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I just scored a 169 on my LSAT on my first try. I graduated from Wake Forest with a 3.76 GPA and was top in my major (finance). When I go back to school, I will have 3 years of work experience in consulting and will try to get into the JD/MBA program of every school I apply to.

Right now, my top choices are Penn, Northwestern, Columbia, and Cornell, in that order. I'm pretty sure I'll get into Cornell with my numbers and Northwestern oddly enough doesn't require the LSAT for the JD/MBA program. Also, my mom got her bachelor's and master's degrees from Columbia.

Do I need to take the LSAT again to have a good shot of getting into Penn and Columbia? I ranged between a 168 and 172 on most the 21 PrepTests that I took, but did have some outliers including 2 177s, a 175, and about 4 scores from 165 to 167. I'm worried that if I take it again and do worse, it could potentially take me out of range for Cornell and I don't really want to go to a law school outside the T-14.

Thanks in advance!

You could retake, since you only exhausted 21 preptests and therefore you have a lot of material left to study with. How extensively did you study the first time around?

I felt pretty well prepared for it. I made the decision to go to law school and take the LSAT about 3 months before my first test, but I spend a lot of time preparing for it. I didn't really see an upward trend on my Preptests after about the 7th one.

goldbh7 wrote:I felt pretty well prepared for it. I made the decision to go to law school and take the LSAT about 3 months before my first test, but I spend a lot of time preparing for it. I didn't really see an upward trend on my Preptests after about the 7th one.

If you hit a plateau that early, you need to shake up your studying the second time around. Maybe get a tutor for a few sessions if the best materials don't work on you. What did you use to study?

goldbh7 wrote:I felt pretty well prepared for it. I made the decision to go to law school and take the LSAT about 3 months before my first test, but I spend a lot of time preparing for it. I didn't really see an upward trend on my Preptests after about the 7th one.

Did you thoroughly review each test after you took it? Taking PTs without reviewing is kinda useless.

You should try to isolate the types of questions where you commonly make mistakes, and then extensively drill just that question type until you know it so well that it becomes a strength/guaranteed point.

Also, you probably know this already, but Manhattan and Powerscore have really good prep books.

While retaking will open up more options and $, you are likely to get Michigan and below this cycle. You are not getting Penn or Columbia unless it's off the waitlist, and it's not even certain that you will get WL at either.

If you retake, 2-3 more points will open up CCN and full rides at NU and Cornell. If don't retake, you'll have Cornell or NU with ~$60k + a chance of being waitlisted and subsequently paying close to sticker at CLS and Penn.

nebula666 wrote:While retaking will open up more options and $, you are likely to get Michigan and below this cycle. You are not getting Penn or Columbia unless it's off the waitlist, and it's not even certain that you will get WL at either.

If you retake, 2-3 more points will open up CCN and full rides at NU and Cornell. If don't retake, you'll have Cornell or NU with ~$60k + a chance of being waitlisted and subsequently paying close to sticker at CLS and Penn.

Thanks a lot for the info. If I retake and get a 167 or 168, Will it hurt my shot or money at Cornell?

Yeah, I normally get perfect scores on Logic Games (I'm freakishly good at math) and I somehow got 2 wrong, which is how many I got wrong on my 10 preptests leading up to the test combined. Those 2 questions would've given me a qualifying score.

goldbh7 wrote:

nebula666 wrote:While retaking will open up more options and $, you are likely to get Michigan and below this cycle. You are not getting Penn or Columbia unless it's off the waitlist, and it's not even certain that you will get WL at either.

If you retake, 2-3 more points will open up CCN and full rides at NU and Cornell. If don't retake, you'll have Cornell or NU with ~$60k + a chance of being waitlisted and subsequently paying close to sticker at CLS and Penn.

Thanks a lot for the info. If I retake and get a 167 or 168, Will it hurt my shot or money at Cornell?

Yeah, I normally get perfect scores on Logic Games (I'm freakishly good at math) and I somehow got 2 wrong, which is how many I got wrong on my 10 preptests leading up to the test combined. Those 2 questions would've given me a qualifying score.

No