The 7Sage Podcast

Happy Halloween from the 7Sage team! 🎃 In this episode, the crew dresses up, discusses changes to the LSAT, and reviews one of the most memorable law school applications in movie history: Elle Woods’s application to Harvard Law in Legally Blonde . Follow along as they break down Elle’s video essay, LSAT score, extracurriculars, and admissions chances—and share advice on making your own applicatio...

The LSAT is changing in August 2027. What does that mean for your prep? In this episode of the 7Sage podcast, we break down LSAC’s announcement: three longer sections, unscored questions embedded throughout the test, and a fixed section order, with Reading Comprehension followed by two Logical Reasoning sections. We discuss the new timing, question counts, and breaks, who these changes matter for,...

How many law schools should you actually apply to? Is your safety school really a safety? And if you took time off for mental health treatment, should you explain it in your application? This week, Alex, Bailey, Ethan, and Pauline work through all three using the profile of Carmen, a student whose LSAT score has stalled in the mid-160s while her weekly study time swings from 2 to 20 hours. Bailey...

Law school admissions has never been this competitive, and the Assistant Dean of Admissions at Texas Law has the numbers to prove it. Mathiew Le joins Ethan and Pauline to share what changed behind the scenes since 2018, when Texas admitted over a thousand students. This year it admitted about 800, and its offer rate has nearly been cut in half. You’ll hear how rising costs and loan changes are pu...

Do you change right answers to wrong ones, then dread blind review because it makes the second-guessing worse? And if you’ve already taken the LSAT and missed your goal, should you apply this cycle anyway or wait a year? In this episode, Alex, Bailey, and Ethan answer two listener questions from the LSAC forums. First, they break down every blind review setting on the 7Sage site, which ones to tog...

What does an admissions dean actually think when she opens your file? In this first episode of our admissions professionals series, Dean Z of Michigan Law reads three real listener applications and tells us exactly what works, what confuses her, and what sends an essay off the rails. You’ll hear why she cares more about who your employer is than your job title, why a skills section doesn’t convinc...

Score inflation has everyone comparing themselves to higher and higher medians. Does it actually hurt your chances? In this episode, our team of LSAT and admissions experts breaks down what rising scores mean for your application and why comparison is the wrong move. You'll also hear: Why weaken questions get harder as your score climbs, and how to spot the alternative explanations the LSAT loves...

September score release day is stressful, so we went live to answer your questions in real time. Alex, Bailey, Ethan, and Shamala work through pre-recorded questions and chat questions from students who just got their scores. We cover: Whether to retake after a score that came in under your PT average Why retaking a 176 usually isn't worth it, and why a 170 against NYU or Columbia medians usually...

Going to an LSAC forum this fall? Learn what actually makes a good impression (hint: don't ask anything that's already on the school's website) and how to turn a quick conversation into gold for your "Why X" essay. Then meet Sebastian, a Navy sailor with his sights on Vanderbilt and a practice test high he admits is "very fraudulent." Bailey explains why a fluky score shouldn't mess with your head...

Ever wondered whether "Legally Blonde made me want this" is actually the worst personal statement topic you could pick? Ethan and Pauline blind rank five of them, and the results might surprise you. Bailey does the same with LSAT advice and immediately regrets locking in her top slot. Then we meet a paralegal plateauing in the low 160s with her sights on Columbia. Bailey pulls up her analytics liv...

LSAC's law school forums put you in one room with close to 180 schools, a table of practicing lawyers, financial aid experts who will actually answer your specific questions, and a few hundred other people in exactly your position. Most applicants have no idea what to expect walking in, so Alex sat down with Kyle McMcEntee, Senior Director of Prelaw Engagement at LSAC, to map out the whole day: wh...

You know the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. So why do necessary and sufficient assumption questions still feel like a coin flip? Bailey breaks down the mix up at the root of it, plus the negation test done properly, what "not all" actually means, and why a too strong answer is never a reason to eliminate on sufficient assumption. Ethan attempts his first ever LR questio...

