So, this is kind of a weird one. Long story short, I lost my fantasy football league last year and the punishment was to take the LSAT. Real LSAT, no tanking. I figured I’d just wing it, bomb it, and move on with my life. I reviewed maybe 2 practice tests just so I didn’t fall asleep during the real thing.

I ended up scoring a 174.

For context, I graduated a few years ago from a no-name state school with a solid GPA (3.8), but never really considered grad school. Been working full time in landscaping since then. Mulching, mowing, etc…

I was always kind of interested with the idea of being a lawyer when I was younger. Life just took a different direction. But now this score has me wondering if I should actually go for it.

My friend told me that I should post on her but I have no idea how admissions would view my resume or lack of traditional experience. Would schools even take a landscaping guy seriously?

From what I understand, the score’s good for five years, so I’ve got some time to think it over. That said, with where I’m at in life right now, it really only makes sense if I can get some kind of scholarship. If I’m gonna do this, I want to go all in and shoot for the best school I can get into. What schools should I be looking at with a 174 and a 3.8 from a lesser-known undergrad?

I realize this will be controversial, and of course there are outlier cases and specific exceptions. However, for 99% of people, if you can't break into the 150s on the LSAT, you shouldn't be going to law school.

Law school is a demanding endeavor, requiring not just intelligence, but also persistence and resilience. If you can't score in the 150s, it suggests either a lack of dedication to put in the necessary hard work or a shortfall in the mental ability needed to meet the rigorous demands of law school and the legal profession.

Especially today, with the abundance of affordable resources and high quality content available, there’s almost no excuse. A score of 150 generally requires answering at least 50 out of 75 questions correctly — about 66%. If you can’t at that level, you’re essentially earning a D or worse on an exam. That isn’t a passing grade, and it shouldn't be considered acceptable for entry into this field.

So I took the April LSAT. Studied for ~6-8 hours in total and honestly just took this for fun. But with this score, should I seriously consider applying to law schools next year?

Context: 3.7 undergrad and 3.95 masters program GPA, both in engineering fields at a well-respected school. 2.5 years of experience since graduating working in management consulting.

Genuinely not sure what my options are with this score. Is it possible that I could land a full ride somewhere? Law school sounds intriguing but I do not want to have a lot of debt.

I've been studying for probably a year and just got my score back for the September LSAT. As you can imagine I am hurting bad right now.

I have a cumulative gpa of 3.34 with a graduate (summary) gpa of 3.55 (i hate how they calculate this.

I know my scores may be comically low to the genuineness in this forum, but I am so tired of studying and working and I just want to go back to school.

Can anyone with similar scores chime in and let me know how they proceeded?

Stanford is dragging, but whatever. Calling this cycle for me now, and likely YLS bound. KJD, non-URM, and T4 (actually T4) softs. To future applicants going straight through, don't count yourself out for not having work experience. Go after the LSAT like a dog and treat your essays like Greek epics. Thank you to this sub for allowing me to experience mass hysteria once in my life ✌️

Offloading my pre-school angst! Good luck everyone :)

175 LSAT, 3.75 GPA (STEM), T3 softs

Unfortunately, I did confess to m*rdering my entire family in my personal statement. I figured it might get overlooked given the strength of my LORs and optional essays, but admissions committees can be unpredictable like that.

Any advice for next cycle? Considering maybe leaving out the family stuff, but it feels wrong to not highlight such a formative experience.

I did my entire freshman year of college credits in high school. I only have 3 years of actual college credits. This new policy is going to hurt my LSAC so much. Obviously my first year GPA was much higher than my final years. I’m so upset about this. how is this fair?! So now I have less credits going towards my average, giving each one more weight. This is like punishing us for getting ahead in high school.

someone asked this during the Columbia law webinar lol

I am scheduled to take the LSAT on September 11, just two days from now. I received an email from LSAC (today) saying that, because of recent changes to U.S. sanctions involving Iran, LSAC is prohibited from providing certain services to Iranian citizens or residents, including LSAT administration.

