three years, speaks fluent Spanish, and worked at an immigration law clinic. Fairly typical of a 3rd year law school student -- except Sara Granda is a quadriplegic.

Sara Granda signed up for the California bar exam and her $600 entry fee was paid for by the California Department of Rehabilitation by check. Problem is, the state bar's website requires that payment be made by credit card. Granda apparently did her homework and checked with a representative from the state bar who told her that her application would still be processed.

Unfortunately that never happened, and Granda was notified that because of a bureaucratic snafu, she was not registered for the test. Granda has petitioned the California Supreme Court to allow her to take the test, and even has Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking out for her.

So as you study during this final weekend before the exam, remember that things could be worse. You could be fighting with the mnemonic devices and random Contracts question while also having to fight to take the test.

Questions or comments? We want to hear from you! And good luck on the exam.

Gregory Henning is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge R. Lanier Anderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and then became an Assistant District Attorney in Boston. As part of the Anna Ivey team, Greg works with law school applicants. 

To kick things off here with my new column at the Ivey Files, I wanted to share an idea that's been going through my head recently: the idea of efficiency in test preparation.  

As a tutor, I would sometimes get calls from parents who wanted to find out more about what kinds of "services" I offered. More than looking for a specific answer, they seemed to be trying to assess whether I sounded competent.  

Well, having spent many years thinking about the tutoring process, I wanted to answer this question a little more completely and give an idea of what it is a tutor actually does (or is supposed to do).  At the same time, I hope to provide a framework so that everyone can make a well reasoned decision regarding whether hiring a private tutor, taking a class, or just buying some test prep books is the best way to study for a standardized test.  (I'll talk about online preparation in another posting.)

First, let me hit you with a whammy (in bold, no less): 

Test prep students would drastically improve their scores if they simply bought the official study guides, read them cover to cover, did all the exercises, and spent time trying to learn from their mistakes.   

In other words, the idea that certain classes and tutors possess "proprietary knowledge" or "secret tricks" is a quaint hypocrisy.  (This is a topic I will cover in detail in a later posting.)  

That last part of the statement in bold is especially important.  One of the things that baffles me the most is when students show zero interest in understanding why they got a question wrong.  I have spent more time than I would care to recount trying to convince students to spend more time learning from their previous mistakes and less time taking new tests.  I think there are some deep-seated psychological reasons for this, and the consequence is that people spend massive amounts of time making the same kinds of mistakes.  

When studying for any standardized test, you need to cover a certain amount of groundwork, whether you work with a tutor, a class, or a book.  Far too many people out there think that if they hire a tutor or sign up for a class, then they can skip the groundwork.  Part of what I hope to show over the course of these postings is how mistaken this notion is.

To those of you who read the statement in bold and think, "Well who has time to read the book cover to cover?":  you're on the right path.  What classes and tutors actually do is to provide a more efficient process.  A good class or tutor can zero in on exactly what you, as a student, are doing right and wrong, and prevent you from having to spend the time to read that book cover to cover.  The Official SAT prep guide currently clocks in at 889 pages, the ACT guide at 623.  My point is that if you actually took the time not just to read what was contained in those pages but actually to learn it, then you would be able to get most, if not all, of the score increase that you would get from a class or with a tutor.  

Classes and tutors provide a quicker way to learn the same thing.  Tutors are more efficient than classes in the same way that classes are more efficient than reading a book.  When thinking about getting a tutor or signing up for a class, don't just look at the dollar cost of things, but make sure that you factor in the amount of time that it will take to get your goal score, and factor the amount of time you need to spend getting there into your calculation.  

If you discover that your time isn't free (and it almost never is), then think about signing up for a class or getting a tutor, but just going through this exercise will prepare you to start asking some smart questions of whatever tutor or class you run across.  "How will you get me to my goal score faster than reading the book?" rather than "What can you teach me?" is an example of the way I would think about it.

There are two conclusions here.  The first is to remember to stay on your toes.  If you start working with a class that's basically an excuse to do problems and then go over them in class, ask yourself, "Could I be doing this on my own or do I need a classroom to keep me focused?"  If you think you could be doing the exact same thing on your own, then it's probably not a good class to be in.  If you're working with a tutor and the tutor is merely walking you through a set of classroom type exercises, ask yourself if the tutor is really making the process more efficient.  Too many classes and tutors fall into lazy habits.  Being aware of the bigger picture can keep you on your toes.  

