Should I retake the LSAT?

November 30, 2006 8:22 PM

Should I retake the LSAT on Saturday? I took the LSAT in September, and got a respectable score: 166. However, I scored much higher on practice tests (averaged 173). I know it's common to score lower on the actual test, given the real testing environment and conditions, but...

My GPA is approximately 3.7*, which is ok. However, my BA is from a fairly undistinguished (crappy) school, John Jay College, and in, perhaps, the least desirable major for law schools: Criminal Justice.

My ultimate goal is to go to a good school, such as Fordham. I'd settle for a school like Brooklyn Law. Going by the numbers alone I have a good shot at this, but I feel as if my undergrad college and major are seriously working against me. I don't have a particularly stellar work experience either.

So the question: Is it worth it for me to retake the LSAT, with the chance of getting a LOWER score (I'm not as practiced as I was in September, after all), or is it worth it to take my chances and wait to hear from my desired schools? Is doing well and transferring to a better school a viable option?

*My GPA from John Jay College is roughly 4.0, but I really messed up at a community college in 1999 and 2000.

posted by Doug to education (31 comments total)

If you think a higher score (will the average them or take the most recent one?) will get you into your first choice, then take the test. You're probably not going to do much worse, so your worst case scenario will be the same as it is now.

I'd probably just apply now, but I'm not as picky as some people, and maybe a little lazy. That's especially true if they're going to average your scores.
posted by jaysus chris at 8:36 PM on November 30, 2006

The wife (a 1L) says;

"It's absolutely not worth it. There are so many variables and the risk of having a bad day or getting a weird logic game, the risk isn't worth the possible payoff of the extra points - especially since the two scores are averaged, and your score is already above the 90th percentile."

She got a similar score and managed a full scholarship at a top 50 law school. So I wouldn't even think about taking it again.
posted by god hates math at 8:36 PM on November 30, 2006

Yeah, I agree, totally not worth it. Its unlikely you'll get that much of a better score, and I think you'll be fine for Fordham. I had a 3.7 from a not super prestigious school (UC Davis), a 167, and no work experience and I'm at USC with a partial scholarship. You'll be fine, don't stress, and work on your personal statement!
posted by wuzandfuzz at 8:41 PM on November 30, 2006

Why the big desire to go Fordham? What is your ultimate career goal? If you're dead set on getting into big corporate law, by all means try to take the test again and get into the higher ranked school. Otherwise there's no reason to sweat the rankings so much. You will still get a quality education at other institutions.

You'd have to be at the very very top of your class to be able to transfer, so I would not suggest holding on to that idea as a viable option.

I'm a 3L in New York, so feel free to email me (username @ gmail . com) if you have any more specific questions.
posted by falconred at 8:44 PM on November 30, 2006

166 is a great score. It represents the 95th percentile. That means that if you randomly picked out 19 other test takers, chances are you beat all of them. It also means that you're two standard deviations (2 sigmas) above the mean score.

In these kind of normed tests, results at the ends of the score range do not discriminate as well as the middle of the range, and it's much harder for the practice test designers to correlate in the extreme high and low score ranges than in the middle. So you can expect them to be roughly right, but not perfectly accurate.

No need to risk taking a test that might be much harder than this year's and flubbing it; or, worse, taking a test that's much easier than this year's, requiring you to get all the questions right to even have a hope of bettering your score.

Take your 95th percentile and run with it. It's a great score.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:51 PM on November 30, 2006

I'm retaking Sat after getting a 167 in Sept.

Now that the ABA is accepting this highest, and not an average LSAT score, the downside is minimal.

