Lowest Lsat Acceptable Forum

[sparkplug]

I'm really curious, assuming everything else on the resume is stellar, what is the lowest lsat score Harvard will accept from an urm (specifically AA)? How about the other t-14? what is the lowest lsat they will accept from an urm?

I ask this because Stanford's website says that the lowest lsat at the law school is 160 and its probable that urms are the ones in the low 160s.

[EddiesGirl29]

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[sparkplug]

I'm beginning to question the credibility of the numbers on lsn.
When you search for urm accepted to georgetown, the lowest accepted lsat was 161. That couldn't be possibly true because I happen to personally know several urm with much lower lsats who got into georgetown. Also, I know one with a 156 who got into Harvard and one with 153 who was waitlisted at Cornell.
How is is possible that georgetown's standards are so high (expecially considering that they have to recruit a lot more urm than everyone else due to their large class size), and yet Harvard's are so low in comparison.
If Harvard (which afterall is far superior in admission standards) accepts someone with a 156, then georgetown's floor must be lower than that.

[EddiesGirl29]

you also have to take into account soft factors and gpa - don't forget that.

sorry, i know i'm not much help

[wardboro]

I am answering on the premise that this post isn't a flame (because it seems to be the season for flames.)

I'm sure that if you looked hard enough you could always find evidence of some URM with unreal softs who got into "a" T14 school in the last 5 years with a sub 150 LSAT. That doesn't mean that you should bank on being that person. Get the best LSAT you can, and if you have a solid GPA and a low-mid 160s LSAT, you should definitely get into "a" T14 program.

LSN is self-reported data, and doesn't capture every candidate who ever applied. There are fake accounts and falsified accounts, but in general it gives you an idea of what a candidate with similar credentials is up against.

[sparkplug]

This is not a flame, I'm just trying to satisfy my curiosity.
I'll modify my question this way: what is the lowest lsat that is normally accepted at t14s. Not taking into account outliers with unreal softs, what urm lsat is normally accepted at t14s?

I simply don't think the numbers on LSN are representative, even if they are accurate to begin with.

This article - http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/522/100/- shows that 75% of AA aplicants to UofM in 2005 scored lower than 164. But on LSN 8 out of 14 urm accepted to UofM scored over 164 in 2004-05. 15 out of 22 scored over 164 in 2005-06. 17 out of 22 scored over 164 in 2006-07.

People are either lying about their lsats on LSN or the website attracts urms with unusually high lsats.

Ergo, LSN is incredibly misleading.

[wardboro]

LSN is not the end-all be-all of everything. Additionally, the fact that minorities are "in the minority" contributes to the small (and likely nonrepresentative) sample size.

And yes, generally people with better scores (regardless of race) make LSN accounts, contributing to a certain level of selection bias.

No one really knows for sure what the LSAT floor for a URM is, but I stand by the fact that a low-mid 160s LSAT should get you in somewhere good. (Assuming good GPA and average-good softs)

[indyguy7484]

I don't see any discrepancy in your statistics. 75% of applicants scored lower than 164, but the pool of accepted AA students probably has a higher average LSAT score. Like Wardboro said, LSN is useful in determining general trends at schools, but it's not perfect.

[SeattleSadness]

This is not a flame, I'm just trying to satisfy my curiosity.
I'll modify my question this way: what is the lowest lsat that is normally accepted at t14s. Not taking into account outliers with unreal softs, what urm lsat is normally accepted at t14s?

I simply don't think the numbers on LSN are representative, even if they are accurate to begin with.

This article - http://www.ceousa.org/index.php?option= ... ew&gid=235 - shows that 75% of AA aplicants to UofM in 2005 scored lower than 164. But on LSN 8 out of 14 urm accepted to UofM scored over 164 in 2004-05. 15 out of 22 scored over 164 in 2005-06. 17 out of 22 scored over 164 in 2006-07.

People are either lying about their lsats on LSN or the website attracts urms with unusually high lsats.

Ergo, LSN is incredibly misleading.

wardboro is right: It's self-reporting data. That being said, the users of LSN (and even TLS) are usually more active, better students. This means that they are not only going to be unrepresentative of the average student at most schools, the numbers they submit will most likely be higher considering these facts.

In short, the LSN numbers are always higher than the true averages of the schools. If you want a look at how skewed the numbers are, check out the averages of LSN compared to LSAC's actual averages from last year.

[wardboro]

It should also be noted that the pool of students who are "accepted" to any given school will generally have a higher median/25/75 LSAT/GPA (with the exception of Yale, and maybe a couple others) than the median/25/75 LSAT/GPA of students attending.

The ABA reported median/25/75 numbers are for the students who actually matriculate in the fall.

Because a school will accept a number of candidates with high numbers, who will likely attend school elsewhere, this pushes up the median numbers of accepted students, but does not push up the numbers of the students who matriculate.

[sparkplug]

The article that I am referencing specifically refers to admitted students and not enrolled students. It puts the 25/median/75 numbers for AA at 158/162/164 for 2005.
75% of the admitted students scored lower than 164, yet on LSN the vast majority of AA who reveal their LSAT scored above 164. Specifically for UofM between 2004 and 2007 there are 58 admited AA students. 40 (and yes I counted) scored higher than 164 - Thats 69% scoring over 164.