Stephanie keeps switching right answers to wrong ones, and her blind review score is eleven points higher because of it. Then we pull up her analytics and find something worse: five minutes on one question she got right, and three or four questions she never reached because of it. Plus the “never pick a strongly worded answer” myth, how to tell a knowledge problem from a timing problem, and non-tr...

Cory is scoring in the low 160s, aiming for mid 170s, and about to leave for six months backpacking Europe. He wants to know how to hold his focus when people are shuffling around the testing center. Bailey answers with box breathing, the anxiety page that talks your brain down, and the untimed to timed drill that turns understanding into points under pressure. Then the conversation turns to the a...

August scores are out, and the number on the screen does not tell you what to do next. Alex, Ethan, Kevin, and Bailey break down how to decide whether to retake, how schools actually read a score history, and why a pending score can stall your application at every school you send it to. You'll also get the honest version of the cancel question, the case for keeping takes in reserve, and what to fi...

You've been told a 180 must be better than a 175. It isn't, and the reason has less to do with math than with what an admissions officer thinks when they see it. Ethan explains why retaking a 174 is a mistake and what schools actually spend to move their median by one point. Plus Pauline on her first week at Yale, advice for first gen students, and whether reading The Economist will do anything fo...

Alex and Ethan come to you with a special announcement: LSAC is backtracking on a change to GPA calculation it announced just a couple of weeks ago. So what does this mean for you? Probably nothing, and if it was something that worried you, you can relax for at least another year. LSAC was planning to drop high school dual enrollment grades from its CAS GPA calculation starting July 28. Now it won...

Most personal statements don't fail because the writer has nothing to say. They fail because the writer decided who they were supposed to sound like before figuring out what they were writing about. Alex explains the two bars you have to clear, professionalism first and personality second, and why the second one looks completely different at a T50 than at Yale. Pauline breaks down when personality...

We open with a bonus segment: Dean explains how he rebuilt 7Sage's free Admissions Predictor to account for the way your LSAT and GPA interact against each school's medians. Then the news. LSAC just stopped counting dual enrollment grades toward your LSAC GPA. If you took community college classes in high school, that could be worth real points, and you can request a recalculation. Devin, our stud...

You get it down to two, agonize, switch your answer, and the one you left behind was right. Sound familiar? Alex and Bailey break down why this happens to basically everyone and what to actually do about it: the rule for when it's okay to switch an answer, why "many" and "most" don't mean the same thing on this test, and why obsessing over your down-to-two record is wasting your time. This week's...

There's a change to the LSAT testing interface that most other platforms haven't adjusted for yet, and if you're drilling anywhere but 7Sage or Law Hub itself, you're training on an easier version of the test than you'll get on test day. Kevin breaks down exactly what's different, down to the highlighter tool and how answer choices behave now. Then Harvard quietly dropped one word from their essay...

A stack of applicants with 174-plus LSAT scores, all rejected from Harvard. The common thread? Most of them wrote their essays with AI. In a new format, the team digs into what actually separates a strong application from a competent one. The team hears from Jo, a Canadian applicant in the high 170s aiming for a 177 with her sights on Stanford and Toronto, and provides her with advice on how to ma...

Jehieli went from a 148 to a 176 on the LSAT, had her score held, was waitlisted at Yale, and negotiated a full-tuition offer from Berkeley Law, all as a DACA recipient ineligible for federal aid. In this episode of the 7Sage Podcast, she walks through her three-cycle admissions journey: choking on a practice test, breaking into the 170s, a Sotomayor sighting at Trader Joe's, and the reconsiderati...

Bailey and Ethan start in the 7Sage forum: whether it's ever too late to start law school, how to think about the October LSAT timeline, why studying less can actually raise your score, and the real answer to "should I cancel my 158?" They also unpack a quiet red flag that sinks strong applications, including why quitting your job to study can backfire even with a 174. Then they talk to Jacob, an...

At a friend's wedding reception, Ariel struck up a conversation with the groom's brother-in-law about his first semester at Notre Dame Law. That one conversation ended up shaping the most praised Why Notre Dame essay the 7Sage admissions team had seen. But the road there was rough. She signed up for the LSAT before she was ready, studied for four months, and improved exactly two points over her di...