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These Go to Eleven.

BPPjodi-lsat-blog-spinal-tap
Every three years or so, we survey our spring classroom students for the Blueprint score increase study. We do this to make sure that we’re doing a good job of teaching our students. After all, if your students aren’t improving their performance on the LSAT during the course, then you’ve failed as an LSAT prep company.

In spring 2008, our average practice exam score increase was 10 points. We were a smaller company then, with classes throughout California and an outpost in New York City. Since then, we’ve been adding locations and this spring expanded into five new cities – Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Austin, and Phoenix (in addition to our extant California and New York classes).

The big question became: was it possible to become a national company and still maintain our massive score increase of 10 points? So many companies grow and lose all quality control. (You know what I mean, Starbucks – you actually served good coffee, once upon a time).

So what are the results?

Eleven. Our spring Blueprint classroom students averaged an eleven point increase on their practice exams. As everyone who knows anything about the LSAT is aware, an eleven point increase on the test is HUGE, and we’re extraordinarily excited about it. Not only did we maintain our average score improvement as a national company, we INCREASED it.

How do we do it?

Our methods our very, very good. Also, we believe students learn better when they’re engaged in the material so keep the tone of our curriculum light. We think people should learn formal logic from examples of leiderhosen and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s illegitimate love child with the house maid. A light-hearted approach just makes it easier to pay attention and to connect to the material.

The best part of our score increase study (apart from the success it spelled for our students, of course) is that I also finally got to work Spinal Tap into a marketing campaign. The next time people ask me why they should chose Blueprint as their LSAT prep course, I’ll simply reply: “This one goes to eleven.”

Details of the study
The score increase study was conducted in the spring of 2011 and included all qualifying students in all Blueprint classroom courses across the country, including Boston, Manhattan, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Austin, Phoenix, Los Angles, San Diego, Irvine, and Berkeley.

To qualify for the study, students had to take all four proctored practice exams given in the course. The study excluded self-study students who did not attend a live class. Repeat students were also excluded.

The score increase was calculated from students’ first practice exam to their best score. Using the first to last practice exam convention, the average score increase was nine (9) points.

The score increase data was calculated by the accounting firm of Howard & Howard using test results taken directly from the Blueprint database.

For more information on our score increase study, visit our LSAT practice exam score increase page here.