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Just out of curiosity, how many people get a 180 each test and/or year? Thanks

.01%?

ANON3333 wrote:.01%?

well in that case, how many people take the lsat a year? lol

kjunfood wrote:

ANON3333 wrote:.01%?

well in that case, how many people take the lsat a year? lol

IIRC, a 180 is 99.98%, so 2 out of 10,000. I think approximately 100,000 people take the test each year, so extrapolating from that, around 20.

Stanley Otto Swift wrote:

kjunfood wrote:

ANON3333 wrote:.01%?

well in that case, how many people take the lsat a year? lol

IIRC, a 180 is 99.98%, so 2 out of 10,000. I think approximately 100,000 people take the test each year, so extrapolating that out, around 20.

haha thx for the answer. i was a bit curious about this as well.

Stanley Otto Swift wrote:

kjunfood wrote:

ANON3333 wrote:.01%?

well in that case, how many people take the lsat a year? lol

IIRC, a 180 is 99.98%, so 2 out of 10,000. I think approximately 100,000 people take the test each year, so extrapolating that out, around 20.

Is it 100,000 per year, or is it per test?

for June 08, 179 and 180 were both 99.9%, so 10 in that instance using swifts numbers.

I thought it was 100,000 per year, but I could definitely be wrong. I will say that 100,000 takers per administration (excluding February) intuitively seems high.

Where can you find that data? I got a 180 on the Oct test, but it only says 99% (obviously higher).

http://www.powerscore.com/lsat/help/scale.htm

This is where I got 99.98%, but after looking at it, this is dated information. Given the recent shift in scales, there are probably a few more 180s than I thought.

IRR Additional Information Document

Stanley Otto Swift wrote:

kjunfood wrote:

ANON3333 wrote:.01%?

well in that case, how many people take the lsat a year? lol

IIRC, a 180 is 99.98%, so 2 out of 10,000. I think approximately 100,000 people take the test each year, so extrapolating from that, around 20.

I think it's more like 99.9 flat, and it was closer to 150,000 this year. So around 150?

bigben wrote:

Stanley Otto Swift wrote:

kjunfood wrote:

ANON3333 wrote:.01%?

well in that case, how many people take the lsat a year? lol

IIRC, a 180 is 99.98%, so 2 out of 10,000. I think approximately 100,000 people take the test each year, so extrapolating from that, around 20.

I think it's more like 99.9 flat, and it was closer to 150,000 this year. So around 150?

150,000 a year or per test date? (so technically 4 times a year)

bigben wrote:
I think it's more like 99.9 flat, and it was closer to 150,000 this year. So around 150?

I'd dispute the 99.90% figure without seeing some hard data. On the powerscore page I linked to above they quote 99.98%, and while the scale has shifted since then, I don't think it has shifted that much. 99.98% equates to 1 in 5000; 99.9 equates to 1 in 1000. I have a hard time believing that a 180 is statistically 5 times more likely today as compared to 6-10 years ago.

At some point I was told that approximately 6 people per test receive a 180. So that would be somewhere in the area of 24 people per year.

According to Kaplan (yeah, I know), there were 98 people who scored a 180 in the years 2003, 2004, and 2005. That figures out to be about 33 people a year and 8 people for each test administration. I don't think the numbers of 180 scores are very static, though. I could very easily see 15 people getting a 180 during one test and then maybe 4 or 5 the next test.

"It varies from eight to 18 people a year who score a 180 on the test," said Brent Dunn, Ace LSAT test preparation founder. "But that is out of 120,000 people that take it, so it is a pretty big deal."

I really don't know who the hell Brent Dunn is and I've never heard of Ace LSAT test prep so take that his little nugget of information for what it's worth.

If you have took the LSAT some time in 2008, there should be a document called "IRR Additional Information Document" under the LSAT tab of Account Status.

That document lists the 2005-2008 percentile distribution as follows:

180 - 99.9
179 - 99.9
178 - 99.8
177 - 99.7
176 - 99.6
175 - 99.5
174 - 99.3
173 - 99.0
172 - 98.6
171 - 98.1
170 - 97.5
.
.
.
164 - 90.7

In the 2007-2008 cycle, there were 142,331 test takers. We can conclude that around 140 people got a 179 or 180 during that cycle. I say this because it's reasonable to assume that each 179 or 180 represents a unique test-taker.

Interpreting the percentile distribution gets a lot more screwey as we go down the scale, since significant number of people retake and perform differently from the first time (so a 161 and a 171, each contributing to the overall percentile distribution, may actually represent a single applicant)

Edit: Stan - it's possible that only the top .02% scores 180, and the next .08% scores 179 (and together, 179 and 180 make up the top .1%)