For me, the difference between a 167 and a 172 (or higher) is huge, owing to my lower UGPA.
posted by JakeWalker at 8:54 PM on November 30, 2006

Unless you're in a rush to get into law school right now, I'd see where you get in, and then decide whether you want to 1) go with the intention of staying, 2) go with the intention of transferring and work your butt off, or 3) take the LSAT again after preparing a ton and being totally sure you'll get a better score, and also working on getting better work experience and getting published in a place or three and/or working as an editor somewhere in the intervening year.
posted by lorrer at 9:01 PM on November 30, 2006

It represents the 95th percentile. That means that if you randomly picked out 19 other test takers, chances are you beat all of them.

ikkyu2, you're probably smarter than me, but I'm not sure that your shorthand description of how percentiles work is right. If the distribution is continuous, there's only a 38% that the Doug has a higher score than 19 randomly selected test takers.
posted by Kwantsar at 9:10 PM on November 30, 2006

my partner (also a 1L & TPR teacher) says you shouldn't retake it either--she says, "if you're really set on retaking it, take a look at the policies of the schools you want to get into--see if they take your best score, or average them." If you can write a decent personal statement, she says you should have no problem getting into Brooklyn Law (after all, a 167 is in the 25% percentile for a place like Georgetown) but every school is different. Take a look at their entering class from last year.
posted by atayah at 9:20 PM on November 30, 2006

No.

If you had asked, "Is it worth retaking the test to better position myself for financial aid," then I might answer differently. But if your GPA is near 4.0 and you're asking solely about admission, then my answer is, "No, it's not worth retaking."

Good luck.
posted by cribcage at 9:26 PM on November 30, 2006

Can I side track and ask what this 1L business is?
posted by oxford blue at 10:03 PM on November 30, 2006

1L = first year law student
posted by dcjd at 10:22 PM on November 30, 2006

Kwantsar, it's not continuous; you're scored as a right or wrong, no fractional points, so your distribution is a set of points that roughly approximate a normal distribution.

Still, you're right, I was approximating/handwaving, not speaking with the rigor of the dread binomial theorem.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:01 PM on November 30, 2006

I wouldn't know a binomial theorem if it walked up and introduced itself; but if we really want to nitpick, my official LSAC conversion sheet — distributed following the September 2006 test that's being discussed here — states that a 166 corresponds to a 93.8 percentile*. FYI.

* See Table 1 on page 1 of the IRR Additional Information Document. The explanation reads, "The figures in Table 1 indicate the percentages of test scores in the 2003–2006 testing years below each score given."
posted by cribcage at 11:21 PM on November 30, 2006

Right, cribcage. It changes a little bit every year due to what's called 'equating'.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:03 AM on December 1, 2006

Before addressing the questions, I really have to say this. There is an unusual plethora of bad advice here. People that are not familiar enough with the LSAT to know whether multiple scores are averaged should under no circumstances be giving categorical advice such as "absolutely not worth it," "totally not worth it," "no," etc.

The difference between schools with a 166 average and a 172 average LSAT is pretty striking. Even applying to the same school with a 166 or a 172 can make a great deal of difference in terms of admission likelihood and in the amount of financial aid offered. Considering that the LSAT is the single most important factor of one's chances of getting into law schools - substantially more important than GPA, save for several atypical schools - it is the height of irresponsibility to give categorical advice if you are not even familiar with the basics of the LSAT. I am not saying that such advice is de facto wrong. I am, however, saying that greater care should be exercised here.

Now.

Anecdotal evidence (search for Fordham) suggests that Fordham considers both the average and the highest. Some schools have in fact responded to the ABA LSAT reporting requirements changes by saying that they will only consider a higher score if it is 5, 10, etc. points higher than the first. However, given that the incoming class' 25/75 LSAT percentiles are one of the largest determinants' of the law school's position in the all-important annual US News rankings, you can be sure that law schools are under a great deal of pressure to admit higher-LSAT applicants. Take this into consideration when you are deciding whether or not to retake the LSAT.

Think also about the September test. By almost all accounts, it had a harder-than-average RC section, same- or easier-than-average LG section, and about average LR. Did you lose more points than usual on the RC? Do you think that you might do substantially better on an average-difficulty RC section (that is, of course, assuming that this is what will appear on the Dec. exam)?

The only really big strike against re-taking for you, I think, is that it doesn't sound like you've been doing a lot of studying and practicing since September. Getting into the 95th percentile means that every raw point out of that 100 or 101 questions becomes pretty damn important, and there is a very real possibility of your LSAT-taking skills having atrophied in the past few months. Then again, maybe not. Have you thought about taking a full-length exam tomorrow to see what kind of a score you get? After you finish it, you can do a kind of a frank self-evaluation and see if you are in as good a shape as you were in September.

