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How Will Higher LSAT Medians Affect Splitters in Law School Admissions?
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LSAT score inflation is out of control. The LSAT meetings at the top 14 law schools are all now 170 to 175. They've increased significantly since I got my 175 LSAT score and started teaching me LSAT almost 20 years ago. Today I'm going to walk you through the reasons for the score inflation and the resulting higher LSAT medians. Now I was a splitter applicant back when I was applying to law school, not by choice of course, but because I had a relatively lower GPA and had to make up for it with a higher LSAT score. And that motivation fueled me to get a 175 on my official LSAT. Today I'm going to walk you through how specifically splinters should prepare for the LSAT and apply to law school. If you're wondering why there's all this LSAT score inflation over the past few years, there's a couple of reasons for this. One of them is the LSAT flex format from the beginning of the pandemic. LSAT underestimated how much easier the flex format would be for those who aren't aware. The LSAT used to be on paper. Then on a tablet, LSAT moved the LSAT online due to the pandemic. And they underestimated that having it online from home would mitigate some of the stress associated with taking the LSAT in person. They also didn't realize that a three section version of the LSAT would be a lot easier than the previous five section version. LSAT has also become a lot more liberal in recent years in granting extra time accommodations on the LSAT after having been sued several times under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And one of those lawsuits, by the way, resulted in LSAT removing the logic games section. Another factor people don't realize is that the LSAT used to be only administered four times per year. Now it's administered eight times per year. Doubling the number of LSAT administrations makes it easier to retake the LSAT more times. And law schools only consider the highest LSAT score. And the American Bar Association as well only considers your highest LSAT score. And so as a result, if more people are retaking the LSAT, they have more opportunities to bring up their LSAT score and apply with a higher LSAT, meaning that the ABA is then pulling higher LSAT numbers when calculating the medians for various law schools. And that information is in turn pulled by US news for inclusion in the law school rankings. Now the T-14 law schools, like all the others, want the highest LSAT medians possible because they care a great deal about the US news rankings because that helps them increase their prestige and get more applicants and also helps them attract more donations from proud alumni. Now the higher LSAT medians have impacted LSAT percentile changes. So it used to be, for example, that getting a 173 LSAT score put you in the 99th percentile of all test takers. Now you've got to get a 175 to be in the 99th percentile. That's just one data point showing you some of how that has evolved over time. So if you are a splitter applicant, what does this mean for you? It means that you've got to get even higher LSAT score to compensate for a relatively lower GPA. I mentioned earlier, the T-14 law schools all have LSAT medians of 170 to 175. They also have GPA medians of 38 to 39, meaning if your GPA is below a 38, you're going to want to have an LSAT median not out of 170, but more likely 173 to 175 at the least to compensate for that. Now there's been inflation across the board. I mentioned the LSAT inflation already. We've also got GPA, median inflation as well demonstrated by those 3839 medians. Why is there GPA inflation? Because undergrad institutions give out A's like candy. They just do, of course, if you're in the hard sciences, engineering, math, natural science, those classes are typically graded on a curve, meaning that not everyone can get A's. This is definitely not the case in the humanities. I even had one professor in college who just gave everybody A's because he said he didn't believe in grades. Now is that right? Is that fair? Probably not, but I'm not going to say no to an A, right? So they give you the A, you then have that on your transcript, and that boosts your odds of getting into law school. And so those majoring in the humanities can simply take easier classes in undergrad to get a higher GPA. And of course, a 401 engineering means a lot more than a 401 English, but the law schools considering the American Bar Association stats of 401 is a 401. And so if you are below the 38, again, you want the higher LSAT 173 to 175. Now, of course, now that LSAT has removed the logic game section, going forward for those taking the LSAT in August, September, and beyond, the good news for you is that there's less material for you to study. You can then take all that time you would spend on logic games and double up your focus on logical reasoning since it'll be two thirds of the test. So we've recognized now, logical reasoning, more important than reading comprehension, certainly more important than logic games, which is now no longer important at all. By the way, trash your old LSAT prep books, if they're talking about logic games, you want to make sure that you're ready for the new format and focus only on the material covering logical reasoning and reading comprehension. Now, within the logical reasoning section, there are roughly 15 different types of logical reasoning questions, but not all of them are of equal importance because some question types show up more often than others. Specifically, you want to focus on the most common types of questions to start with, namely, necessary assumption, inference, and flaw. Those are the three most common types of logical reasoning questions. So you want to start there rather than addressing the rare types that hardly ever show up like the value of the argument or parallel, which seems scary, but there's only a couple of those per section. Now, I mentioned retaking the LSAT earlier as being one reason for the LSAT score inflation. Take this to heart. The LSAT's offered four consecutive months in this calendar year alone. You could take the LSAT in August, September, October, and November. Now, let's say that you were aiming to score a 175 on LSAT test day, your PT average going into August is a 172. Do you take it? I think you should because a 172 is a pretty good PT average going in. You take it, maybe get lucky, score a few points above your average. If you don't, no big deal, you could then take it again in September or October, get another at bat. Maybe you do better and hit the 175 on the high end. If so, great, you're now applying with a 175. If you don't, no big deal because law schools do not average multiple LSAT scores, but rather, they only take the highest score. So, of course, you don't want to go take an LSAT every single month or eight times a year. The retake limit, by the way, is five times in five years and seven times for life. Of course, if you start taking it seven times in a row, looks a little questionable, but could you take it three, four, five times? Absolutely. Yes, you could. Could you write an indented mess for the reasons for your retakes? Yes, you could. You could say if you had a bad proctor or a technical issue, you can and should certainly talk about that, but law schools ultimately just want to see that score. And so, if it takes you two, three, four times, that's totally fine. Just make sure that you're taking it when your PT average is within the ballpark of where you're ultimately hoping to score on test day. Now, if you're aiming for a 170 plus an LSAT test day and you're looking for my support, there are, of course, a variety of ways I could help you out. You could check out the links below this video to book a call with me, my team. We'd be glad to help you out and in the meantime I wish you all the best and take care.