"There's a mindset we get into here," she says. "Being with people who are more stressed about it definitely makes you work harder."

But others say the stress led them to worry more than they needed.

"A lot of my friends were taking the test, so it was all anybody could talk about for a couple of weeks," says C.J. Mahoney '00, who took an LSAT course with TestWell over the summer.

Many tutors agree that preparatory courses aren't right for everyone.

"I've heard people say that sitting with a bunch of tense test-takers makes them very tense," says Dena O. Rakoff, director of pre-law advising for the Office of Career Services. "I've heard people say they've lost the intuitive approach they came to the test prep program with...and now they can't get back to their own. The experiences are not always panaceas."

"Some review courses are more about test-taking strategies than a review of material," adds Eugenia Chan, a pre-med adviser in Cabot House. "I don't have a problem with that, except that the price tag is outrageous."

Those "outrageous" prices are a sticking point for many critics of the prep courses. According to the website of Princeton Review, a leading test prep company, an LSAT review class costs $995, an MCAT $1,195.

Rakoff says she advises students to start with "very good materials that are inexpensive"--replicas of old exams, which cost $8 apiece.