"I got a good score on the LSAT"
Remember those tests you'd get in guidance class in junior high where there'd be questions like, "Do you enjoy being outdoors? Do you like working with numbers? Would you enjoy working a late shift?" After taking the test you'd total up the your score and be provided with your scientifically determined "ideal job".
Invariably some guy would get a typically female job like "secretary," a smart kid would get "truck driver," and a dumb kid would get "doctor." After the merciless teasing was over, even 12 year olds could see that a scantron sheet was a ridiculous way to determine a career.
Just a short 9 to 10 years later, people will happily take the LSAT, "just to see how I do" and some will be so impressed with their scores that they will believe that they were made for law school. They will be certain that that their ability to determine that some glops are glooks but not all glooks are glops will also allow them to master a theory of jurisprudence that undergirds our complicated society.
If not instantly sure that their LSAT score has determined their destiny, they will become even more certain when schools they've never heard of from the other side of the country send them unsolicited scholarship offers based on their LSAT score alone. Sadly, these prospective students did not learn the ego shattering truth that high school taught most of us, "When someone wants to go out with you, it's not always because they find you attractive, and is usually because they are lonely and can't do any better."
But, once someone's scored in the 74th percentile, there's often no turning back. Look out, law school, here comes their brain, almost better than 3/4 of all the other kids who were thinking about applying. And when they arrive at law school and begin comparing notes with their colleagues, they find out they're not so exceptional after all. In fact, everyone at their school has a score within two or three points of theirs.
This sudden averageness upon enrollment is rarely disappointing, though. After all, even if you're one of the plainer women who get eliminated in the first round of the Miss America pageant, you still get to be Miss Delaware.
The true disappointment typically arrives after 1st semester grades when it becomes very clear that a good score on an objective multiple choice test is rarely a sound predictor of a good score on a subjective essay exam.
