I've run into a small potential problem with my law school applications.

Good news! Our friends at the LSAT Blog are launching LSAT study guides that tell you exactly what your plan should be day by day. Whew! Makes me glad I don't have to take the LSAT ever again. But... for you lucky people who are in LSAT study mode, or will be soon, check out the study guides here. They are available for 1-month, 2-month, 3-month, and 4-month study schedules.

They are available at a discount until 5 pm Eastern TODAY.

At a recent law school admissions panel, the deans who spoke seemed to agree unanimously that the most significant factor in evaluating a given candidate's GPA against that of another, was the relative "grade inflation" of a given applicant's undergraduate institution.

My post last week talked about when it makes sense to apply to law school binding early decision. I had assumed it was obvious that you can commit yourself to only one school as part of a binding early decision program, until this past week when I received the following email from an admissions officer at a top-10 law school:

[My office colleague] just got a call from a guy who wanted to check with us that it's okay to apply to two schools early decision.

Updated: I'm excited to announce that The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions has gone digital! The ebook is totally revised and updated, and through October 11, 2010, we have a limited number of free copies for you to download here. On the checkout page, make sure to enter the discount code LAUNCH (not case-sensitive), and you'll then be shown a link for immediate download of the PDF.

I've received a number of inquiries about the new "evaluation" option that LSAC is offering this year. Those aren't scare quotes; rather, the quotation marks are there to distinguish "evaluations" from traditional "recommendations." LSAC's roll-out of the evaluation has been less than smooth, so I thought I'd share some thoughts.

The evaluation is different from the recommendations that almost all U.

I am currently living in Chicago and seriously considering applying to law school.

A question from a reader:

I graduated from college 5 years ago.

"You're so beautiful, you could be a part-time model."

That's Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, making up an awesome song that he thinks is actually paying a great compliment to a pretty girl he meets at a party.

What an interesting year this is shaping up to be. It's only early September, and we've already received an unusual number of emails from people who have just started law school and are already looking to transfer. They're not even willing to give their schools a chance. Why is that?

I imagine that 2010 saw a large number of people saying "yes" to their law schools out of desperation, and now that they find themselves at school and are bumping into so many 3Ls who are up to their eyeballs in debt and still struggling to find jobs, they're having second thoughts.

In a previous blog post about the Forbes rankings, I explained why I think understanding the methodology of a ranking is the key to determining if and how a particular ranking is helpful in your own college search.  Since US News is the granddaddy of the college rankings (now in their 26^th year), I'm always interested in how they change their methodology each year.

Yes, US News changes their methodology each year.

I am often asked how applicants can make themselves "look unique," and I actually think it's the wrong question to be asking.

To see why this is, let's start with what the word actually means, courtesy of Random House Dictionary (here are the first three definitions):

u·nique
—adjective

1.

Working two jobs and getting my family ready to move to another state for law school doesn't leave me much time for writing unsolicited reviews of products or services.

I think your blog is incredible and I really appreciate the time and thought that you put into your law school admissions book.I have a question/topic that I would love to see discussed on your blog.

I am wondering what advice you would give to someone who was dismissed from law school after their first semester and is interested in reapplying to law school after the ABA "blackout" application period.

Thanks to everyone who participated in today's chat for law school applicants. I promised you some links during the chat, so here they are:

• The LSAT/GPA calculator on LSAC's website and
• For the person who asked about how to deal with disclosures of a criminal background, here are some blog postings that you might find helpful:
  • Dealing With Your Past: Disclosing Criminal Issues on Law School Applications
  • Disclosing Criminal Issues in Your Application: Useful Terminology and FAQs

I'll post a link to the recording of the chat as soon as it's ready to go.