The problem is: I am not a current Iranian citizen (my passport expired years ago) and I am not a resident of Iran.

Despite that, I appear to have been classified as someone subject to this restriction, and I am currently unable to take the exam I have registered and prepared for. I have already contacted LSAC Compliance and explained that the restriction does not apply to me, but because the test is only two days away, delays in reviewing my case could effectively prevent me from taking this administration through no fault of my own.

I’m sharing this because this may affect other applicants as well, The harm is immediate and concrete. Candidates have spent months studying and hundreds or thousands of dollars on registration, prep courses, tutoring, materials, travel, and time off work specifically for this test date. Losing the exam now does not simply mean “rescheduling.”

This OFAC sanction means paying again, studying for months longer, missing application deadlines, submitting later in rolling admissions, losing scholarship opportunities, and potentially delaying law school by an entire year. For people who were incorrectly flagged, these losses are being caused by an administrative decision that dont even apply to them.

We need people to share this, contact LSAC, alert pre-law organizations, and connect affected candidates with attorneys immediately. The closer we get to the test date, the harder these losses become to reverse.

If you are in the pre-law community, a pre-law organization, law student group, admissions-related organization, or know attorneys who work in OFAC/sanctions law, civil rights, or emergency federal litigation, I would greatly appreciate help amplifying this.

Please share this so that LSAC sees the urgency. A candidate should not lose an LSAT administration because of an incorrect sanctions classification that can be resolved by simply verifying their status. If anyone else received the same email and believes it does not apply to them, please reach out as well. I want to know whether this is affecting other candidates.

So as we’re approaching the end of this cycle and the beginning of another, I feel somehow obligated to share this experience.

During the tour, I was treated differently by the guide, who was a staff member of the admissions office (the student ambassador was not available that day).

When we were going around introducing our undergrad background, he went literal silence after my response. I’m from a fine arts school in the east coast and while I don’t expect him to know it, he didn’t have to be rude. He then SKIPPED me, had a conversation with everyone else, even the parents.

At that point I thought I was overthinking LOL so I stayed for a one-on-one meeting. Then I had the most dismissive conversation in my entire life. He interrupted me multiple times when I wanted to talk more about questions related to my transition and goals. He told me “you should visit more schools to know what you want”. But I literally just told him I have already visited many schools in California, and flew all the way from the east coast just for USC this time.

All he had was an impatient attitude and said they have students who worked as models before?? (Which is completely different from my background…)

I then sensed him wanted me out, nothing like the meeting before me where the tone was definitely more friendly and relaxed. I couldn’t hear the specifics but it was not dead like mine.

Take this as a warning if you’re from a non-traditional background, or just another storytime. But USC was once my dream school and I never looked back ever since this visit.😃

6/30 Update: I received a public response from an account that appeared to be connected to the individual mentioned, and I appreciate the acknowledgement. To clarify, I have not received any formal communication from USC Gould, so I cannot confirm whether that response was official.

I’m truly grateful for all your kind DMs and comments!

UPDATE POST ///

For context, refer to my first post here: LSAT Violation - Scared

I took a lot of the advice from the previous post (thank you to the supportive redditors!) and contacted LSAC to explain everything and plead my case. I told them exactly what happened and asked whether there was any way to resolve the situation without receiving a misconduct notation on my record.

Customer service told me to submit a formal complaint and said the security team would contact me. They gave me little hope and said they have a no tolerance policy when it comes to leaving the testing center 😢. This morning, I received a notification that my score had been placed on hold. LSAC security finally sent me this(see above).

At this point, is there anything else I can do to contest it? Should I accept the notation and prepare to write an addendum for law school applications? How seriously will admissions offices view something like this? Will they have a bias against me?

I tend to spiral over situations like this, so I would really appreciate honest advice about how worried I should be and what my best next step is.

