How Early Should I Start My LSAT Prep?

If you’re like most pre-law students studying for the LSAT, you probably already have the end goal in sight. You want to sit for the [insert month here] LSAT so that you can apply to [insert school here] by [insert date here].

Now comes the hard part: Deciding when to get started! You have a goal score, a test date in mind, and you know what you want to score. However, you just don’t know how much time you will need.

Allow me! I’ve taught dozens of live LSAT courses and guided thousands of students to this end goal. While everyone’s LSAT journey is uniquely theirs, my experience leading others down this path has provided me with a few insights about how long it takes to study for the LSAT, from start to finish.

How Long Does It Take to Study for the LSAT?

No matter how you slice it, it’s a lot of work. It takes a long time to study for the LSAT. I used to say that an LSAT course is equivalent to a college-level course. However, in terms of workload, I’m now more likely to say it’s the equivalent of two courses. The takeaway is that you’ll need more study time than you think, which means starting your LSAT prep earlier than expected.

Sign up to get expert tips and exclusive invites to free LSAT classes and law school admissions workshops!

Give Yourself More Time Than You Think You Need

Our data tells us that the average student needs to practice about 2500 LSAT questions to maximize their LSAT score increase before experiencing diminishing returns. Twenty-five hundred. Phew, that sounds like a lot.

And that’s not just doing a bunch of practice tests, either. We’re talking about a mixture of targeted question-type practice, untimed accuracy building, timed drills, section exams, and, yes, full practice tests. Plus, there is the all-important component of review. Additionally, if you’re taking a Blueprint LSAT course, you’ll need to watch all the foundational video modules and attend live lessons.

Ready to start your LSAT journey? Create a free Blueprint LSAT account to access tons of resources, including an LSAT exam (with explanations and performance analytics), a customizable Study Planner Tool, a trial of our Self-Paced Course, and more!

Give Yourself Time To Fall Off and Pick Back Up

Most LSAT students follow a familiar pattern. In the beginning, there’s an unbridled enthusiasm that comes with learning something exciting and new. You can’t wait to do the next round of homework, and you might even get ahead in your LSAT study plan. What follows is an emotional leveling out.

The initial excitement slows down as you settle into the routine of doing regular homework and practice. Then, inevitably, you hit a slump. Either something else in life gets in the way or you just don’t feel like studying that week.

From there, a spark of motivation usually returns–maybe you receive an unexpected score jump–but motivation comes in waves, and there are peaks and valleys. You might bomb a practice test and wonder if all this work is really worth it.

Motivation will come and go, and it’s only human to have good study weeks and less productive ones. However, we need to account for these slumps in making our study plan. All in all, this means adding an additional two weeks or so of bonus study time to pick up the slack. By planning for things to go imperfectly, we can arrive closer to perfection in executing that plan.

Give Yourself Time To Retake

Even the most prepared test takers often don’t hit a home run on the first swing. There’s something about the rookie experience of the LSAT that often prevents us from giving our best shot on the first try. As a general rule, I advise students to give themselves a one-test “buffer.”

In other words, if you want to submit your law school applications by Thanksgiving, you should be gunning for the October LSAT, not November. September would be even better!

So, How Much Time Do I Actually Need To Study for the LSAT?

All right, now you really need to know: How long does it take to study for the LSAT??! It’s not an exact science, but let me give you my best estimates from experience.

First, let’s think less about calendar time and more about total hours spent studying. To maximize your potential and hit that 2500 questions answered mark, you’ll need to put in about 250 to 300 hours of work. The first order of business is to divide your 250-300 total hours into what you anticipate is the realistic average number of hours you can contribute each week.

How many weeks and months this amounts to depends on the other demands you have on your schedule, so let’s break it into a few categories.

1. The Full-Time Employee/Parent

If you work full-time or are a full-time parent or caretaker, you’ll want to plan for a longer course of study. Play it conservatively here. Combining the LSAT with a full-time responsibility can be mentally taxing.

To illustrate, let’s say you can dedicate on average one hour a day on weekdays, and three to four hours over the weekend. That’s about eight hours per week. That means you’ll need about 38 weeks, or the better part of nine months from start to finish.

So if your plan is to apply by Thanksgiving, you’ll want to start studying around January to February. Yeah, I know. But that’s the nature of balancing the LSAT with full-time commitments. Your journey will be more of a marathon than a sprint. (And that’s fine!)

2. The Part-Time Employee/College Student

If you’re a student or part-time employee, there’s an element of adaptability to how long to study for the LSAT. If you have a high credit load (e.g. 18 credits), you would want to follow something similar to the full-timer’s plan above.

However, if you can take a lower credit load (12 credits would be ideal), you might be able to get more study time in. Let’s say two hours per weekday and another two hours on the weekend. That’s about 12 hours per week. In such a case, you would expect to be fully prepped in about six months from start to finish. That means starting your prep around April or May for that hypothetical Thanksgiving application target.

One thing I tell college students, though, is to start an extra month or two early if they can afford to do so. Life in the real world has a predictable rhythm. It’s the nature of working a 9-5 job.

College is chaotic. You’ll have weeks where barely anything happens. Homework will be light or non-existent. A few classes might get canceled. But you’ll also have the weeks when papers and group projects are due. In other words, weeks where very little, if any, LSAT studying will get gone. (And don’t get me started on midterms and final exams!)

An extra one-to-two-month buffer could prevent a lot of stress as you navigate college life while getting closer and closer to test day.

3. The Full-Time Studier

If you are fortunate enough to be able to study for the LSAT full-time, you might already be doing the math.

“Ok, 300 hours divided by 40 hours per week…that’s about seven to eight weeks, right?”

Wrong. Here’s the problem: Studying for the LSAT is deep, intense work. It’s mentally draining. You can’t do it eight hours a day (at least not effectively). Why?

Let’s consider a normal 9-5 job. You might be in the office 40 hours a week, but you’re not really actively working eight hours per day. Well, at least not intense, deep-thinking work. You’ll have critical projects, sure, but you’ll also have boring meetings, emails, talking to coworkers, coffee breaks, lunch, etc.

I would say that at best, you can plan on having four quality hours of LSAT prep a day. If you take a break on Sunday, that means about 24 hours per week. That means a minimum of 10 weeks for full-time LSAT students. Add to that the aforementioned time buffers for motivation, life events, possible retakes, etc. and you’ll want to start studying three to four months before the first LSAT you plan on taking.

So hypothetically, if you want to submit your applications by Thanksgiving, that means you want to start studying in June or July.

Conclusion

So how early should we begin studying for the LSAT? How long does it take to study for the LSAT? In sum:

If you work full-time, give yourself more time (about nine months).
If you’re a full-time LSAT student, give yourself less time (three to four months).
If you’re a college student in the middle, give yourself five to seven months, depending on the business of your class schedule and other commitments.

Regardless of when you begin studying, give yourself the option to retake. Even if you’re really well prepared, LSAT administrations are kind of like lottery tickets. A truly prepared student will win either way, but hitting the “jackpot” sometimes requires taking the exam a second (or sometimes third) time.

Whenever you are ready. to start prepping for the LSAT, the expert instructors at Blueprint LSAT are ready to help! Whether you want the flexibility of a Self-Paced Course, prefer to navigate the LSAT with instructors in a Live Course or 170+ Course, or even private LSAT tutoring, we have the study method that fits your learning style.

How Long Does It Take to Study for the LSAT?

Sign up to get expert tips and exclusive invites to free LSAT classes and law school admissions workshops!

Give Yourself More Time Than You Think You Need