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The upcoming 2024-2025 law school admissions cycle was always already going to be a massive change for those taking the LSAT — still the preferred exam for law school admissions. That’s because the logic games section of the exam — considered by many to be the most challenging — is out, eliminated as of August 2024. But there’s another major change coming to the LSAT.
Yesterday, LSAC, the organization behind the LSAT, announced they’re redesigning the writing section of the law school admissions test, in order allow law schools to “better understand the writing capabilities of applicants for the purposes of their admission decisions. It will also enable law schools to better provide writing support for their students who need to strengthen their writing skills so they are better prepared for bar passage, finding employment, and practice.”
As a result, the writing section will now clock in at 50 minutes — 15 minutes for prewriting analysis and 35 minutes to actually write the essay. As Glen Stohr, lead instructional designer for Kaplan’s pre-law programs and an LSAT instructor for 28 years, notes, this translates to some major changes to the exam:
2024 is shaping up as a big year for changes to the LSAT, given the just announced changes to the writing section and the previously announced elimination of the logic games sections. And both significant changes are slated to hit this summer. The LSAT rarely changes, so to have two changes of this magnitude hit at around the same time is pretty historic. The most consequential change to the writing section, as we see it, is the 15 minutes of ‘pre-writing analysis’ time. That makes the writing section a 50 minute exercise, up from 35, but there is a lot more reading in this format. Our first piece of advice to students would be to use all 15 minutes to brainstorm, rank your ideas, and outline your argument.
And this could be the start of something even bigger. Stohr says that a scored essay to be shared with law schools could be next on the horizon:
Since its inception in the early 1990s, LSAT Writing (aka “the writing sample”) has been an unscored essay included in the testing process primarily to provide law school admissions officers with a brief example of each applicants’ ability to draft a short argumentative essay under timed conditions. While the updated LSAT Writing task will continue to be shared with law schools without a score or formal evaluation, the Law School Admission Council has stated that they will be analyzing the essays test takers produce under the new format with the intention of turning the writing sample into a scored essay that law schools will be able to use to evaluate applications.
All of this makes it likely that law schools will be taking an even closer look at students’ essays, partly because of the novelty of a new essay format, and partly because of the potential that the writing sample will become an officially scored part of the application process. That, in turn, means test takers will want to be even better prepared for LSAT Writing and to improve their performance in the section. Our LSAT team will expeditiously update our course to make sure that test takers have the method, strategies, and tactics to make the updated LSAT Writing section a winning part of their law school applications.
These two changes could have tremendous ramifications for wannabe lawyers, so start prepping now!
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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