She wasn't an intern, she wasn't a lifeguard and she wasn't abroad. No, Wharton junior Rachel Schiffman was in the one place only the most dedicated of students dare to tread during the dog days of summer: the library.
What provoked this native New Yorker's sudden affinity for the solitary splendor of the Queens College stacks? A little something called the Law School Admission Test.
"It's one of those tests," she said, "where if you put in the effort ... you'll see results. [It takes] lots of commitment."
This Saturday, Schiffman and about 180 fellow Penn students will sit for the LSAT -- a six-section multiple-choice and writing exam that will help determine their path after Penn.
The test is being offered at five locations in Philadelphia, including on campus at the Penn Law School.
Michele Taylor, associate director of Career Services, said that the LSAT is not only the first step in the law-school application process, but "the most stressful hurdle" as well.
Scored from 120 to 180 points, the exam is "a kind of an intelligence test ... measuring analytical, logical, reading and writing skills," Taylor said. "It's a mini-preparation for the long exams of law school."
The LSAT is offered in October, December, February and June and is usually taken only once because scores are permanent once they have been reported, and multiple scores are usually averaged. However, the test can be taken up to three times in any two-year period.
Unlike the Graduate Record Examination and the newly re-designed Medical College Admission Test, which are computer-based, the LSAT is taken with pencil and paper. However, the Law School Admission Council -- the ruling body of law admissions -- offers online accounts through which students can be e-mailed their score in three weeks, rather than waiting four weeks to receive a score report in the mail.
Derek Meeker, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid at the Penn Law School --where 8 to 10 percent of students are Penn alumni -- characterizes the LSAT as "a significant factor" and "an important tool in the process" of selecting students. It is not to be taken "just to see how [you] do," he said. The first exam should be "your best shot."
But Penn Law does not put any specific weight on the score. The idea that admissions officers only look at an applicant's GPA and LSAT score is "one of the misconceptions of law-school admissions," Meeker added.
He emphasized that as part of their mission, law schools seek to form classes composed of diverse perspectives and thus also look for "non-quantitative factors" such as major, undergraduate institution, signs of initiative and commitment and evidence of "overcoming obstacles."
"It kind of feels like SAT season back in high school," said College senior David Liebhaber, who has been preparing for the test since August.
Other people "place a huge amount of importance on the LSAT, [but] for me, it's not a huge, big, life-changing deal, just another test to take," he said.
Liebhaber spent the summer interning at a law firm and used the opportunity to gather some ideas about how to prepare for the test. "The important thing is to use your time efficiently and prioritize," he said.
Like many students preparing for Saturday's exam, Liebhaber took a test-preparation course, which can be helpful since LSAT performance is based on strategies and critical thinking, rather than on factual information. Programs offered by the Princeton Review, Kaplan, TestMasters and others can cost from a few hundred dollars to around $1,500.
Taylor offered some advice to tomorrow's test takers: Get a good night's sleep, eat well, bring a snack and, instead of cramming right before the test, "approach it like an athlete" and relax. "It's really the endurance factor that's tough," she said.
"I'm not that nervous, yet," Schiffman said Tuesday. "Whatever will be, will be."
The LSAT n Composed of five sections of multiple-choice questions, each lasting 35 minutes - Only four of the sections are graded, but students do not know which one will be thrown out - One supplementary writing section is sent to institutions to which students apply, but it is not incorporated into the final score, which is between 120 and 180 points