Coming to the realization that I don’t want to be the U.S anymore which means I can go to law school abroad for 1/1000th of the price. good luck to all the baddies who are toughing it out here you’re braver than me 🤠✋🏽

Feeling a bit disappointed for sure. Definitely thought I’d get into at least one or two of those waitlists. Not sure where I went wrong? Maybe my essays were trash. Letters of rec were from a professor and former boss. All applications were submitted November or December.

Hi everyone,

I am an incoming 1L at a T3 with some time to spare, and I would love to read some personal statements or supplemental essays to help out folks in this community. I benefitted a lot from lurking here when I was applying, and I would love to give back to the great people here.

My qualifications:
- former BigLaw paralegal in a practice group that is very focused on the minutiae of writing. Keen eye for grammatical errors, sentence flow improvement, etc.
- former writing center tutor, so I also did actual essay review in the past
- had great admissions results that I mostly attribute to the strength of my essays and the storytelling within them

I'm a first-gen/low-income student that could not afford this sort of thing when I was in school, so I want to keep this affordable for as many people as possible. I'm charging $20 per essay (or for shorter supplemental essays >1 page, $20 per set of up to 3). If that is truly out of reach for you, please DM anyways and we can try to work something out.

Happy to provide proof (within reason, without fully doxxing myself). Essay review can happen via Google docs/email and phone call/whatever is best for you. I'm based in EST and pretty wide open schedule-wise until orientation starts.

Thanks for considering!!

ETA 7/27 11pm: Thank you all for the interest!! I will be sure to respond to everyone tomorrow. I may close requests tomorrow depending on how long it takes me to field everyone's inquiries and to make sure I can give everyone adequate attention. I am but a wee 0L who has to start classes in less than a month :).

ETA 7/28 8pm: Requests are currently CLOSED as of 8pm eastern time. I will be working through my backlog of requests which will likely carry me through the start of classes, but you can still shoot your shot and I'll see if I can squeeze people in. Thank you all SO MUCH for the interest, this has been really fun.

please tell me how u did it

update : i think this might be fake now lol the scholarship now for Yale disappeared😭

https://abovethelaw.com/2017/03/the-law-schools-with-the-highest-lsat-scores-2/

Berkeley 166, Cornell 167, UT Austin 167, Georgetown 167, UCLA 167, Vandy 167.

165 lsat, 3.8 GPA, T4 softs i think???, Applying in November hopefully, maybe a URM I'm hispanic I dont know if that counts. I live in LA right now and I want to continue living in a major city for the rest of my life, I know my stats won't do much for national placement so I have built it off regional placement. Let me know what you think of the list please. KJD btw

“not to sound like a eugenicist…” let me stop you right there buddy

Compared to last year's cycle, there was an 18% increase in applicants with a 175+ and a 41% increase with a 180. Meanwhile, applicant LSAT scores increased 7.8%.

Compared to 2022, applicant LSAT scores increased 30.72%, and 175+ applicants increased 88%.

https://report.lsac.org/VolumeSummaryOriginalFormat.aspx

https://report.lsac.org/VolumeSummary.aspx

EDIT: "applicant LSAT scores" refers to the number of applicant LSAT scores.

I emailed this professor requesting a rec letter. I spent as much time on these emails as much as I spent on my personal statement ngl. It was polite, it has everything the professor would need (materials and deadline), it made sure that they shouldn't feel bad if they can't schedule their time around it. They didn't respond until after I sent a follow up email a week later (also a very brief follow up and I was prepared for them to say no).

And this was their response. I know it's more likely to read as they were just jokingly telling me to remind them frequently about it, but I do not wanna chance it. I need a second opinion besides ChatGPT.

For more context, I had a good relationship with this professor. They even wrote me one back then that helped with another program, that's why I wanted to request them again. That said, it's been a few years since I took them.

