Will One Bad LSAT Score Ruin Your Chances at HYS? Forum

[TonyStark123]

Hey, I am a Canadian who just finished writing the June LSAT, I got a 160. Although my score is reasonably good for most Canadian law schools, I will probably re-write in October in order to bring the University of Toronto into play. Their average LSAT score is 167. In Canada, all of the law schools will only consider your highest LSAT score. However, in the United States it appears as if most schools average their LSAT scores. Taking this into consideration, with my score, even if I scored a 180 on the October test, my average score would only be 170, which more or less knocks out Harvard, Yale and Stanford. In fact, it appears as if most of the T-6 schools are now out of reach. A more reasonable 174 on the October exam would mean an average score of 167, which would allow for some of the T-14 schools.

I suppose my question is, how will law schools view a drastic increase in score? Do they rigidly stick to the average or will they look favourably upon an upward tend? I know I can dramatically increase my score, I hardly slept the night before the exam and went in overly stressed.

Thank-you for your advice.

[Nom Sawyer]

With the current USNWR, basically all schools except for HYS will put 90% of their focus on your highest score... If you get a 174 your golden for Chicago, Columbia, and NYU and have a decent shot at H and S... they will look more heavily on the 160, but they don't straight up average.

[TonyStark123]

Thank-you for that information. I will probably re-write then, even if the top American schools remain out of reach, I really want to have a shot at the University of Toronto and a 160 LSAT makes that questionable even with my 3.92 GPA.

[bigben]

With the current USNWR, basically all schools except for HYS will put 90% of their focus on your highest score... If you get a 174 your golden for Chicago, Columbia, and NYU and have a decent shot at H and S... they will look more heavily on the 160, but they don't straight up average.

In particular, the ABA are the ones to blame for this relatively new policy. Not USNWR per se.

I imagine the LSAT revenues are through the roof. Clearly, this is why the absurd policy was enacted.