How to Study for the LSAT on a Budget (& Video!)

***Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. This post wasn’t sponsored, all opinions are my own. If you make a purcahse through these links, I may make commission at no extra cost to you. I wouldn’t recommend it if I wouldn’t buy it myself! See full disclaimer for details. ***

Welcome (back) to KristenShane.com! As you may know, law school has been a hope and dream of mine for a few years now. Law school location and law-job opportunities were big influencers in deciding to attend college in Florida’s capital city (go Noles!). Now, with my college graduation less than six months away, it’s almost time to apply for law school!

I recently studied for and completed my first LSAT (law school admissions test). When I started researching prep-courses for the test, I decided an online course was the best option for me, compared to an in-person class. I chose to dedicate the month of May (post-final exams) to study for the June LSAT. That didn’t give me a lot of time to prep! Regardless, I wouldn’t have changed the way I studied.

In this post, I’m sharing all my tips & tricks for how I studied for the LSAT, as well as a video-version of this post! I’ll be adding in some video content on my blog for those who prefer to watch instead of read, enjoy! 🙂

Once I got into LSAT-mode, I was shocked to learn just how expensive LSAT (and other grad-school test prep courses) are! I was expecting courses to cost maybe a few hundred dollars, not $1000!  For one exam?! No way!

I’m sure these expensive courses get results and can be used for longer periods of time than my shortened study schedule, but spending $800-1000+ on a prep course just wasn’t practical or logical for me, as I’m sure is the case for many students.

Ya girl is the self-proclaimed Coupon Queen, so you better believed I found a more budget friendly option to study for the LSAT!

I’ve actually gotta give full credit to this budget-friendly-find to my older sister, Kelly! I’ve bragged on her before on my blog, but she just graduated from Clemson (my parents’ alma mater) and is headed to NYC for grad school this fall!! I’m so proud. OK proud sista moment over! Anyway, she just went through the GRE and grad-school-application-ordeal last year, so she was my go-to for recommending a study prep.

She and some of her friends used Magoosh (funny name, but they’re no joke!) to study for the GRE, and they’re still singing Magoosh’s praises! After the shock of seeing that the other highly-recommended study brands cost $800 on average, the $80 price of the Magoosh LSAT prep-course (3-month membership, which was all I needed for my May-study, June-test… *although I’ve just checked and the 3-month price is now $130, which I’m assuming is because there isn’t an LSAT date as close as when I purchased) was an instant-sell for me!!

That’s right!! I spent $80 on test prep. 80 with one zero, not two. And I got a score I’m proud of!

Magoosh offers study memberships on a monthly subscription basis (with 3 or 12 month pacakges), instead of a one-time fee. Which honestly makes more sense since you could, in theory, study in a few months month like I did and be done. You don’t need to spend a ton of money! And, the 12 month plan is only $20 more than the 3 month plan, so if you already know you need more time to study, that’s a great option!

In addition to a study course, I’d also recommend buying a physical study book. I bought an “Actual, Official LSAT Preptests” book from LSAC (a book of official, full LSATs) and this Kaplan review book, from Amazon. They cost about $50 ($23-30 each), which wasn’t bad at all, since some prep books cost more than that a piece!

My one study-regret though was in regard to buying these books. I bought them on a whim a few months back during a stress-freak-out of feeling like I needed to get a head-start studying. I talk about it a little more in the video, but the Kaplan book could be used as a prep-course in itself if you dedicated the time to it, so I could’ve passed on buying that one since I mainly used the Magoosh material. If you choose to just study with one of these books, that would be even more budget-friendly! (Regardless of what option you choose to study, I still recommend buying an ‘Actual, Offical’ LSAC book to take full practice tests!)

I’d recommend buying the LSAC book after the Magoosh membership, so that you can buy the right edition to go along with their program. They have some solution help/review to go along with a certain version of the LSAC book, and mine overlapped for 3 or 4 tests instead of all 10 tests offered in the book.

Whew, still with me?! I hope this can be of help to you if you’re studying for an upcoming entrance exam! Magoosh also offers MCAT and SAT prep, as well as a bunch of other tests, so check them first to see if they have a budget-friendly option for whatever test you’re going to conquer! They offer a score-increase-guarantee if you’ve taken the test before. Again, they aren’t sponsoring me to recommend them, they’re just that awesome, and I’m here to help save you $$$!

I took a full practice test for a base score before I studied, and my score increased about 5 points from that first practice test to my actual score! (If you aren’t familiar with how the LSAT is scored, like I wasn’t a few months ago, that’s about a 20% percentile increase! )

I’m so glad my sister recommended Magoosh! They cost a fraction of what other big-study-course-names cost. But let me tell you they are not a fraction of the worth! They offer such high-quality study material (and so much study material, I didn’t even get through everything!) and they truly cater to student at all levels.

I’m so satisfied with the cost, and so so glad I didn’t spend more somewhere else. Let my sister and me be testaments to just how awesome they are. If I do study again for the next test, I wouldn’t even question buying a membership with them again!

Thanks for reading, friend! Are you taking the LSAT, too? Or another grad school test? What prep materials did you use?! Let me know in a comment below!