Articles published in January 2015

LSAT, GMAT, and GRE Instructor Auditions: Decision In A Day (Dallas & Fort Worth)

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DecisionManhattan Prep is holding a two one-day auditions for new LSAT, GRE, and GMAT instructors in Dallas and Fort Worth! Come join us February 7th  in Dallas or February 8th in Fort Worth at 10:00 AM and transform your passion for teaching into a lucrative and fulfilling part-time or full-time career.

Manhattan Prep offers instructors flexible hours and great pay ($100/hour for all teaching and $116/hour on all tutoring). In addition to teaching classes, instructors can work on other projects such as curriculum development.

Our regular instructor audition process, which includes a series of video, online, and in-person mock lessons, usually takes weeks, even months, to complete. However, we are offering one-day events on February 7th and on 8th for teachers interested in working with us. All candidates who attend will receive a decision that day.

The events will take place in Dallas and Fort Worth at the locations listed below. It is open to candidates who live in the area, who have teaching experience, and who are LSAT, GMAT, and/or GRE experts.

The audition will include several rounds of lessons, as well as other activities. Each round will be pass/ fail. The day will begin at 10 AM and may last as late as 5:30 PM for those who make it to the final round. Candidates will need to prepare lessons for some rounds; we will send a more detailed instruction packet to those who sign up for the event.

Dallas, TX (Saturday, February 7, 2015)

Meridian Business Center
3010 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1200
Dallas, TX 75234
 

Fort Worth, TX (Sunday, February 8, 2015)

Courtyard Fort Worth at University
3150 Riverfront Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76107

To register, please email Rina at auditions@manhattanprep.com. Make sure to include in your full name, an attachment of your resume detailing your teaching experience, and an official GRE, GMAT, or LSAT score report. We look forward to meeting you in February!

Breaking Down Law School Admissions with Manhattan LSAT and Admit Advantage Part II

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Admit-Blog-P2

Join Manhattan LSAT and Admit Advantage for the second installment of Breaking Down Law School Admissions, a free online workshop to help you put together a successful application.

No application is perfect, but you can take steps to mitigate negatives and emphasize positives. During the first half of this webinar, Admit Advantage’s Director of  Law Admissions will review how to deal with real-life negatives on your law school application.

Are you also getting ready to sit for the February 2015 LSAT? Veteran Manhattan LSAT instructor and curriculum developer, Matt Sherman, will focus on what kind of prep to do in the last weeks leading up to the test.  One of the key points here is to be prepared to adapt to little twists that you didn’t expect. Matt will teach you a hard  LSAT game where that’s important.  Detailed Q&A to follow.

 

Breaking Down Law School Part II: Addressing the Negatives in Your Application  & Strategy for the February LSAT

Monday, January 12 (7:30 – 9:30 PM EST),  Meets ONLINE 

Sign Up Here

4 More Sample Law School Personal Statements, Critiqued

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Manhattan Prep LSAT Blog - Sample Law School Personal Statements Critiqued by Mary Richter

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In case you haven’t been following, over on jdMission‘s blog, I’ve been critiquing real law school personal statements week by week—naming what’s working, what’s not, and offering up a takeaway for each one in the Real Law School Personal Statements series.

Here’s a round-up of four recent takeaways!
1. No headings. No gimmicks.
Give your personal statement a heading if you want, sure. Give it a weird layout. Write it as a poem, an acrostic poem or haiku, or turn it into a musical if you want.
And then revise into not these things.
It is good for you to do whatever you need to do so that you’re able to freely and genuinely write from the heart, but then, best take out whatever quirky structural element enabled you to write openly. You may be convinced it’s cute/clever, but that’s sort of like being convinced your baby is the cutest baby of all time.
(Those of you who still don’t trust me, please set up a [free] consultation and let me try to convince you!)

Sample essay here.

2. Put your head in your story.

In your creative writing classes in college, you were probably told to “show, not tell.” If you were writing a short story, you’d be advised to reveal the characters’ feelings by what they did and how they acted, rather than by announcing it: “Lydia was heartbroken.”

This holds true to a certain point in law school personal statements. You want to give enough detail that your story is sincere and poignant and resonates with the reader. But you actually don’t want to leave it open to interpretation in the same way that many contemporary short stories are, because you actually have an agenda here, which is to persuade someone of your suitability to a particular law school.
Sample essay here.

3. If you say you love American History (or any subject), you have to explain what you love about it.

Remember in most romantic comedies ever made when two people are on a date, and one says, “I love that book!” never having read it, and comedic tension ensues as he tries to converse about a book he hasn’t read? If you say you are passionate about a subject or thing, and you don’t actually say why, or what about it you love so much, it comes across a little like this. It’s an easy mistake to make—but for the same reason, it’s an easy one to fix, too, if you catch yourself doing it.
 
Sample essay here.

4. When you discover abstract truths (“who you are” or “your life’s purpose”), elaborate…concretely.

This is along the same lines as the previous reminder, because both boil down to: Don’t leave the reader hanging. Here’s a brief excerpt from the critique of a personal statement that had this problem: “At the climax of her essay, the candidate writes, ‘I needed to help them see from my perspective and also see from theirs. In Korea, it was no longer just about how to speak, but also how to make the other person understand.’ Great! But what? I don’t know what her perspective was, or what needed to be understood.”
Again—an easy fix if you know what to look for.
Sample essay here

For literally dozens more critiques, visit jdMission’s blog. Happy writing! ?


Don’t forget that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person LSAT courses absolutely free. We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.


Manhattan Prep LSAT Instructor Mary Richter

Mary Richter is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in New York City. Mary has degrees from Yale Law School and Duke. She has over 10 years of experience teaching the LSAT after scoring in the 99th percentile on the test. She is always thrilled to see students reach beyond their target scores. At Yale, she co-directed the school’s Domestic Violence Clinic for two years. After graduating she became an associate at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in New York City, where she was also the firm’s pro-bono coordinator. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and more. Check out Mary’s upcoming LSAT classes here.