Quinn Mika MacDonald, Esq.
LSAT Tutor, Admissions Consultant &
Essay Editor
Hi, I’m Mika and this is my website. I left the active practice of law during COVID and came back to teaching in 2022 (I had taught LSAT/ACT/SAT before law school). I have worked as an independent contractor for multiple test prep companies, but recently decided to go independent. It affords me a lot more freedom for me to innovate.
I love teaching and writing. Which makes my current job kind of my dream job. And I take it very seriously. I work hard at improving my communication and explanation skills. I develop my own resources (like a guide to note-taking with model notes for ~140 passages). I hunt for idiosyncratic resources to supplemental standard test prep.
Kind of a creepy logo, but I like it.
Organization & Structure
I know structured learning isn’t for everyone. But it is for a lot of people, including me. So part of what I offer is:
a well-developed syllabus paced around videos, readings and pre-built practice sets
question journal and blind review journal templates
an evolving study plan that we update each session, and use to track progress and homework
(if you want) a weekly study schedule for you to follow
Monitor your analytics to target areas needing improvement
Five Truths and No Lies
I retook a 172 to score a 179
UChicago Law 2015
I was a corporate bankruptcy litigator for 6 years
I love roller skating
My color scheme is intentional.
Pricing and Services
$10/hr off if you send me a solved copy
LSAT Tutoring
$120/hr or $550/5hrs or $1000/10hrs
I’m expensive. I know test prep is wealth privileged.
I dislike it as much as you do. But I think my impact is more than worth my rate.
So, here’s a real justification. Ceteris paribus, each point on the LSAT is worth approximately $10,000 in merit aid from a law school. If 10 hours with me moves you five points, then you’ve paid me $1,000 to get $50,000 in merit aid.
Do your research before you spend. A link to my testimonials page is below. Check out the articles here on my website. Then contact me for a free intake appointment, and we’ll see if we’re a good fit!
Admissions Consulting
$150/hr or $400/3hrs or $750/6hrs
I was a brief writer when I practiced law. You could (accurately) say I was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be persuasive in writing. And I was damn good at it!
Let me interview you and build your narratives. Let me teach you how to pitch yourself. If you’re a guy, let me teach you how to use “I” and feelings statements. Most importantly, let me teach you how to write like an advocate.
Technically these are annotations, not edits
Essay Editing
$50/page
If you’ve finished your admissions essays but want a professional editor with years of legal writing experience, send them over. I’ll send them back full of edits, comments and guidance. Expect a bloodbath.
A positive, helpful and intensely mission-focused bloodbath!
Appointments
LSAT intake appointments are free and run 30 minutes.
You should want a tutor that you click with!
In a typical LSAT intake session, we will:
Get to know each other;
Talk about your LSAT journey so far;
Go over my syllabus and supporting materials;
Work on a few questions together; and
Schedule a recurring time for sessions.
If you’re looking for admissions consulting, then
Learn more on the admissions consulting page
Contact Me
If you have questions, my email is quinn.mika@idiosyncraticlsat.com
If you’ve scheduled an LSAT intake session, please send me a short email describing your LSAT journey so far.
If you’ve scheduled an admissions consulting session, send me an email about yourself along with your resume and any brainstorming/drafting you’ve done.
If you want essay editing or legal writing tutoring, email me.
If you think my humor is good/bad and have feedback, you can email me. I might roast you, tho.
What Makes Idiosyncratic LSAT Idiosyncratic?
A Focus on Skills
A lot of test prep obsessively focuses on studying individual question types. Maybe they toss a fundamentals of conditional logic video in. I think this is wrong-headed, and why a lot of students plateau after 5-10 points of initial progress.
You can’t master this test without thinking about the broader skillset and concepts shared among questions types. And there’s no way to ace conditional logic questions without developing a deeper understanding of translation and calculation.
So that’s been my goal. First to untangle and identify the individual skills, and then to build a curriculum on training them.
Three Truths and No Lies
I’ve sued a law firm (they settled)
I’ve been sued by a law firm (I settled)
The FBI has visited me at home [redacted]
A Focus on the English Language
Bear with me here. Main conclusion questions ask us to identify something stated in the prompt. That sounds so simple, right? So why is this a hard question type? Why are there five star MC questions? How can there be?
Because the LSAT is deliberately poorly written.
Its filled with linguistic traps and implied meanings. It abuses referential words and avoids cohesion. It uses archaic, stilted language from the 1950s.
Unfortunately, this is a realistic glimpse into your legal career…
But there are certain rules the test-makers can’t break. Thus all of this can be beaten (by using the rules they can’t break against them). So we need to re-learn those rules. And we need to wield them effectively.
I’m going to train you to read the way I read.
Two Truths and No Lies
My departure from the practice of law was so infamous it made the (legal) news.
I have an interesting sense of humor.
All of the questions you were going to google.
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Yes! But it’s also a learnable exam. The LSAT is not a memorization or IQ test. It’s a test of skills, all of which are learnable and master-able (if you’re willing to put in the time).
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Glib Answer: depends on the quality of the tutor.
Marketing Answer: there is a common rule of thumb in admissions counseling that, all other things equal, every LSAT point is worth about $10,000 in merit-based financial aid. The LSAT is the most heavily weighted component of your admissions package.
Thoughtful Answer: Why do you need a tutor? Can you get that from a test prep curriculum’s classroom package? Are you stuck and need an expert?
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Extremely. The LSAT is graded on a curve, so getting a 180 means you scored higher than 99.99% of test-takers.
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Yes. I’ve taken four bar exams and ultimately they’re mainly memorization tests. The LSAT is a skills test, and therefore, is more difficult.
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A 179, same as me!!
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To my knowledge, no other data is being collected from site visitors.
Terms of Service
The terms are legally binding. All disputes are governed by California law.
This website offers no products or services for sale. This website is for advertising the services of the “Professional” (me), which you may book by directly contacting me and/or scheduling a no-cost intake appointment.
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