Anyway. This is a bit rambling because I've been up for 18 hours. Let me again just caution you against taking blind advice from posters on AskMe (including me, of course). You have to do a kind of an honest self-evaluation to see whether you can in fact score 170 or above under actual testing conditions, contact the schools you are interested in and inquire about their LSAT policies, determine how much your lack of studying has affected you, and make a decision based on that. None of these things are going to be answered by MeFi.
posted by Pontius Pilate at 12:20 AM on December 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

From the LSAC LSAT FAQ, by the way:

Law schools must have access to your complete test record, not just the highest score; therefore, LSAC will not honor requests for partial score reports.

I tend to agree with your conclusions, p.p., but from a purely statistical point of view, there's no a priori reason to expect your score to bounce up 0.6 (or, in the OP's example, 0.7) of a sigma on retaking the test, especially at that very high end of the range.

This article suggests that, of applicants to Fordham with at least a 3.5 GPA and an LSAT of 164-167, 99% gained admittance. Unless our original poster is schizophrenic or a convicted felon, he should rest easy with regard to Fordham, and maybe think about aiming a little higher.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:47 AM on December 1, 2006

Also, while John Jay may not be the most prestigious college name on the face of the earth, their academic criminal justice program has a national reputation - I've heard of it many times before, and I have very little to do with the law, lawyers, or New York. So don't sell yourself short.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:50 AM on December 1, 2006

There is an unusual plethora of bad advice here. ...it is the height of irresponsibility to give categorical advice if you are not even familiar with the basics of the LSAT

Maybe you could specify which replies you're talking about, here, because I don't see them. Nearly everybody qualified their advice — "I'm a 1L," "my partner teaches for TPR," "I took the same test" — and the only exceptions come from folks who didn't exactly climb onto limbs (e.g., "What does 1L mean?").
posted by cribcage at 1:39 AM on December 1, 2006

Here is a graph with numbers for folks who applied to Fordham last year. With your GPA and LSAT and these (admittedly anecdotal!) numbers, you look pretty good.
posted by barnacles at 2:57 AM on December 1, 2006

You can ask your questions here as well: lawschooldiscussion.org - you'll get about a million opinions on your situation from people who've obsessed about this issue more than you ever thought was possible.
posted by AwkwardPause at 5:26 AM on December 1, 2006

My two cents: I'm a former LSAT tutor and a former law school admissions committee member. I agree that there has been a ton of bad advice here. Why do people even chime in on things when they know so little?

Many (some?) schools will officially just look at your higher score (no matter what they have access to on the LSAC report). Others will officially average them, but you will get "extra credit" for a higher second score. The law school rankings are all game theory, and many schools will want to report a higher score when reporting stats of admitted students (if they can still do that; I think that they can).

Anyway, those scores will almost certainly get you in to Fordham. What are your goals for practice and location? If you want to practice in NY, Fordham may be good for you, but you should shoot higher, too, even if you don't retake. Write sufficiently contrite essays about your wild early community college years, or whatever was the case, and emphasize that you've had a nearly perfect GPA during your "real" undergraduate career.

Don't be too discouraged about your major or your degree-granting institution. Many law schools pay little (or, at the very least, less) attention to degree and institution. A 3.7 at John Jay (especially with such a significant upward trend) is generally going to be a better GPA, for admissions purposes, than a 3.0 at a Harvard or a Yale. And it's light years ahead of a 3.0 from Brown or Duke. One of the most useful tools to law school admissions committees is the grid showing them the GPAs (and LSATs, if they were taken) of your graduating class from college, including separate grids for those applying to law school.

If you haven't spent some serious time preparing for retaking the LSAT, I'd say don't retake it. But if you have really been cramming and working hard at it, and you deal well with pressure, do it. You can get the kind of score that you are getting in practice tests, as I'm sure you know, with just a handful more questions right. The distribution is such that you're getting almost an extra point per correct answer by the time you're in the 170s. If you are ready for the test, take it and blow it away. It sounds like you are in a position to do so.

@cribcage: The advice is substantively bad - I base my statement that people don't know what they're talking about on the advice they've given, not their credentials.

