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Former Head of Pre-Law Office, Northeastern University, & Admissions Officer, Brown University
Reviewed: 01/18/23
Are you beginning your law school journey and wondering what LSAT scores you should aim for? Read on to find out what is considered a good LSAT score.
As you work towards becoming a lawyer, you’ll see the word LSAT everywhere – probably even in your dreams or, perhaps more fittingly, in your nightmares.
Since this test is one of the most important requirements of your law school application, you’re probably wondering what LSAT score will maximize your chances of getting into your dream law school.
Read on to have all of your burning LSAT score questions answered!
The LSAT consists of three 35-minute sections and one unscored section:
The LSAT consists of 180 questions overall. Your mark reflects how many correct answers you got (your raw score), which is then converted on the LSAT scale from 120 to 180. All test questions are weighted the same, and incorrect answers are not deducted from your score.
In recent years, the average LSAT score has stayed at around 151-152. Correspondingly, to have a fair chance of getting into an accredited law school, applicants should aim to score 151 at a minimum.
Your percentile rank is equally important as your final LSAT score. A percentile rank tells you the percentage of people you outperformed on the test. For instance, since 151-152 is the average LSAT score, this will put you at the 50th percentile rank, meaning you’ve scored higher than 50% of the other applicants.
These percentile ranks are important because they help law schools compare students by seeing who has outperformed the other test takers.
Another form of LSAT percentiles to keep in mind is the LSAT admission percentiles of your desired school. These percentiles are different because they only compare the LSAT scores of applicants. These percentiles show the percentage of students admitted to the program based on their LSAT scores.
To gain a better visual of how these school-specific percentile rankings work, here are the academic percentile rankings of the 2024 JD students at Harvard Law:
If you’re still a little confused, this means that students with LSAT scores of 170 only scored higher than 25% of the applicants, those who scored 174 scored higher than 50% of the applicants, and those who scored 176 outperformed 75% of the applicants.
While these are extremely high LSAT scores to achieve, it is not uncommon for students accepted into high-ranking schools to have scores in the 170s and above!
The average LSAT score is 151-152, and Harvard’s is 174, so what is a good LSAT score? Well, it depends on which law school you want to get into!
The first step is to look at the admission statistics of your dream schools and go from there. If they state a minimum or median LSAT score of past admitted applicants, you should aim for this score or higher.
If you don’t have a particular law school you’d like to attend, you should aim for at least a 150.
However, there are some schools that accept LSAT scores even lower than this. For instance, 25% of Western Michigan University Cooley Law School’s 2019 applicants scored 141 on their LSAT.
If you are interested in joining one of the top-25 ranking law schools, you’ll want to aim for a 160 or higher. As proven by Harvard’s admission statistics, if you want to get into a top-10 program, you’ll want to get a 170 or higher to be considered competitive.
As you can see, what is considered a good LSAT score increases as the prestige and ranking of the school does. This is because top-ranking schools have much lower acceptance rates and aim to offer admission to only the very best applicants.
Preparing for the LSAT and doing well can be overwhelming, and even the best test-takers often have trouble acing every section of this test.
If you feel like you’re struggling to make it past a certain score, or if you don’t even know where to begin, Juris Education can help! With our extensive experience with law school admissions, we can help you get your desired results without any stress or hassle.
In fact, Juris has such a high track record of getting students accepted into the best law schools (with a 94% acceptance rate) that we’ve compiled a list of the top-10 law schools and their median LSAT scores for you to strive for. You can shoot for the stars with Juris!
These schools are extremely competitive, but with the right preparation, support, and dedication, you have a fair chance of getting the required LSAT scores.
In case you still have questions about what is considered a good score on the LSAT, here are some frequently asked questions that might give you answers.
A 150 is right around the average LSAT score, meaning it is a good score to have if you aren’t too picky about which school you’d like to attend. There are numerous schools that will accept a 150 LSAT score!
However, if you’d like to gain admission into a high-ranking law school, 150 will not be considered competitive, so you’ll want to score higher.
Yes! This is a good LSAT score if you’re looking into applying to one of the top-25 law schools. However, once you get to the top-10 law schools, 162 will likely not be considered competitive.
A 150 is a decent LSAT score, but if we’re getting specific, 151-152 is better, as this is the average LSAT score. With a score in this range, you’ll meet the LSAT requirements for many accredited law schools.
You can take the LSAT three times in one year and seven times in your lifetime.
While it all depends on your own skills and abilities, in general, most students who retake the test do better the second time round. On average, test takers that take the LSAT a second time in the same testing year increase their scores by two to three points!
This may not seem like a lot, but these few points are crucial and can help you get to or past the cut-off percentiles of your school of choice.
The LSAT is extremely important in the application process. Almost every law school requires an LSAT score, and it is weighted heavily in the admissions decisions. One potential reason the LSAT is so important is that it has consistently proven to be an accurate predictor of academic law school success.
The LSAT is undoubtedly a stressful test, especially since it’s not the only score you have to keep in mind during the lengthy law school application process. But, by knowing what LSAT score you should aim for, you can set realistic, clear goals for yourself to get one step closer to becoming an amazing lawyer.
