The Law School Admission Test (LSAT®) is an important part of the law school admissions process. Understanding what the LSAT® measures and how the scores fit into the overall law school admissions process are important parts of interpreting LSAT® scores. Interpreting LSAT® scores also requires knowledge of the typical score ranges of those admitted to an applicant’s preferred law school.
The test is divided into five sections. Each section lasts 35 minutes, with only four sections contributing to the overall score. The purpose of the questions is to assess your reading comprehension, analytical skills, and logical reasoning abilities. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) simply examines potential new test questions in this section.
Scores on the LSAT® provide evidence of a candidate’s ability to succeed in law school to potential law schools. It is necessary to achieve a high score in order to demonstrate that you can deal with the difficulties and complexities that come with studying law. Test scores reflect a person’s ability to comprehend difficult text and use critical thinking to evaluate both sides of an argument.
The results of the test will give you a scaled score. The scale’s score range is between 120 and 180 points. The LSAT® has an average scaled score of 151, with the majority of test takers scoring between 145 and 159. A test taker with a score of more than 160 is considered among the best.
The percentile score is also considered when interpreting an LSAT® score. The scaled score informs a candidate about the percentage of test takers she outperformed. A percentile score of 90th percentile, for example, indicates that the test taker outperformed 90% of those who took the exam.
Examining the score band can assist a test taker in deciding whether or not to retake the test. According to statistical measures, the score band represents a range of scores that an individual is likely to achieve when retaking the exam. Score bands range from three points lower to three points higher than the scaled score.
Individual LSAT® scores can be used to compare how test takers rank among their peers. Law schools publish data on the average LSAT® scores of those who are accepted to law school. Those accepted to Harvard, for example, tend to have high LSAT® scores ranging from 170-176, putting them in an elite group of test takers.