Graduate school is becoming an increasingly popular choice among Connecticut students pondering the dim job market.

The Learning Consultants provides top notch graduate school prep for the GRE, LSAT and GMAT.

For many graduate schools, test scores play an important - if not all consuming - part of admissions.

This fact does not need to be explained to our Southeastern, Connecticut students who are considering law, business, and medical schools. Top notch LSAT, GMAT, and MCAT scores are essential for every top school. While doctoral programs have a wider variance of test score importance, top scores are either essential or very helpful.

LSAT/GRE/MCAT/GMAT prep

We offer the highest quality individual prep for GRE - LSAT - MCAT - and GMAT prep.

We have noticed that unlike SAT prep where class formats are vital to ensure that 17 year old students do enough work, most every 22 year old does not need to sit in a class room to take practice tests.

Most franchise programs are not only costly ($1000 plus) but also cost ineffective in that half the time (at least) is spent taking practice tests.

As many students have told us, there is no need to pay someone $500 to say "start" and "stop".

Instead, we assign top notch teachers, provide high quality instruction, and then provide students with a self-study program.

In this manner, "class time" is purely teaching time.

Practice time is your time (and free!)

Graduate School Counseling

We also help students with graduate school admissions.

We help students select schools, craft an admissions strategy, and then provide help on all areas of admission (particularly essays).

Since the "job" or applying to graduate school is at times overwhelming, we provide vital assistance in making certain our student-applicants do their best to gain admission to schools of their choice.

In addition we help to educate our Southeastern, CT clients in the reality of admissions.

For example, we recently came across this article written by Bill Henderson, a Professor of Law at Indiana University:

The Drift Toward Pure Numbers Admissions [by Bill Henderson, cross-posted to ELS Blog]

Law schools are part of a production function for entry level lawyers. Therefore, if law schools alter their admissions practices, the character and complexion of the law school applicant pool can shift in significant ways. On the input side, the data are crystal clear: over the last 15 years, the rankings arms race has pushed U.S. law schools toward a pure numbers approach to admissions. The more interesting question, however, is whether prestige-conscious law firms are now, inadvertently, experiencing any fallout. First the data.

Law schools operate in an environment of supply and demand and are famously counter-cyclical. When Silicon Valley was booming in the late 90s, law school applicants plummeted. When the economy faltered in the early 90s or after 9/11, applicants spiked. Therefore, to examine how admissions practices have changed over time, it is important to pay attention to the underlying applicant pool. Below are trend lines for median LSAT scores by USNWR rank for 1994 and 2007, which reflect classes that entered in the fall of 1993 and 2006 respectively. During those two admissions cycles, the number of applicants was virtually identical: 89,600 (class entering fall 1993) and 88,700 (class entering fall 2006).

Obviously the blue line (2007) is higher than the orange line (1994). In fact, despite slightly fewer law school applicants, the average median LSAT increased by 2.18 points (std. dev. of 1.99). For the record, only three schools fell out of Tier 1 between 1994 and 2007. And it cannot be explained by the ABA policy shift that instructs law schools to no longer average LSAT scores when reporting 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile figures, thus slightly pumping up the volume of high LSAT scores. That change was not enacted until the summer of 2006.

Here is the same analysis for UGPA (1994 data came from the Princeton Review, 2007 from the ABA):

Although we might chock some of the higher UPGAs (avg. of +.17, std. dev. of +.12) on grade inflation between 1994 and 2007, it is likely that schools were also trying to maximize this number. More after the jump ... .

When admissions officers are under constant pressure to beat last year's numbers, something has to give. I suspect it is students who took challenging majors but have LSAT scores slightly under the target. Or applicants with impressive work experience, evidence of leadership, or a history of overcoming major obstacles. Although LSAT and UGPA scores are strongly correlated within the applicant pool, they tend to be very weakly correlated (or sometimes negatively correlated) at individual law schools. Why? Because applicants who are above both medians tend to have admissions offers at higher ranked schools. After a school locks down its target LSAT and UGPA medians, the modest overlap between the two groups means there are precious few spots left. And often those spots are used to improve a school's diversity profile.

Over the years I have talked with many admissions officers. They corroborate the sea change. Further, many of the old hands argue that the current fixation on maximizing numbers is misguided--that, based on their experience, great candidates are being passed over for nondescript or unadventurous students with high numbers. In other words, a large portion of candidates with compelling resumes and personal statements are being systematically pushed down to lower ranked law schools.

At a law firm level, there is a certain irony at work. Many partners could not get admitted to their alma mater; yet, between 2005 and 2007, as NLJ 250 hiring increased rapidly, 53% of the new jobs went to students at USN Top 20 schools. Rigid adherence to the elite law school model drove the starting salary cost structure from $125,000 to $145,000 to $160,000--a legacy that is hard to swallow in a down market. But were these intangibles--now less prevalent at most law elite law schools--part of the firms' secret sauce? To my mind, this is an interesting question. Further, a recent Moneyball study by Kerma Partners suggests that the answer may be yes.

Service Area

Our primary service area is Shoreline Connecticut and nearby locations. As word-of-mouth is our best advertisement, please ask your Connecticut neighbors about The Learning Consultants tutoring, test prep and educational advisory services in Branford, Guilford, Madison, Clinton, Westbrook, Old Saybrook, Haddam, Killingworth, Durham, Essex, Deep River, Chester, Old Lyme, East Lyme, Waterford, Groton, New London, Mystic, Norwich, and Stonington. These Connecticut locations are not exclusive as we do service other areas. Please also ask your older friends, guidance counselors, and other parents about our tutoring and test prep in Branford, Connecticut, Madison, Connecticut, Guilford, Connecticut, Clinton, Connecticut, Westbrook, Connecticut, Old Lyme, Connecticut, East Lyme, Connecticut, Waterford, Connecticut, Haddam, Connecticut, Killingworth, Connecticut, Chester, Connecticut, Essex, Connecticut, Deep River, Connecticut, Mystic, Connecticut, Norwich, Connecticut, Stonington, Connecticut and other Shoreline Connecticut locations.

The Learning Consultants is considered the premier tutoring and test prep company in New Haven, Middlesex, and New London counties in Connecticut.

The Learning Consultants
(860) 510-0410
dcapuano@learningconsultantsgroup.com