So you’ve bought the fancy Blueprint LSAT course, and you’re clamoring to dive in and build those LSAT chops, but your actual class doesn’t start for a while. What should you do? Luckily, the structure of your Blueprint LSAT preparation allows you to begin your journey the day you sign up, even before you meet your instructors! Here’s what to do…

Take Your Diagnostic Exam (a.k.a. “Practice Exam 1”)

Go into your student account and find the “Exams” tab near the top of the screen. Click on that, and it will take you to the list of exams you have available to you throughout your enrollment. Block out about 2.5 hours (if taking the exam under standard time) and take this exam [side note – Blueprint uses actual released LSAC PrepTests, so this test consists of the actual items that, once upon a time, were on the real LSAT].

You should know that the test is most likely going to feel hard and unlike any exam you’ve ever taken before. But that’s why you signed up for the Blueprint LSAT course! Don’t worry about your performance or score on this diagnostic test. It’s a “diagnosis” of where you stand now, and will be your first data points that later on will feed the QBank for some personalized practice. It is not a “prognosis” of where you will stand by the time you take your real LSAT.

Complete the Pre-Work Modules Associated with Lesson 1

Each lesson in your course includes some videos/quizzes to complete before coming to class. These are called “modules.” The idea here is that by coming to class already being somewhat familiar with the relevant concepts for that lesson, you will get more out of your live class sessions with your instructors!

This doesn’t mean you’ll have complete mastery of an LSAT concept after completing the modules, but rather that they plant the seeds that will then be watered by you and your instructors in class. As you’ll find out when your classes start, Blueprint LSAT classes are not like college lectures, but are an interactive/immersive experience. Think of them like “workshops” with hands-on guided practice for this skills-based exam.

Go to your Study Plan tab, and under Lesson 1, complete all the associated modules. This way, you’ll be well-prepared for your first class and you’ll also see how the concepts discussed relate to the questions you saw on your diagnostic test.

Poke Around the User Interface

Spend some time just clicking around on things in your student account to discover the various features of our website. You’ll see fun things like an interactive calendar in your Study Plan in which you can click and drag assignments to different days, a Lessons-Learned Journal in which you’ll track the nature of your mistakes and how you’ll fix them, and a QBank where you’ll be spending lots of time developing LSAT mastery and pattern recognition.

Attend Office Hours

In addition to your regular 2.5-hour lessons with live instructors, your Blueprint LSAT enrollment also includes access to live, 2-hour sessions called “Office Hours” which we run 6 days per week. But these are not like your university’s Office Hours (booooooooring) – instead, each Office Hours session features one of our top instructors driving a discussion for the session’s topic, followed by guided practice through actual LSAT questions.

While Blueprint offers more than 50 unique Office Hours sessions, there are a series of Office Hours appropriate for those students just starting to dip their toes into the water of LSAT world. Here are a handful of good ones you can check out before your course begins in order to get a head start on some of the highest-yield LSAT concepts:

To enter the realm of Office Hours, go to your Live tab at the top of any page from your student account. You’ll be able to register for upcoming Office Hours (live) as well as view Past Office Hours (recordings). In the filters, just select Office Hours under “Type.” You can also filter by Instructor and select the teacher for your course if you’d like to get a sense of their style in advance! Try to attend Office Hours live whenever possible – live lessons are more engaging and interactive, and there’s a teacher there to answer any of your questions/concerns in real time.

Do Initial Review of Diagnostic Exam

The score of your diagnostic exam doesn’t matter much. It’s a practice test, and most likely the first one you’ve ever taken, so keep that context in mind before your inner cynic tries to convince you that you should be running away and joining the circus. What does matter is that you’re going to put in the effort to learn the ins and outs of the LSAT, and have a positive attitude of turning mistakes into opportunities. And that’s where the value of review comes in!

Check out this Blueprint blog on How to Review Practice Exams, and use the opportunity to make your first entries in your Lessons Learned Journal. For this review, most (if not all) LSAT concepts are going to be completely foreign to you right now, and that’s OK! You can do another review of this exam after your first couple of lessons once you’ve gotten some instruction in best practices for breaking down arguments in LR and tagging passages in RC. But for now, glean what you can from our expert explanations, and focus not so much on the problem at hand, but rather the underlying Blueprint methodologies and thought processes that you’ll be replicating over and over between now and Test Day.

Talk to Your Friends/Family About Your Time Commitment

Once your course officially starts, you’ll have not only your in-class commitments but also quite a bit of time to spend outside of class with your homework, practice tests, review, etc. Like with most things in life, what you’ll get out of your LSAT preparation will be commensurate with what you put into your LSAT preparation. Anything worthwhile will take great effort – this is why people can brag about climbing Mt. Everest, but no one brags about walking to the end of the block.

Blueprint has done the work for you in making your study plan, but you have to do the work in adhering to it and making sure your friends/family understand that this is a major endeavor you’re about to embark on. Let them know you might have to miss that party on a Friday night or that you’ll only be able to attend the first game of your cousin Eddie’s adult softball doubleheader. It’s temporary, but establishing those expectations with your loved ones early on will make them more understanding when you have to say “No” to certain things later on. And they’ll respect you for taking the necessary steps to start on the journey of the prosperous legal career you have in your future.

Thank you for choosing Blueprint, and Happy LSAT’ing!