I agree that students on LSN are likely to be more active and probably higher scoring students than the general pool of AA, but that would only explain a small discrepancy between the numbers of actual admitted students and students on LSN.

The discrepancy is just too large to be attributed to that alone.

Again 75% of admitted students scored lower than 164, but almost 70% of LSN students scored over 164. That is just too large a difference.

[wardboro]

Is the article online? What's the URL, I'd be interested to see.

I still don't think the discrepancy is so large that it can't be attributed to selection bias. There just aren't that many URMs on LSN, and the ones on LSN are neurotic crazy admissions crazed folks like nearly everyone on this board. It's very likely that they are the candidates most likely to be posting numbers on LSN.

I don't really know how useful LSN is for minority candidates because I am not a URM. I do know, however, that for me personally it gave me a very accurate picture of what to expect going into this cycle.

[sparkplug]

I think it's at http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/522/100/. Check out page 10.

If it is selection bias, then it's such a large selection bias that it renders LSN numbers useless for urm.

[wardboro]

If the article is legit, then it should give you a pretty good idea of what you need for Michigan, and I'd think that you could potentially extrapolate these results to get a ballpark idea of how you might fare at Michigan's rankings peers.

In short, I feel the article pretty much answers your question.

[ltmcknight]

I agree with the other posters who have said that LSN is not that great of an indicator for acceptance/rejection at a law school--when trying to determine the lowest scores people are getting accepted with.

I know several people who have scores much lower than the lowest on LSN and have been accepted to T14s, and these are not even URM applicants. People on these forums tend to place too much emphasis on the lsat/gpa #'s. Of course they are the main determinant, but the caliber of soft factors can in some instances make up for numbers that are well below the averages for a respective school. As others said, no one should bank on being accepted to a school with such numbers--hence the term reach school--but it is not nearly as rare as some tend to think it is.

[nellie06]

Considering I know non urms albeit with impressive gpas who got into t-14's with 153's, its really hard to say how low a school would reach. I remember some urm posting that she got into william and mary with a score in the mid 140's.

I would think that the minumum would be a 150, but that would prolly be a urm from extraodinary circumstances with a high gpa from a hyp, and awesome work experience, and I would think that they could hit t-14 because gtowns p/t doesn't count towards us news rankings.

For full time, I would think 160 with a solid gpa can get a urm into a couple t-14s. Its a sliding scale, so higher gpa, could offset a 155 and still give a urm a chance.

[mcds]

In "How to Get into Harvard Law" a black woman was listed as having a 157 (I'm surprised Harvard published that), but then again she had a lot of other things going for her.

As I posted earlier, its really supply and demand. I have a horrible (3.0ish) GPA, but with a 170+ I''m golden, just because there are maybe a dozen black males with similar numbers. Although it gets better as you go down, its still not great in terms of the disparity.

That said, don't look for the lowest LSAT, try to get the highest LSAT. If you can get a 170 with a 3.5, start looking for a place in New Haven.

[raskolnikov]

That said, don't look for the lowest LSAT, try to get the highest LSAT.

TITCR

[fearlesscowboy]

i think the lowest acceptable lsat for an AA who wants the T14 is 150...truth got several T14's and a T6 with a 156

congrats

[mcds]

One that that worries is me that some people (not the OP, it just reminded me of someone else) think that because of AA, they don't "need" to get a certain score to get into certain schools.

Technically this is true; however, if you want to go to a certain school, regardless of your race, you should plan to be at or close to the median; one shouldn't expect to get into Harvard with a 157. AA should be plan B, not plan A.

Not to get into an AA debate, but I think this is especially true of students who already are at a high level. For example, when I was applying to college I had a 1270 or something my junior year and was freaking out because I knew that I would have 0 shot at any top schools. Because of that, I worked really hard until I got a 1420 on my practice exams. My college counselor later told me that the 1270 would've gotten me everywhere and that it wasn't necessary to shoot higher.

Isn't that kind of a problem? Thats only anecdotal, but isn't that the wrong attitude?

[BiglawAmbitions]

lol did someone really get into Harvard with a 157? That's absurd.

[mcds]

It is. I wonder where she graduated in her class.

Not to beat a dead horse, but URMs should hold themselves to the same standards as ORMs.

Basically, don't feel entitled to Michigan if you get a 165

[OperaAttorney]

To the OP:

I know a URM who got accepted to Columbia, Cornell, U Penn, and BC with an abysmal LSAT Score--it was in the 140s--less than 10 years ago, but this anecdote only indicates that gaining admission to a t14 law school with a low LSAT score has happened at least once. It is common knowledge that those with competitive LSAT scores tend to have better app cycles than those with non-competitive LSAT scores.

What good will knowing a t14-minimum LSAT score do? Am I missing something?

[newyorker88]

For an AA the lowest possible LSAT is 157 and that's coming from a Harvard admissions counselor

[voice of reason]

... gtowns p/t doesn't count towards us news rankings.

They changed the rules. PT counts toward overall rankings now.

"Median LSAT Scores (.125) The combined median scores on the Law School Admission Test of all full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program (2008 entering class)." Source: http://www.usnews.com/articles/educatio ... ology.html