The LSAT score is a critical factor in law school admissions. While law schools claim to consider a holistic range of factors, including GPA, work experience, and personal statements, the LSAT score often serves as a primary filter.
A high LSAT score can significantly increase your chances of admission to top law schools, even if your GPA is slightly lower than the average. This is because the LSAT is widely regarded as a reliable predictor of academic success in law school.
As you read on, you will discover how law schools initially use the LSAT score and a practical example of the index formula used for law school admission processes. You will also have an insight into the official and practical reasons behind the high value placed on the LSAT.
How Law Schools Initially Use a Student’s LSAT Score
I enjoy being lazy. Some days I feel like people in comas are overly ambitious. So I always want, for myself and others, good reasons to switch off the lazy setting. Here is the rationale for why I perceive it’s worth it to work intensely on the LSAT.
The primary reason for switching off the lazy setting for the LSAT is because of something called an index score.
The index score is a catch-all phrase that refers to the initial assessment grade that a law school assigns to a student’s application. The initial assessment grade is traditionally dependent on LSAT score and GPA. This initial assessment grade will, often, broadly group students into one of three piles for consideration: Probable Admit, Probable, Deny, or Requires Closer Consideration.
Think of an index score like a picture on a dating application. Now that picture IS NOT equal to the person’s value, that’s far too superficial an assessment, but it is the first way that person’s value will be assessed
Example of Simplistic (non-holistic) Index Formula
GPA | LSAT | ||
United States Average | 65. | 35. | 1.00 |
Canada Average | 50. | 50. | 1.00 |
1st Year Grades Correlation | 24. - 12. | 48. - 4. | LSAT correlation 2x to 4x GPA correlation |
It should be noted that many schools claim to take a “holistic” approach whereby the law school’s admissions committee attempts to obtain a more nuanced view of the student’s prior development and circumstances. However, there are structural reasons discussed below why even a holistic approach will still yield significant respect for the LSAT.
Why the LSAT is Valued So Highly?
The Official Reason
The Official Reason the LSAT is often twice as important as GPA with regard to a student’s index score is Predictive Validity. The LSAT better predicts first-year law school grades than does GPA by a significant margin.
Often in law school, the classes are graded by one test at the end of the semester. A student’s name is usually not even on the test in order to decrease teacher bias. The only thing systematically intended to be graded is the student’s understanding of the material in a single test format. The LSAT, unsurprisingly, better correlates with this result than GPA.
The LSAT does not predict how someone will be as a lawyer. Many of the best lawyers in the country have and have had, historically, below-average LSAT scores. The test just tells us a bit about how people will do early in law school and, more importantly for our purposes, where a person might get into law school.
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The Practical Reason
There is also a more practical reason for schools to value the LSAT. Schools are in a competitive game with each other. To get their students the best jobs and to be perceived as the top school, it certainly helps to have a student body with top admissions numbers.
High GPAs are not rare, high LSAT scores are rare. Particularly in this era of ostensibly unchecked grade inflation, a GPA has lost much of its scarcity value. There are some top liberal arts schools in the United States where the average GPA hovers above 3.7.
When the average GPA is 3.7, what does that mean about a 3.9? That they are mildly above average? Law schools could fill their entire class with near or actual 4.0s without leaving their state in virtually every circumstance. However, the same is not the case with the LSAT.
Approximately 120,000 of many of the brightest students in North America will take the LSAT this year. About 1,200 students will score 172 or above. Harvard lets in 600 per year, Yale lets in 200, NYU lets in 450, Boalt lets in 350, and Columbia lets in 475. These are just a few of the law schools competing for relatively few high-scoring students.
Schools idiosyncratically weigh the value of the LSAT and it is certainly not the ONLY factor schools consider. Many hard-working and well-meaning admissions personnel do their best to cultivate a class of people and not just numbers. However, even the most kind-hearted and diligent admissions personnel are constrained by the competitive needs of the institution. Giving them a competitive LSAT score attached to an attractive application helps them help you.
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