hi! was debating whether to answer this because i wasn’t sure yet if i was going to pass the interview 😭 but now that i did, i think i’m at least somewhat qualified to give a satisfactory answer :))

for starters, it helps to already have a rough idea of when the prospective uplae date will be so you can properly block out your study schedule. ours was around march 1 iirc! i also enrolled in a review center (white elephant) and availed their crash course option

study schedule-wise:
- i started as early as november the year before and did some light reading using the lae prepper i got from white elephant. during this month, i followed a biweekly schedule where i focused on one component of the exam at a time (logic/math/verbal reasoning) for around two weeks each. since i was one of the project managers for an org event that hosted mock alsats and mock laes, i got to take those exams too, which helped me gauge my strengths and weaknesses (which at the time felt like… all 😭)
- for december, since it was holiday break, i honestly couldn’t focus on lae prep as seriously as i wanted to, so i mainly concentrated on logic which was my weakest component
- january was when i started “seriously” studying. my schedule became one component per week, and i’d study after classes almost every day
- during feb, a lot of frats and soros started hosting their own mock exams, and i took advantage of those since they’re usually free and easy to find on fb! i got really discouraged because my scores usually averaged around the high 60% to low 70% and never much higher than that, but i still pushed through. after every mock exam, i had a habit of listing down points for improvement and focused on those! i only took around four mock exams total though :))

more tips:
- focus on the lae first! a lot of people stress themselves out by worrying about the interview which imo is not a good strategy. focus on passing the lae first!
- although some people say the lae is “just like the cets,” treat it like the hardest exam you’ll ever take. give yourself enough time to actually digest the information. personally, healthy paranoia was a good motivator for me 😭 the passing rate this year was less than 5% lang din :))
- find a study/accountability buddy if you can! while i mostly studied alone, almost everyone in my course and batch applied for the lae, so we always checked in on each other’s progress. while the lae is technically a competition since it’s ranked, it still helps a lot to have friends going through the same thing with you.
- reddit is honestly such a good source for info/chika 😭 my personal favorites are the prelawstudentsph and lawstudentsph subreddits.

but honestly, one of my most important tips is to not count yourself out before you even take the exam. a lot of people convince themselves (me included) they’re not passing the lae before they even try which is just pessimistic and doesn't help your case. the only thing that matters is how badly you want it!

lmk if this helped! feel free to dm me on twt or through my tg: @/lulalihams :))