After a wonderful trip to Iowa, reality sets in.

Iowa's annual tuition is $30,000 for an out-of-state student. While there are fellowships for the two-thirds of the student body that can attach themselves as research assistants to professors, there is no way of knowing that I'll be one of them at this stage. Let's assume $90,000 in tuition, over the course of three years.

Further, while I expect to be able to live just fine on $8000 a year for room and board, that's another $24,000. I probably won't find the internships of my dreams in Iowa City, and will have to maintain a lease on an apartment there while getting another short-term lease in another city. The cost of that is unknown, but I think it would be safe to assume $5000 at least over two summers.

Leaving my TSP (government 401(k)) alone, I would have a total student debt of approximately $119,000. The amortization calculator I referenced online shows me a monthly repayment of $908.37, with $99,000 in interest paid if I schedule my payments over the course of twenty years. It's like a mortgage on a house that doesn't exist.

Pitt, on the other hand, is offering me $12,000 a year, so long as I maintain a B average. Online, I see the grade distribution indicates that two-thirds of the class is able to do this, and if I'm not in the top 66% at the end of my first year, I'll find something else to do with my life. This means that tuition will probably cost something like $54,000, over three years, unless I can get another fellowship or win in-state tuition. Assuming similar costs of living, with the benefit of more firms in Pittsburgh to work for over the summer, that's $78,000. $595.40 a month, $64,000 in interest paid.

One of the benefits of having an LSAT higher than the median or the 75th percentile at a given school is that you have the chance of raising the median LSAT, if the school recruits enough people in your range. Since a rise in the median LSAT correlates very strongly with a school's place in the famous and arbitrary U.S. News and World Report rankings, schools have incentive to reduce your tuition. At Iowa, I'm four points above their median for 2006. At Pitt, I'm five points above it. At St. Louis, I'm seven points above it, and they just offered me a total award of $57,000 over the course of six full-time semesters if I go there.

Next week, I'll email Iowa and ask them to make a financial commitment to my attending their school. If I can't get it, I'll attend Pitt and be happy.

Today I scouted Bratton Hall, the site of the test. It's remarkably non-ugly, given that it's on the University of New Mexico's campus and it hasn't been built within the last five years. It has its own parking lot designated by passes marked 'L' and I'm guessing that 343 students can't fit their vehicles within the allotted half-acre. There are even four spaces near the front of the building marked 'NM Judiciary' whose signs indicate a $100 ticket for parking in them. This creates financial incentive for the desperately tardy to take a parking spot away from a cripple, until one adjusts for karma.

However, they are future lawyers. Maybe karma's a concept you just have to check at the door.

I sat at my kitchen table for three hours and forty-five minutes this afternoon, doing my third LSAT diagnostic exam. I definitely believe practice is the better part of improvement here, since I scored a 162 on April 23 and a 173 today. While I'll feel better having the score materialize in my email simultaneously with the files of the Law School Data Assembly Service, I'm definitely encouraged going into the event. If I actually manage to score a 173, it would put me in the 75th percentile or higher at all law schools but the top eight or nine for LSAT scores.

What that will mean in terms of my applications, I don't yet know. University of New Mexico looks damn good at $5,000 a semester in tuition, regardless of how well I score. Just so the vanishingly small sliver of the Earth which cares enough to read this far will know, my tentative school list is: Iowa, Indiana-Bloomington, Wisconsin-Madison, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Pittsburgh, New Mexico and West Virginia. University of Texas at Austin is a fantasy I will entertain if my skill check comes back positive. The top four choices also have highly ranked business schools attached to them, important to me because of the JD/MBA option. If the FAA has taught me anything, it's not to rely too much on the market for any one skill, even if the market for law is far more broad.

On a personal note, I met Suzanne's parents this past weekend. I didn't sense immediate loathing, and hopefully I cemented that non-loathing by flipping for dinner at the Standard on Sunday. I'd really like her to occupy more of my time after the Test Which Determines All Else.

13 days, 11 hours, 34 minutes, 59 seconds. Tick-tock, Clarice.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I got my first radar certification at ZAB the Friday before last. If you fly within a hundred miles southeast of ABQ between Tuesday and Saturday, you might just hear my warm, comforting voice. Also, if I tell you to turn thirty degrees left or right immediately, I really need it. Thanks.