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First time poster here. I'm currently a junior and will be applying to law schools next fall. I'm sitting on a 3.2 GPA (ouch), and I've begun my several-hours-a-day preparation for the LSAT. The reason I'm starting so late is because I was originally planning on taking it in the fall, but I realized that I want to apply to law schools early, so waiting until then may be a bad choice; if I do poorly and wait until December to retake, I'll be applying later than I'd like ideally.

I've been fortunate enough to have a pre-law advisor who has written for the LSAT. Taking his logic classes, I've got a good conceptual grasp on a lot of logical form that is involved in the LG and LR sections. Still, I scored a 153 on my diagnostic LSAT. I realize it means little, but it's still way lower than I would have liked. Interestingly enough, RC was my worst section (every standardized test I've ever taken has had me at either the 97th or 99th percentile in reading comprehension). I have the LRB/LGB and about 15 PTs, so I'm not doing too poorly on my prep materials.

My question is this: should I take the (first) LSAT in June or October? In other words, is 2.5 months too little time to get the high score that I'll need on the LSAT to go to a T1 school? Even if I have to retake, I really don't want to score a sub-160 the first time around. I'm aiming at 170+, and given enough time, I think I have the ability to get that.

I suggest you aim for June, and then, if in mid-may, you're not within 5 points of what you want on a realistic practice test (5 sections, one break, etc.), cancel and re-aim for October.

A fair point. Thanks!

Definitely June.

Btw, 3.2 GPA is not that bad--it's still 3.0 and above. You could have had a sub-3.0 GPA and that would be way worse.