Your LSAT Score and Law School Admissions

Understanding the LSAT Score numbers

The LSAT is scored on a scale of 120-180. The average score is about 150, but that doesn’t really mean much. What you really need to know is what score you need to get to achieve so that you will be admitted to a school you want to attend. In general, you need an LSAT score better than 160 to be admitted into one of the top law schools.

Each LSAT exam has about 101 questions. You get one raw score point for each correct answer. This raw score is converted into a more standard score that ranges from the minimum of 120 to the maximum score of 180. LSAC uses a formula that is designed for each individual LSAT, but an simple conversion would translate a raw score of 99 out of 101 to a score of 180.

There is no “passing” LSAT score. You need to contact the schools you are interested in applying to (or go to their web sites) to find out the average score of accepted students. LSAC has a tool that you may find helpful when you determining the competitiveness of your score and GPA at some ABA approved law schools. https://officialguide.lsac.org/Release/UGPALSAT/UGPALSAT.aspx

Why Law School Admissions Weight your LSAT Score

Different law schools put different weights on the LSAT score and your GPA. Many schools will weigh your LSAT score more heavily than your GPA. Some will weigh your score 70% and your GPA 30%, meaning that your LSAT score could become more important than 4 years of undergraduate work! This may sound crazy, but consider the ingredients to each law school application and you will understand the problem Law School Admissions Offices have.

• It is difficult to impossible to compare grades from different degree programs. Add to this the fact that they are also considering different programs within different schools. There are vast degrees of difficulty between different degree programs. Additionally, courses of study that tend to be difficult, may not necessarily reflect the abilities needed in law school. Law school admissions officers are comparing students from hundreds of different colleges with hundreds of majors and taking thousands of different classes. Comparing “apples to apples” becomes very difficult.
• You will be required to submit references with your law school application. A reference letter from a professor will often be submitted to law schools, rating the student “excellent.” Often, professors are encouraged by administrators to help the students get into top schools. The reference is subjective and responses are received from many, many professors.
•  The application essay:  This will tell the admissions officer how well you write, and may even give a clue to the applicant’s personality, but how much help did that applicant have with the essay? Does this applicant merely have good writing skills, which is not necessarily a good gauge of his ability to do well in law school?  It takes a long time to review application essays. If the LSAT Score and the GPA are below average, the essay may not ever be read!

Law school admissions officers therefore need to have a tool to help them know what application to consider strongly and which application will be weeded out. That is why the LSAT score raises to the top of items you must take seriously and therefore expend dedicated effort and quality prep time.

So, you want to pursue that perfect 180?
See: LSAT Maximum Score

See also: “What is the LSAT Out of“, and “Median LSAT Score“

Tags: Law School Admissions, lsat score