Jay Donnell

Instruction, PowerScore Test Preparation

Jay attended UCLA where he graduated with Honors in under four years with a major in Psychology and a minor in Political Science. Having immediately become fascinated with the LSAT from the moment he met his very first logic game, this exam became the love of his life, and he has been working for almost fifteen years to help share that love with thousands of test takers. Jay has applied to law school in two separate cycles, but in the end declined to accept his offers in order to remain in the test preparation world where he thrives. He decided against attending Columbia Law in 2007 because he was wary of incurring a third of a million dollars in debt at 23 years old, but in 2009 he accepted a full scholarship to University of San Diego in order to be near family in his hometown. After deferring admission for a year to pursue travel writing, when it came time to commit the following spring he received the email while at an internet cafe in Laos. While sitting barefoot on a pink plastic chair and having just eaten a scorpion for a snack, he decided against law school for good and committed to a life of traveling, teaching, writing, learning, and loving life.

As of 2019, Jay has traveled to over seventy countries and visited all seven continents. His penchant for adventure has seen him swimming with great white sharks in South Africa, running with the bulls in Pamplona, going viral at the Robot Restaurant in Tokyo, leaping from the world’s three highest bungee jumps, and even bringing a thrift store tuxedo to Antarctica in order to blend in with the locals in his penguin suit. Every experience has served to broaden his horizons and widen his smile, and he brings his infectious passion and enthusiasm for life into his teaching and consulting.

Raised bilingually in English and Spanish, Jay has a linguistic aptitude that allows him to not only speak conversationally in five languages, but to truly connect with people of all walks of life. This allows him to immediately create metaphors and analogies suited to any student to help decipher complex LSAT reasoning. His favorite part of the Admissions Consulting is being able to assist his clients in looking inward and realizing just how special they are, and using his emotional intelligence to investigate the traumas, ambitions, accomplishments and goals of his clients in order to curate dazzling personal statements that help them leapfrog over competitors into top law school admittances. He absolutely lives for when a client exclaims, “we’ve only been talking for an hour, how did you know that about me??”

He vacillates between loving the Logical Reasoning or Logic Games the most at any given time, and when not playing sudoku or the New York Times crossword puzzle you can find him on his porch on Balboa Island playing old logic games for fun. That is, when he can get his cat Pepper to stop grabbing at his pencil with his hilariously excessive thumbs.