Should I cancel September LSAT? Forum

[calmike]

Thank you in advance,
I am Mexican-American. I have a 2.86 GPA. I have been scoring 165-168 on my last PT's. I want to score in the low 170's. I want to get into at least UCLA, USC, or UT. I know with those scores I can get into Davis and Hastings.

Should I cancel September LSAT and study for the December LSAT or should I take both and hope for the best in September?

[Rigo]

Technically, I think you mean "withdraw" rather than cancel. You may withdraw up until midnight on September 26th, so you still have time to decide.

There's no real harm in taking it in September and December, since you've already passed the deadline for any type of refund. Also, schools will just take your highest score.

The one thing to consider is that if you don't score what you hope in both September and December, you'll only have one more try in the 2 year period.

Keep studying gung-ho for September and decide closer to the 26th.

[PepperJack]

Thank you in advance,
I am Mexican-American. I have a 2.86 GPA. I have been scoring 165-168 on my last PT's. I want to score in the low 170's. I want to get into at least UCLA, USC, or UT. I know with those scores I can get into Davis and Hastings.

Should I cancel September LSAT and study for the December LSAT or should I take both and hope for the best in September?

Hoping to get your best score on the actual test itself is naive due to nerves, and the high likelihood your testing conditions will be less ideal than your practice testing conditions.

However, the only schools likely to care about a 165 followed by a 170 vs. a straight 170 are schools not likely to admit any sub-3.0 candidate notwithstanding your MA status and presumably >170 LSAT on a later test.

In addition, if you're sure you could get a 165 then it might be good to have at least one good score on record if something goes wrong in December if you're dead set on going this year. The difference between a 165 and 170 is going to be vast for you given the low GPA. If you can be above a median and offer you MA status you're going to be in a good position at a given school.

If you are scoring in the mid-160s now and can do better then you should not be considering Davis and Hastings. Your odds of getting a good job from these schools are very low. In truth, you're in a bad part of the country for splitters. If you don't mind So-Cal I would consider UCLA and USC who may give you lots of money.

I would also consider the lower t-14. You would be able to return to SF and have other areas open up for you. It'd be foolish to attend a school where 10% of the class gets jobs that 50% might at another institution. It's also worth noting that the qualitative difference between 165 and 170 LSAT scores is going to be hard to see. This is to say that the average student at Davis may be just as good at law school tests as the average student at Duke. The competition isn't significantly less, and you're going to need to do much better.

Settling for Davis/Hastings would be bad regardless of how you perform on September given your >90th percentile on practice tests and URM status. I personally would still take September, because a 165 might be good enough for money from a top fourteen for you. Most of the replies would argue against it, and I see that point of view as well. Either way, if you think you can break a 170 then given the low GPA I think it's a must.

If you can redraw, I would redraw. Caring about the refund is really short-sighted irrespective of your current socioeconomic status. Even for minimum wage, that's less than 2 days of work. I would only keep the score, because canceling counts as one of your takes, it would still make you competitive for $ at some good schools, and it would alleviate a lot of the panic that people have during and after they take the test as the worst case scenario isn't that worse than it was before you retook the test.

As a rule of thumb you never want to attend a school where the majority is smart, and being median will put you in a terrible position relative to where you were before enrolling.