lsat question Forum

[confusedlaw]

how much do lower lsats hurt i have two 158's and a 167 how do the 158's affect me

[rinkrat19]

Only a few of the top schools care about averaging LSAT scores instead of taking the highest score.

[AntipodeanPhil]

If schools were choosing between you and an identical candidate with a 166 and no previous scores, the majority would choose you.

Some schools try to deny that they only consider the highest score, but the data on which candidates they admit doesn't seem to support that.

[confusedlaw]

but will it put me behind other people who have 167's

[Tom Joad]

Probably not too much and you are still ahead of the 166ers.

[confusedlaw]

thank you

[confusedlaw]

I feel like my previous scores are really messing up my cycle

[pancakelover]

It will probably hurt at HYS, NYU, Columbia, and some other high-ranking schools among people with similar scores. From my school, people who took repeat LSATs that scored marginally better didn't make it into HYS. But that's just my opinion. You may not be interested in those schools anyway.

[confusedlaw]

Nah I think at USC bu bc vanderbilt n cornell

[travman90]

From what I've heard it'll still hurt a bit. Mostly because you got 158 twice, some adcoms will see that as being fairly accurrate and question why you took it twice if you couldn't improve. Did you send an addendum explaining them? If not they are going to weigh you down a bit. You likely won't be competitive with a similar or better score than you because of it without a good addendum.

Vanderbilt, USC and Cornell all have higher medians than 167 which is going to mean that the majority of people they let in will have higher scores than you, so you chances may be low since you're competting with people in that range and have two scores to weigh you down which they may not.
Vanderbilt median - 169
USC - 167
Cornell - 168

So you're certainly not out of the running because you are around those scores, but you have to factor in that you'll be less competitive than one person who is right at those medians who has approximately a 50% shot (purely based upon LSAT, there are obviously other factors)

[confusedlaw]

I didn't write the addendum because I just stopped using Kaplan and used power score and I went up

[confusedlaw]

A lot of people with my 167 and my goa are in at cornell I feel a ding coming

[travman90]

I mean its not an auto ding, but you're just barely competitive in terms of LSAT at Cornell as it is (seeing as 50% of admitted students do better than you as it is) and you have these two unexplained LSAT scores on file. Without an addendum, the adcom has no idea why those scores are sitting there and they're going to see two identical lower, uncompetitive scores. Not to be negative, but that just doesn't look good. The general rule of thumb is you don't want to leave adcoms with questions about any part of your application and they have no idea what these two scores mean...that leaves questions in their mind which just generally is not a postive.

[2014]

Well it's too late for this cycle but if you reapply next year just make up a better reason for the jump in score and write an addendum. Anywhere that you are going to reasonably get accepted to with a 167 is unlikely to care about retakes and at worst if your app is 100% equal to another app of someone who has a 167 on their first take, and there is only one spot left, they would probably get it. The odds of that happening are pretty damn low.