The second conclusion is that any option needs to cover that important groundwork.  Efficiency doesn't kick in until that groundwork is covered, so before you start looking to classes and tutors, make sure you spend some time reviewing the basics.  If you have to spend lots of time in a class or with a tutor covering the basics, then you've essentially discovered a more expensive way to read a book.

Any thoughts or comments from your own test-taking experience? Please share.

Charles Williamson has helped hundreds of students prepare for standardized tests. He blogs for the Ivey Files about test prep, the intersection of education and technology, education policy, and whatever other topics strike his fancy. 

I'm going to be moderating a panel of architects who specialize in designing the next generation of spaces for university students. Please weigh in with your wishlist, as well as any complaints or thoughts about the current state of your school spaces. Some topics to consider:

• Technology
• Dorms/Housing
• Safety
• Food
• Fun
• Fitness
• Athletics
• Performing Arts
• Religion/Spirituality
• Classrooms
• Study spaces

I realize it doesn't even make sense to break these out into separate categories, because Gen Y likes its spaces to be blended, so thoughts on blending are also welcome, and feel free to make up your own categories. Also, no details are too small or trivial. Be as picky as you like.

Please pass this around -- the more input, the merrier.

More info about the panel here.

Think the top business schools are going to give you the best advice about the MBA application process? Not always.

Recently I went to hear a panel of MBA admissions officers representing some of the highest-ranked business schools in the world, as well as two more regional MBA programs. Most fascinating to me was that the representatives from the top schools had almost nothing interesting or useful to say about the application process, while the most concrete and practical advice came from Suffolk's MBA rep. Lillian Hallberg, Suffolk's Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs and Director of MBA Programs, had some great advice to share about prepping for the GMAT. I'll paraphrase it here [with my thoughts in brackets] because it's applicable to all MBA applicants.

1. The quant section is the easier one in which to raise your score, not the verbal section.
2. GMAT prep courses are a good idea. [I completely agree, just make sure you choose a great course, which is not necessarily the one that advertises on every bus stop.]
3. Because you won't have studied some of this math since junior high, review the basics before the prep course starts. That way, you can spend your time during the prep course focusing on test-taking strategy rather than refreshing your memory about the properties of isosceles triangles.
4. To review the basics, go to your local Borders or Barnes & Noble and pick up some books on Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry. Review those before your prep course starts.
5. Schedule two real GMAT tests. The first one will be your trial run, and you won't stress out because you know you'll be taking it again. [And if you get a great score, you can stop right there and cancel the second test.] For the second test, make sure to take the entire day off so that you can be as relaxed as possible. [Most schools take the higher or highest of your scores, so it pays to keep retaking it if you think you can push your score up higher.]

This time of year I field lots of questions about the secret to success in law school. I don't know that there's a magic secret out there, but I do like these tips from Vikram Amar, professor at UC Hastings:

• on taking law school exams (don't wait until exam week to read these)

• on success in law school and beyond

(I have to love a man who throws around words like "equipoise." Beautiful.)

If all of the above gives you the illusion of control over your law school grades, there's always this.

Today's NYT reports on elite colleges trying to introduce more economic diversity into their classrooms.  An excerpt:

The discussion in the States of Poverty seminar here at Amherst College was getting a little theoretical. Then Anthony Abraham Jack, a junior from Miami, asked pointedly, “Has anyone here ever actually seen a food stamp?”

To Mr. Jack, unlike many of his classmates, food stamps are not an abstraction. His family has had to use them in emergencies. His mother raised three children as a single parent and earns $26,000 a year as a school security guard. That is just a little more than half the cost of a year’s tuition, room and board, fees and other expenses at Amherst, which for Mr. Jack’s class was close to $48,000.

So when Mr. Jack, now 22 and a senior, graduates with honors on May 27, he will not just be the first in his family to earn a college degree, but a success story in the effort by Amherst and a growing number of elite colleges to open their doors to talented low-income students.

