Don't Get Left Out of the Admissions Equation

Remember the good old days of the SAT exam, when there was no such thing as taking the test too many times?  Didn’t do so hot the first time?  No worries, you could buy books, prep courses, private tutoring and acupuncture until you were where you needed to be score wise. In terms of the LSAT, though, students often ask: “Should I take the LSAT more than once?”

In the LSAT world, the policies of admissions offices are not nearly so cut and dry.  Some schools will indeed take your highest score, while others will take the average of all the LSATs you’ve sat for.  Other admissions offices we called claim to take a “Holistic” approach to reviewing your application (my guess is that this involves lots of yoga and meditation, but perhaps there is a different interpretation!).

Check out today’s post on JD Mission’s blog for a list of the top 15 schools and what their policies are.  JDMission is a law school admissions counseling firm that offers end to end admissions consulting services from a team of accomplished legal professionals and law school experts.

It’s the Monday after an LSAT, so this is the question that’s filling the LSAT-universe. It’s not a pleasant discussion, but let’s get into it. Assuming that you just had a bad test day experience, here are a few considerations you should, well, consider:

1. Was this LSAT considerably different than your usual practice test experience? For example, did you only complete 3 games or RC passages when you usually complete 4? Or did you become violently ill?

2. Were you scoring comfortably within an acceptable score range on your last 2 – 3 practice tests?

3. What is the policy of the schools that interest you in terms of considering all scores, only your best, etc.

First things first:  if YOU KNOW you bombed the LSAT, then you should cancel (unless all your goal schools are firmly committed to only considering your best score).

Now that we have that out of the way, you should start with #3. Let’s say that you have 8 schools in mind. If 6 of them will look at all your scores, then that should steer you towards canceling and re-taking. Read more

Good question! Obviously this depends on your situation, but in general, if by this Friday, May 14 – your last day to postpone your registration for the June LSAT – you are not scoring at least 3-4 points from a score that you’d be OK having, you probably won’t like your actual score. There are definite exceptions to this rule, but that’s a decent rule of thumb. But don’t pull your hair out over this question, because if you decide NOT to postpone, and then realize – eek! – you’re not feeling the LSAT winds blowing in your favor, you will face a set of options, many of which are perfectly acceptable.  Steve Schwartz wrote a great analysis of these different options,

From various questions I’ve received, I’ve created this flowchart to help folks organize their thoughts (and laugh):

Take with a grain of salt, but not too much