Tell it to me straight, am I completely cooked (haven't taken LSAT yet) from even a high LSAT saving me?

Or is it possible for me to attend a top 30 school with a high score?

I was taking my LSAT at Prometric and had completed my first two sections. During my break, I briefly stepped outside for less than 10 seconds to throw away my iced tea in a trash can about 5 feet from the entrance. I did not go outside with any other purpose and immediately returned to complete exam. I did not know this was not allowed. I was then confronted and told that my test had to be canceled. The lady said she filed a report saying she saw me outside. What happens now? Will I have an lsat cancellation with a notation on my record? Will I get cheating allegations? I am incredibly scared and don’t know what to do. This is also frustrating as I had felt extremely confident up until that point.

I’ve wasted 2 years of my life trying to get an LSAT score that isn’t going to get my application laughed into the trash can and it’s been a joke. I’ve done nothing but study for a whole year. 154. I’ve tried taking easy and not devoting every hour of my life to study outside of work. 141. I’m not asking for a lot; I have zero interest in a t10 and in fact would say no outright to all but a handful of very specific mid tier schools. Im not going to be applying to any big law firms at any point in the future or any jobs that will give a shit about this score. A 165 would be enough to coast through. But apparently that isn’t going to happen regardless of effort and I need to figure out another option.

I’ve been actively working for four years as a paralegal in litigation and trust/estates; honestly I think I could take a 1L estate planning exam right now and at least pass. The rest of my ap looks great; GPA is just north of the average for my handful (even though I’ve been out of college for just over five years and I seriously question the relevance at this point), plenty of interesting softs, a great essay. But because I continually fail the LSAT, I might as well be applying for the collection bucket of a paper shredder. I ended up on the Northeastern waitlist last cycle, but I think it was because my application was considered unfinished until my grad school in the UK decided to get its shit together and send the transcripts I asked for in November 2 days before applications closed.

I don’t have time to take any classes that are worthwhile because I work two jobs. My select handful take the GRE., but honestly I think me failing that is a given on account of the math. Starting at the very low ranked law school a few towns over and transferring isn’t off the table, but I’m not getting anywhere without a good aid package so that may be an exercise in futility. Outside becoming a sugar baby to bribe my way in, does anyone have any ideas as to how to prevent this stupid test from permanently stunting my career?

ETA: I honestly couldn’t give a shit about class rankings and if I did nothing but barely pass every exam, id be annoyed but ultimately fine. I’ve been out of school long enough to know that the effort to reward ratio after graduation is not worth killing myself over jt. I’m getting through this application process and getting my JD (and if I get into the right program, a PhD to go with the MSc right after— which I somehow find an easier process than this). The LSAT is an immovable obstacle, and I’ll find a way to tunnel around it if I have to dig my way there with a spoon. For obvious reasons, however, I’d much prefer just taking a jackhammer to the damn thing like everyone else seems to be able to do. But if this is how it has to be, I’d rather just find a spoon now and start digging rather than waste another two years looking for one.

I am 100% confident that the test is not a direct correlation to class performance. I have had this problem with every standardized test, and this one seems to have fermented the issue in a way that seems to be rotting rather than raising my scores. On both sides of the tests I underperformed on, I do great in every flavor of classroom. I think the issue is somewhere in the format that just tanks everything around it; what the structural issue is I have no clue. I can find all the rats but it doesn’t really matter how many I catch if the nest still eludes me. 

Accommodations genuinely hadn’t occurred to me but I did get an adult ADHD diagnosis like 3 months ago so I’ve never tried that. 

ETA2: many thanks to all the kind people out there with suggestions. From what I’m hearing, even a little tutoring could be a good investment.

And an even bigger thanks to all the folks suggesting I should quit. I had forgotten how motivating spite is. I will be sure to save yall a toast at grad night.

Love to all my fellow applicants who feel stuck. We’re going to get there even if it’s an unusual path. May we dig together, Team Spoon 🥄