Concerned that the barriers to elite institutions are being increasingly drawn along class lines, and wanting to maintain some role as engines of social mobility, about two dozen schools — Amherst, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Virginia, Williams and the University of North Carolina, among them — have pushed in the past few years to diversify economically.

They are trying tactics like replacing loans with grants and curtailing early admission, which favors the well-to-do and savvy. But most important, Amherst, for instance, is doing more than giving money to low-income students; it is recruiting them and taking their socioeconomic background — defined by family income, parents’ education and occupation level — into account when making admissions decisions. . . .

For Mr. Jack, there were adjustments at this college, where half the students are affluent enough that their parents pay tuition without any aid from Amherst.

He did not let it bother him, he said, when wealthier classmates blithely inquired about the best clubs in Miami — as if he would know, Mr. Jack said dryly — before flying off to his hometown for spring break. Mr. Jack could afford to go home only at Christmas, and the end of the year, when Amherst paid his plane fare.

The article also points out the uncomfortable fact that traditional, race-based affirmative action benefits mostly middle and upper-class minorities.

One of the challenges these colleges will face is preparing economically and educationally disadvantaged students for the rigor of their classrooms. Many kids who've never attended fancy prep schools or received expensive after-school tutoring or perfected their study skills will have some catching up to do, and colleges should be aggressive in acknowledging that gap and offering academic assistance. It would be a huge disservice to those students to throw them into the classroom and expect them to fit right in with a bunch of kids who in high school were reading John Locke and taking Latin classes to help them with their vocabulary and conducting research projects with names like "The Influence of DNA Mismatch Repair on the Types of p53 Mutations Found in Msh2 Null and Msh2/Atm Double Null Transformants."

Congratulations and good luck to Anthony.

Learned about this cool new test prep service based in NYC -- it promises a "holistic" approach to test prep, so you're not just learning how to ace the test (SAT, GMAT, LSAT, etc.), but also learning how to tackle your test anxiety and stress using tools like hypnosis. I haven't ever tried a holistic approach to test prep, but given the number of applicants I hear from who feel absolutely crippled by their test anxiety, I thought I'd share it with you here. Apparently the founder (Bara Sapir) also has a 5-CD course coming out.

More info here.

I recently wrote about a conversation I had had with someone about to interview at the Pentagon.

He emailed me a follow-up after the interview and agreed to let me share:I had to call the secretary when I arrived at the Pentagon so she could escort me to the office. (Go to the bathroom before you get there because, unless you have the requisite security clearance, your escort cannot let you leave their line of sight. Also, the Pentagon is BIG, so arrive 30 minutes before your appointment. Oh, and you have to bring two forms of picture ID. I was able to bring in my cell phone, no problem.)

Also, two other things I remember my friend [who helped me get the interview] and I talking about…

First, getting a federal job these days is difficult because of the high number of wounded vets coming back from Iraq. For many jobs, there is a point system (70-100) to determine your eligibility. If you are a vet, your get a 5 point bonus; disabled vet, 10 point bonus. Anecdotally: If a disabled vet meets only the minimum qualifications for the job, s/he will get the job before someone who scored a 100 and is not a vet. In a related anecdote (but not exactly the same as that described above), there was an ingtelligence job I applied for in Homeland Security. I scored an 89. The minimum score to be in the category of “best qualified candidates” was 100! And there was a 2nd tier for the vacancy in which the minimum score for the same was 105! Needless to say, I didn’t get a callback for that one.

