It’s August, illustrating once again that time continues its inexorable march. Soon the leaves will wither and die on the branch, carpeting the earth until they are hidden by a soft layer of snow. Every day, we grow older, inching incrementally closer to the grave.

Oh yeah, it also means that today is the regular registration deadline for the September LSAT. You can still register for the test up until August 9, but LSAC will charge you a hefty fee for the privilege, so if you’re even thinking about taking the September test it’s probably a good idea to just register now.

Today is also the deadline for making regular requests for testing accommodations. There’s also a later deadline for that, but LSAC notes that it will be more difficult to appeal their decision (if necessary) if you apply after the later deadline.

Hopefully, most of you reading this are all signed up and ready to go–in terms of logistics, if not in current practice test scores. And that’s okay! It’s very normal to be scoring lower than you’d like at this stage of the game. In fact, frustratingly, our students often don’t see their biggest score increases until the last couple weeks before the test.

From here on out, you should be gradually shifting from learning how to tackle the material to taking more frequent practice tests. While you’re in those initial learning stages, it’s a good idea to take practice tests every once in a while to get a gauge on how well you’ve learned the subject matter, but overall your time is better spent drilling the various question types. Once you’ve got a handle on how to tackle the questions, though, you’ll want to incorporate much more timed practice–including full timed sections, as well as actual practice tests.

For now, you should probably be focusing much more on the LSAT than on the other components of your application. However, if you haven’t already asked for letters of recommendation, you should get that sorted out ASAP–professors tend to be much busier once the fall semester starts, and you’ll want to get your request in early so that your letter is at the top of their to-do lists. We’ve got a wealth of information about letters of recommendation in the blog archives, but here are some quick tips from past posts.

Above all, keep in mind that even though it may not feel like it, a month is a lot of time. You probably feel like you still have a long way to go, but rest assured that you also have plenty of time to get there. And if you still feel stressed, just remember that we’re all going to die someday anyway. Ahhhh, doesn’t that feel better?!