Hey all,
I’m finishing up my last year of undergrad and am planning on a 1-year gap year to work before law school. I’ll be applying this admissions cycle and still need to take the LSAT.
The June date is the exact week of my final exams for school while the September/October date will be partway through the admissions process (and scores probably won’t come until October/November). How negatively will it impact chances if I take and send the September/October scores versus the June ones? I’m expecting at least a few points higher on the LSAT if I can take the September one. Since rolling admissions goes until February is applying in October/November that much of a negative?
I have a 4.0 college GPA, leadership ECs and several honors/awards and am hoping to be a competitive applicant for Harvard and Stanford Law in particular. Thanks for any advice!
A few points is huge (if you can get them). Take in October to maximize your chances.
@bluebayou Thanks for the advice! If the score was roughly the same how negative of an impact would it make?
depends on the score (!) and how it compares to the school’s median. But realistically, the October test is still considered ‘early’. And fore Harvard, its much more important to get that LSAT to its median. If you can accomplish that, you’ll have an extremely high chance of admissions, given your GPA. (HLS is much more of a numbers game, since it has such a large class.)
Stanford has a much, much smaller class, so they can be (and are) picky about EC’s, life experiences, and other stuff that make the applicants unique.
Many schools seem to take the highest score rather than average now. My daughter applied this year and she didn’t submit her applications until late Dec.
My D took June (after working a convention with 20 hour days) and missed her target score by a couple of points. After much consideration, she decided to take the October exam. While waiting for the results (which, in her case, were delayed by Hurricane Sandy) she completed all her applications so that the only outstanding item was her LSAT score. Her October score actually exceeded her target score by several points. She was admitted to her first school in early December with the last decision coming in March. Though I think she would have been admitted to at least 3 of the schools with her first score, the October score made the difference in the rest of her admissions. Though we have no way of knowing for sure, given her results, it did not appear that her two scores (with the second higher than the first) were averaged. OP, if you feel that you can not reasonably prepare adequately for June, wait and take the fall LSAT.
That’s useful information, thanks all!
Just updating that I’ve decided to take the September/October test instead of the June one. I think I could possibly reach my target score by June but my grades would suffer. Testing is my weakest area so the extra time is probably the best for me to hit that target score.