@ikkyu2: "but from a purely statistical point of view..." Come on. It's a standardized test you can get familiar and comfortable with and proficient at; a purely statistical point of view is the worst way to look at it.
posted by jcwagner at 7:12 AM on December 1, 2006

I took the LSAT twice for similar reasons, and from my perspective jcwagner and Pontius Pilate are giving the best advice. It's worth rolling the dice if (i) your existing score is at the lower end of your practice scores range, and (ii) you can get yourself back up to speed and fully prepared for the retest. That is what I did -- I scored at the bottom of my range the first time, so I hit the books, took the retest, and scored 4-6 points higher the second time (can't remember exactly, it was a long time ago). Even averaged with the first test, I think this made a big difference in my applications, although one never knows. To me, it's worth the gamble because with your GPA, a score in the 170+ range may push you into a better school than Fordham (although Fordham is of course a very good school itself and nothing to sneeze at). Good luck.
posted by brain_drain at 8:37 AM on December 1, 2006

jcwagner: The advice is substantively bad...

Really? Let's take a look.

Doug says that his "ultimate goal" is to attend Fordham. He offers his pertinent details and asks whether, in that context, he should retake the LSAT. People consulted several different sources and concluded that Doug will almost certainly be admitted to Fordham. You agreed:

Anyway, those scores will almost certainly get you in to Fordham.

That makes the next question irrelevant — but just for fun, let's examine it. If Doug took the LSAT tomorrow, is he likely to score better than he did in September? You don't appear to have read the question. Doug wrote:

I'm not as practiced as I was in September, after all...

You replied:

If you are ready for the test, take it and blow it away. It sounds like you are in a position to do so.

That's a bizarre reading of Doug's post. If you had read more closely, then presumably you would have agreed with the popular advice — because you also wrote:

If you haven't spent some serious time preparing for retaking the LSAT, I'd say don't retake it.

So what's your problem, exactly? Based on where Doug wants to attend, you explicitly agreed that his score is sufficient; and based on what Doug actually wrote (as opposed to what you read), you seem to agree that he shouldn't retake the LSAT.
posted by cribcage at 12:53 PM on December 1, 2006

Wow. Cribcage, speaking of bizarre interpretations of the question:

"Doug says that his "ultimate goal" is to attend Fordham."

Absolutely wrong. He says:

"My ultimate goal is to go to a good school, such as Fordham."

Fordham is but one example of what the op considers to be a good school. Nothing against Fordham - it is in fact a good school, ranked #32 in US News 9th in grad placement for top 50 firms, great writing program, and some decent clinics. However, it makes very little sense to only apply to a school were you have better than 75% chance of getting in. The op should have at least 2-3 "reach" law schools on his applications list - that is, where the chances of admission are at about or under 50%. Unless you are planning to become a solo practioner or work for the government or small law firms, the ranking and reputation of your law school matters immensely.

Say, for the sake of argument, the op will retake the LSAT and get reasonably close to his prep test averages - a score of 168. The 25/75 percentile for NYU Law School, ranked 4th in the country, is 168-172. Additionally, the op says that his college GPA would be close to 4.0 if it wasn't for community college mistakes. This kind of stuff can be explained in an addendum to admission officers, and many of them will in fact give a great deal of attention to the subsequently strong upward trend. Getting anywhere close to 172 combined with his decent GPA would give the op at least a decent shot at attending NYU Law as opposed to Fordham - which, without argument, is much more in line with his "ultimate goal" of going to a "good school." Additionally, even if NYU does average multiple LSAT scores, many top 20 law schools do not, and if the op can get anywhere close to 170 on his second test, he will have a very good chance of getting into many of them.

This is all very basic information and reasoning for anyone who has gone through the law school application process and is aware of the recent important changes of the ABA. I am genuinely surprised that so many posters presume to have the capacity to give advice on this very important decision when they are nowhere close to being sufficiently informed about the many factors that should affect it.
posted by Pontius Pilate at 2:55 PM on December 1, 2006

Really? Let's take a look.

Ok, lets do so.

