Top Law Schools

Hey y'all! I took the LSAT almost 5 years ago and received a low score (~160). I could make excuses, but basically I didn't take studying seriously and wasn't sure whether I wanted to apply to law school in the first place, so it wasn't a big deal to me.

I took the LSAT this year, actually studied this time around, and received a 170+. I come from a target school, 3.9+ GPA, all that fancy stuff. I think I'd have a good shot at a T14 school. Plus, I actually want to go to law school this time

Does anyone have any insight as to how top schools would assess my awful LSAT score from 5 years ago? Is it worth it to include an addendum? Certainly my two scores wouldn't be averaged, right?

Alternatively, is it worth it to apply next year, once my old score will be wiped clean? My understanding is that LSAT scores disappear after 5 years, but I'm already in my mid-20s and would prefer not to push my application another year if it can be avoided.

I thought you just said you had a 3.7-3.8?

But in any case, schools won’t care about the old and lower score. They only have to report the highest score to USNWR for ranking purposes, so that’s what they consider. Yale is maybe the only exception (and even they don’t average, it’s just that in their faculty review, profs get weird about this stuff sometimes). But Yale is never guaranteed. And even there it’s hard to think a score that old will matter to anyone. You don’t have to write an addendum unless there’s the rare school that wants you to explain a large gap in scores, and when the addendum would say “the first time I didn’t really study, the second time I did,” it’s not going to have any effect.