Second, if an undergraduate wants to get a federal job, it is IMPERATIVE that they keep their GPA above a 3.5. It is VERY DIFFICULT to mask a poor UGPA, even seven years and many life lessons later.He wrote about the interview in more detail on his own blog (note that the posting, including the posting header, includes some "mature language," in case that determines where you read it). His longer discussion about the GPA issue is very important for others to hear -- many college students have no idea how much a low GPA can come back to bite them many years later, whether they're applying to grad school or a job:[The interviewer] then started talking about the importance of undergraduate GPA as a predicter of occupational performance in his departments. I started freaking out a little bit inside my head. I got my BA in 2001 with a fairly low GPA--really low...2.84 low. I'm a smart guy, but I never learned how to study in high school where everything was a breeze. Anyway, I had a 3.5 during my last three semesters of undergraduate work, so all my shitty grades came from 2000 and before...that's seven years ago. In fact, one of the reasons I came back to grad school full-time was to reestablsih myself as a serious scholar and professional. I'm about to graduate with my MA in three weeks and I have a 3.87. So, he keeps going on and on about the few times he's broken his own rule about hiring someone with a UGPA lower than 3.5 and how he's regretted it every single time. All I could muster was something to the effect of, "Well, sir, my UGPA is certainly not the best part of my resume." He ended the interview by asking me to send him my transcripts. After a great first two-thirds of the interview, the last third sucked ass. The interview lasted an hour and a half.

I left the Pentagon, dejected in the extreme. I grabbed a bite to eat and did a little shopping therapy at Best Buy. I called my friend who got me the interview and told him everything. I said that I wanted to send my interviewer an e-mail along with my transcripts explaining that I was a VERY different person now, more focused and disciplined. (There's a big difference between being 20 and being 28.) I wanted to have my current professors and employers send him recommendations that proved my UGPA is not reflective of who I am now. My friend said that was a great idea, and that my interviewer might have simply been giving me a test to see how I'd react. In fact, given the entirety of the interview, my friend was fairly confident that he still wants to hire me. So I sent my interviewer that e-mail yesterday, and my professors and employers will be sending him their recommnedation e-mails over the next few days.Good luck -- keep us posted!

I guess you know the bar exam has arrived as a sexy topic when someone makes a movie about it (Bar Exam, The Movie!). I can't imagine anything more boring than watching a bunch of people agonize over the bar exam. Maybe that's because I've taken two myself: California, reputedly the hardest in the country; and Louisiana, definitely the weirdest in the country. Both were trivial exercises compared to my six-hour Property Law exam given by David Currie. Every other exam I've taken was pretty much a cakewalk in comparison, maybe with the exception of Roman Weil's Financial Accounting exam, which... well, let's just say I did a lot better than I thought I had walking out of that exam.

The bar exam is indeed big-stakes stuff. The practice of law is a government-sanctioned cartel, which means you can't go hang out a shingle or print up your business cards if you haven't jumped through a bunch of cartel-required hoops. One of those is the bar exam, meaning you can't legally practice law without passing it and meeting a bunch of moronic and irrelevant continuing education requirements.

Don't believe me? Here are some topics covered by one of California's approved continuing education providers:

• "How Far So Far? Advances Women Have Made and Continuing Obstacles"
• "Substance Abuse Prevention, Detection and Treatment Issues"
• "Prevent Malpractice -- Learn Google"
• "Dealing With Difficult People"
• "Overcoming
  Procrastination: How to Kick the Habit"

What the general public doesn't know is just how low the baseline is for passing and maintaining one's licensing as a lawyer.

Newsflash: the bar exam is not rocket science. I attended a prep
course for my first bar exam, and for my second I skipped the lectures
entirely and just read the books for the two weeks before the test. I
am not a born test-taker (hate those people!), so I assure you I don't
have a magical gift when it comes to these tests aside from some
baseline level of intelligence, which you can't teach anyway. What you
can't do is take it cold, no matter how smart or great a lawyer you are.

Still, the bar exam prep industry is a big one and is dominated by BAR/BRI. The Business Section of today's NYT has a big article about a federal law suit brought against BAR/BRI in federal court in Los Angeles. The article discusses "just how petty and cutthroat the entire bar review market can be."

There's no reason there should be any meaningful barriers to entry in the bar prep market, particularly in the age of the internet. (And sure enough, those online courses exist.) So I don't understand all the caterwauling about big, bad BAR/BRI. If you don't like them, don't give them your money. You have options. Maybe those young lawyers suing BAR/BRI do in fact need that continuing ed course on how to use Google -- it would have taken them all of two seconds to find a competing course.

It's that time of year when 1Ls are either celebrating or cursing their first set of law school grades. Because it's also a time of profound mystification and earnest reading of the tea leaves, let me share with you the only guide to law school grading that makes sense to me.