Doug says that his "ultimate goal" is to attend Fordham. He offers his pertinent details and asks whether, in that context, he should retake the LSAT.

Actually, his question was whether he should retake the LSAT. The answer to that depends on a lot of things, like what he wants, what he has prepared for, where he wants to live when he goes to law school, etc. If his ultimate goal in life truly is Fordham Law, then he's in good shape, and the answer is no, he shouldn't retake it. If his ultimate goal in life is to go to a good law school, most people with a good to great GPA and a good LSAT score, like his, would not consider Fordham sufficiently good. His opportunities will be far greater, no matter what he wants to do, if he goes to a better law school than Fordham. And he can probably do that.

Also, he actually said "My ultimate goal is to go to a good school, such as Fordham." Fordham is an example of something that would fulfill the goal, not the goal itself. Good is relative. Fordham is a decent school, but there are many better ones. There are a few great law schools, a few good ones and a lot of bad ones. If he wants to go to a "good school" it stands to reason that he would want to go to a better school, all else equal. and he can, so, unless his dream is to go to Fordham, which it does not sound like it is, he should look at other good schools, too, including better ones.

People consulted several different sources and concluded that Doug will almost certainly be admitted to Fordham.

He should also look at what it would take to get into Cornell or NYU or Harvard, even. Or Michigan or wherever he wants to go. He could get into about 160 law schools already with the credentials he has, and most of them would give him a lot of financial aid. Fordham might do that, too. But I read his question as general and inherently asking about alternatives.

That makes the next question irrelevant — but just for fun, let's examine it. If Doug took the LSAT tomorrow, is he likely to score better than he did in September?

First, since you misread, it's not irrelevant, but whatever. I didn't miss that he was "not as practiced." I saw it. I also saw that he had been taking practice tests. Were he a personal LSAT client of mine, I would talk to him about what kind of preparation he had been doing. When I worked with retakers, I told them to leave exam material alone for a while after the first test, and just focus on doing similar but different logic games of various types and speed-reading thick passages for reading comprehension. Maybe his other activities approximate this kind of prep. Or, even if he has just been doing a lot of questions and practice tests, that can help a lot, too. If he is consistently scoring 173s or that range on accurate practice tests, that tells me that what he has been doing has been working pretty well.

"It sounds like you are in a position to do so."

That's a bizarre reading of Doug's post. If you had read more closely, then presumably you would have agreed with the popular advice — because you also wrote:

"If you haven't spent some serious time preparing for retaking the LSAT, I'd say don't retake it."

He sounds relatively conscientious, and it sounds like he is doing some preparation and practice tests. It's not clear how much or how many. If he has prepared a lot (with lots of practice tests), then he should re-take. If not, he shouldn't. It's not clear to me how much he has prepared, hence the alternatives.

As for the other bad advice, we've got ikkyu2's statistical analysis of whether he will do better, your comments about his GPA being "near 4.0" (3.7 is the GPA that will be officially considered and nowhere near 4.0 for these purposes) and the comments from others with second- or third-hand information.

I don't answer medical questions. I don't answer Linux questions. I answer stuff that I know about. Not after some brainstorming about how things maybe are, or trying to apply other information about what I do know about. I answer stuff where I read the question and say "damn, I can answer that question - it's what I do, or it's what I've done or it's something I know very well."

Anyway, Doug, if you have more questions and want to chat, post an e-mail.
posted by jcwagner at 3:04 PM on December 1, 2006

Jesus, jcwagner, you don't have to skewer all of us. Sometimes the only information we have is second or third hand, and as long as that's clearly stated, I don't think its such a crime to post it. Clearly you know your stuff, but its not always the case that there's someone who does on here, and in those cases second or third-hand information may be more helpful in making a decision than no answers at all.

Also, obviously the asker of the question isn't an idiot, he isn't going to look at answers that say "my mother's brother's secretary say don't do it" and think, "God, I really shouldn't do this!"

That said, good luck Doug, whether or not you decide to retake it!
posted by wuzandfuzz at 4:22 PM on December 1, 2006

Pontius Pilate: However, it makes very little sense to only apply to a school were you have better than 75% chance of getting in. The op should have at least 2-3 "reach" law schools on his applications list...

