The Law School Admission Test: How Will the Change in LSAT Reporting Affect Students?
by Devon Pryor
The LSAT is a standardized test administered by the LSAC.
The LSAT, or Law School Admission Test, is a standardized test administered by the LSAC and used by law schools to assess students' skills in the areas of verbal reasoning and acquired reading. According to the LSAT Center, the test is composed of various sections, such as "logical reading," "reading comprehension," and "analytical reasoning." It also requires each examinee to compose a writing sample. The multiple choice portions of the test have roughly 100 questions and take a total of about 175 minutes to complete. The writing portion takes about half an hour. The test is scored on a point scale ranging from 180 points to 120 points, with 180 representing a perfect score and 120 representing a failing score. The Council on Legal Education Opportunity, a program funded by the U.S. Department of Education, states that "approximately 70% of all test takers fall into the 140 to 160 score range," with top law schools' students earning scores close to 170.
The score that a student receives on the LSAT is the most weighted qualification for admission to law school; it is even more important than one's GPA. All law schools that are approved by the American Bar Association require LSAT scores for admission. With so much riding on the LSAT score, and with such a narrow margin between acing the test and failing it, every point earned is very important.
According to Wikipedia, in June of 2006, the American Bar Association "revised a rule that mandated law schools to report their matriculants' average score" if students took the test more than once. The revision allowed law schools to begin reporting only the highest LSAT score earned by each student, which meant that a student could, hypothetically, take the test as many times as necessary to achieve his or her desired reported score.
Although LawCrossing ran across numerous student-authored articles and law school blogs announcing that the pressure of the LSAT has been lifted, acing the LSAT the first time around still seems to be the best bet for law students. This is because the test is only offered four times per year. In addition, students are only allowed to take the LSAT three times within a two-year period.
Although there is no specified limit on the number of times an examinee can re-take the LSAT, logic tells students that taking the test over and over again is not advantageous. If an examinee does not earn a desirable score after three testing sessions, he or she must wait another year before trying again. Any law school might wonder why a student is applying a year after graduation and whether that student has been wasting time for the past year. The student who is forced to wait will likely have a hard time filling a year-long schedule with work relevant to his or her legal career that can be reported with pride on a law school application. Perhaps consideration of these circumstances is what has been driving the majority of students to take the LSAT only once, despite the recent change in the reporting rule.
It is true, however, that the new rule serves to relieve some pressure associated with the LSAT. For example, if a well-prepared student happens to get sick on the day of the test or has to deal with some other factor that affects his or her performance, there will still be a chance to earn a high score four months later.
There is a wealth of assistance available for all students preparing for the LSAT, no matter how many times they have taken the test. A plethora of test-preparation courses, study-guide publications, and other materials help students prepare for both the content and the grueling schedule of the LSAT, and some of these materials promise to reveal secrets about the admissions process. LawCrossing even found a website called studentdoc.com, where students can enter their LSAT scores and their GPAs to compare them with the scores and GPAs of students who have already been accepted to U.S. law schools. As the LSAT Center explains, practice tests are the student's best preparation resource because the LSAT does not change much over time. When studying by taking practice tests, students can be sure that they are preparing for the same challenges they will come up against when they take the real LSAT.
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