One oft-repeated piece of advise that I would like to repeat once more is this, “The week of your LSAT, do a site visit to the testing center”. This allows you to make sure that you are aware of any issues that might affect you on test day. This would include such disparate items as road construction, where to park, and changes in the location. Any one of these could drastically increase your stress on test day or even cause you to miss the test! The last thing you want on the day of the LSAT is to be trying to deal with issues that could have been easily avoided if you had only done a site visit.
My experience with the testing center at East Tennessee State University illustrates perfectly why this is the case. Yesterday (only 3 days before the LSAT), with my LSAT ticket in hand, I drove the roughly 30 minutes to ETSU. Pulling into the first parking lot I found, I asked a campus police officer where the building indicated on the ticket was located.
In the interest of spreading a little humor, I should point out that the name of the building where the test was scheduled to be held was “Warf-Pickel”. My wife, upon seeing this name, burst out laughing and said that it sounded like the title to a Star Trek themed adult film.
In any case, the officer identified a building directly adjoining the parking lot as Warf-Pickel. As I walked the short distance to the building, I was thinking how lucky I was that I wouldn’t have to walk halfway across campus to get to the testing center! I could park practically in front of the building!
Emerging from the stairwell on the fourth floor of the building, I knew immediately that something was wrong. The hallway was full of plastic sheeting and two-by-fours. Upon reaching the room number identified on the LSAT ticket, I found a small, hand-written note saying only “Moved to ….” and a room number in another building.
One of the men working down the hallway was able to give me directions to the new building (which was halfway across campus!) Groaning and grumbling, I walked across the campus (which I might add is quite lovely) and, after having to ask for directions only once, finally found the building I was looking for. Entering the room that had been indicated on the hand-written sign, I found a maze of offices with boxes, furniture and equipment seemingly stacked everywhere. I finally found a test center employee in the last office I looked in. She was busy unpacking boxes, but seemed happy to take a break to speak with me.
It turns out that the test center was being moved to the new building, but the LSAT scheduled for this weekend would still be held in Warf-Pickel, just on another floor. She assured me that the actual room assignments would be posted on the front doors of Warf-Pickel on test day.
As I walked back across campus, I silently thanked God that I had taken the time to do this site visit! Take it from me, this is a veryimportant part of your LSAT prep.
I am going to publish this post and then … based upon suggestions from previous LSAT takers, I am not planning on studying any further. Rather, I will be relaxing today and tomorrow and attempting to get as much sleep as possible.
Wish me luck! When next I post, it will be all over but the waiting!