That's what every LSAT tutor tells his students. It's the vanilla advice that appears in absolutely every guide book about the application process; and based on the Doug's comments, it's reasonable to presume that he's familiar with it. I don't see the value in reiterating platitudes.

Moreover — and I don't want to derail too far from "Should I retake the LSAT?" into "Where should I apply?", but you're right that it's relevant — rankings are an important factor, but plenty of people believe they're second in importance, behind geography. I'll take your word that you're an expert in this area so I'll skip the reasons; but I'll point out that since Doug specified two schools that stand within about 6 miles of each other, it's probably worth considering that ranking might not be his primary concern.

jcwagner: I read his question as general and inherently asking about alternatives.

You read a lot into his question. (Like, "it sounds like he is doing some preparation and practice tests", which you still appear to be snatching from thin air.) If we're going to compare crystal balls, here's my take: Doug is in good shape to achieve his goals — but he's nearing the point during the application process where, having done all that he can, the final decision is being taken out of his hands; and at that stage, it's perfectly common for applicants to feel nervous and apprehensive, and to scramble for something more they can do.

That's one possibility. Another is that Doug is a brilliant, lucky man who, despite being less prepared for the LSAT today than he was in September, has an excellent chance of walking into the test center tomorrow morning and nailing a 178. I'll give you odds — but in the meantime, we have Doug asking, "I'm worried about my undergraduate major and my resume. Do you think I should retake the LSAT in 32 hours, even though I'm not really prepared?"

Now, if you disagree with the advice that's been posted — if you think he should retake the test tomorrow — then by all means, join the conversation and make your case. Heck, maybe you want to present a third option: "Don't retake the test tomorrow; but notify the schools that you're going to retest in February, and make sure you're prepared for that test." But you dropped into the thread to tell everybody that we're a bunch of idiots who should keep quiet, and then you proceeded to give Doug the exact same advice that we'd already posted ("If you haven't spent some serious time preparing for retaking the LSAT, I'd say don't retake it").

I don't want to keep going around in circles, so I'll end by saying this: There's a lot of pressure involved in the process of applying to law school, and it isn't helped by an industry that insists every applicant should reach for a Top 20 school, an industry that seems to discount entirely the fact that fourth-tier schools pump out skilled, successful attorneys every year. There's a frustrating disconnect between the admissions counselors who can make applicants feel like it isn't worth applying with a 163, versus most lawyers who will congratulate you on a damn good score.
posted by cribcage at 6:29 PM on December 1, 2006

I was on the admissions committee of a top-20 law school. It's been a few years, but I believe we averaged scores, for whatever that's worth.

If you think you'll do well enough on the test tomorrow morning to get a bump, then you might as well give it a shot. But if you're at all concerned by your lack of preparation, you should definitely steer clear. The LSAT (like the Bar Exam) can really turn on a candidate's self-confidence, so follow your gut.

My free career advice to you -- as a former associate at a white-shoe NYNY law firm, who did a shitload of interviews every year -- is to send a few applications to public law schools. University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, etc. You'll get a good education, you won't borrow so much money that you'll never be able to leave the profession, and you'll differentiate yourself from the huddled masses at the second-tier NY-area law schools.

Good luck.
posted by subgenius at 6:57 PM on December 1, 2006

For the record, wagner, I took 15 credits worth of upper-level statistics courses in a master's program. I have no difficulty computing precise probabilities of score improvement.

However, conveying the meaning of such computations in a way that makes sense to non-quantitative people, such as lawyers, is difficult, as I'm sure you'll be the first to admit.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:09 PM on December 1, 2006

Ahem. We're not all non-quant people, ikkyu2.

Regardless, I'd say don't put yourself through the LSAT again; you're likely to get into Fordham. But it's not all about where you go, it's about what you do when you're there. If you really shine at Fordham, you'll be able to get yourself a job almost anywhere, but it'll be harder from Fordham than it would be from Yale or NYU, for example.

So if you're really in a position to improve your score by several points, do it and apply to a few of the top schools, just for kicks. It might save you some work when you're a 2L.
posted by LGCNo6 at 5:41 PM on January 2, 2007