Do people ever write LSAT addendums? Forum

[BillsFan9907]

Just out of curiosity - has anyone ever written an LSAT addendum? Why would a school care if your numbers are below what they are looking for?

[TigerDude]

admissions officers on The180SAT blog say don't make excuses. Basically everybody has a reason why things happen and thy don't care becasue they consider the test "beatable" with the right effort.

Just take it again, they really don't care about retakes.

[koalacity]

I scored in the high 160s, and will be retaking in December. I have my eyes on the top 5. Without getting into too much detail, there was a health crisis in my immediate family rendering studying for the LSAT a peripheral priority. I'm concerned that my decision to go through with the LSAT anyway (giving it my best shot) could reflect poorly on me. I suppose an admissions committee member would wonder why I just didn't reschedule.

Has anyone been through this and could offer some advice?

High 160s is not a low enough score to warrant an addendum, IMO. Even if you get a 180 in December, that's not such an enormous jump as to make them question the circumstances of the first score, and they're only going to care about your highest score. If you truly feel compelled, you could write a very brief addendum, but I don't think it'll be necessary.

[wealtheow]

Don't some schools specifically ask for an explanation if the jump is greater than 3 points? I can't think of the schools now, but I have definitely seen that request before in the apps I've read through. Wouldn't it be a bad idea to not provide something a school explicitly requests?
At the same time, I've seen multiple people state that no explanation will really satisfy the adcomms, that it is all just excuse-making, etc. etc. - so then why would they ever ask for it?
Just curious about these points, since these threads crop up all the time.

[koalacity]

Don't some schools specifically ask for an explanation if the jump is greater than 3 points? I can't think of the schools now, but I have definitely seen that request before in the apps I've read through. Wouldn't it be a bad idea to not provide something a school explicitly requests?
At the same time, I've seen multiple people state that no explanation will really satisfy the adcomms, that it is all just excuse-making, etc. etc. - so then why would they ever ask for it?
Just curious about these points, since these threads crop up all the time.

Consensus seems to be not to write one unless it's a massive jump (say mid 150s to mid 170s) that might cause them to question the validity of your score (plus, in this situation LSAC might take additional steps to verify) or unless you have a very good reason (i.e. not "I didn't study enough" or "I was overcome by unexpected test anxiety"). OP's explanation is much better than those, but unless the emergency happened, say, a few days before the test (vs. like a month out), I think they might wonder why OP didn't postpone until December.

[KingofSplitters55]

95th to 97th percentile being a low score, lmao OP