What is a Good LSAT Score? (2024)

While this question gets asked all the time, there is no objective answer. Yes, everyone wants to get a stellar score. A 99th percentile score on the LSAT is about a 172, meaning if you get a 172, then you did better than 99% of all test-takers. That’s clearly an excellent score. However, even though most people put in a decent effort to prep for the exam, only 1% of test-takers will hit that or above each year.

The LSAT is a standardized test that law schools use to select candidates for admission. A good LSAT score for an individual depends on the law school they are applying to. The average LSAT score for law schools at the top of the rankings ranges from 167-172. On the other hand, scores of 145-155 are generally good enough to be accepted into less prestigious law schools.

RELATED: LSAT/GPA Medians for Law Schools

A good LSAT score can open up a whole world of opportunities for you. I got a 177 on the LSAT, which changed the entire trajectory of my life. Never underestimate the impact that a few extra points on the LSAT can make!

Click Here to find out how I got a 177 on the LSAT

Luckily, you don’t need an LSAT score in the 170s to achieve excellent outcomes in law school and your career afterward.

A good LSAT score can help get you into a school that provides solid job prospects at an acceptable price.

Whether your LSAT score can help you get that should be the only consideration as to what makes a score ‘good’. The LSAT is just one of the factors that will determine your admissions chances at law schools, though for better or worse, the LSAT is the single most important part of your application. It’s roughly twice as important as the next most important factor, your undergraduate GPA. For an explanation as to why see our post onwhy the LSAT matters so much.

LSAT SCORE RANGES

LSAT Highest Score: 180

LSAT Lowest Score: 120

Scoring high on the LSAT can get you into law school. However, how do you know what score is good? The LSAT is scored between 120 and 180, with 153 being the average score. A good score depends upon the school. There are many factors involved in getting accepted to law school, including GPA, extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, work experience, and personal statement.

The highest possible score on the LSAT is a 180 and the lowest possible score is a 120. The average is about 153. These are ‘scaled scores’ that are determined from your ‘raw score’, which is the number of correct responses you give.

153 would mean you got about half of the questions right. A 170 or better usually requires getting all but 10-12 questions right. Contrary to popular belief, the test isn’t curved.

A 160 or better is a good score that will get you into a lot of law schools. Anything over a 168 or so, paired with a decent GPA, might give you a shot at going to the countries most elite schools, those that carry a strong national reputation such as Cornell, University of Chicago, Harvard, and the like. A 175 or better will be a very strong LSAT at any school, even at Yale (the most difficult law school to get into).

Whether an LSAT score is good enough for the top law schools also depends on your GPA. Your GPA matters because the lower it is, the higher your LSAT may need to be to have a strong chance of getting into your desired school.

Ideally, you want both your LSAT and GPA to fall within the 25th-75th percentile ranges for a school to be considered a competitive applicant. Being above both LSAT and GPA medians makes you a very competitive applicant. You measure this by looking at the school’s numbers for whatever class enrolled most recently.

However, the LSAT is incredibly important to the law school admissions process. Though estimates vary a little, the consensus is that about 75% of whether you get into X law school is determined by your LSAT score alone. Thus, to a large extent anyway, a high LSAT can often override a somewhat sub-par GPA. For more details on that, see our post on getting accepted with a low GPA.

This article covers the LSAT scores you need to get into the top 14 law schools. The top 14 is an informal category of schools that have always sat atop the US News and World Report rankings since they began in the nineties. These schools are all dominant in their regional market and enjoy a solid national reputation, meaning graduates are readily employable anywhere.

We will also discuss how confident you can be about getting scholarship money with certain scores.

What is a Good LSAT Score for the Top Six Law Schools?

What is a good LSAT score for getting into the top 6(T6)law schools in the country (UChicago, Columbia, NYU, and the holy trinity of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford)?

I am going to propose a new name for the T6: “170 Land.”

If you want to get into a T6 law school, you need to aim for a 170+ LSAT score to feel confident about getting accepted to a T6 law school.Though UChicago, Stanford, Columbia, and NYU all have 25th percentile LSAT scores just below 170, most students at T6 law schools got in with a 170 or better.

However, common wisdom is that no LSAT score & GPA combo guarantees a mere mortal admission to Yale, Stanford, or, to a slightly lesser extent, Harvard. Thisis why these schools are known as “black boxes”: they tend to have a surplus of candidates with great LSAT and GPA numbers, so they must differentiate between them on some other basis.

A great LSAT score and GPA are necessary, but not sufficient, to guarantee admission at Harvard/Yale/Stanford (HYS). A candidate’s soft factors, such as work and life experience, assume a larger role in making these “tie-breaker” decisions. Evaluating soft factors is, of course, much more subjective than comparing LSAT and GPA numbers, which makes admissions decisions at these schools much harder to predict.

If you have a good score on the LSAT and grade point average, it is easier to get into Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. But if there are two people with the same score and grade point average, the person who has done interesting things with their life will have a better chance of being accepted into Harvard, Yale, or Stanford.

It is hard to get into Harvard, Yale, and Stanford because a high LSAT score and great grades are not always enough. Ideally, you’ll have other things, like extra-curricular activities. Some people get in even though they didn’t do so well in the classroom.

Simply put, you need great numbers, but that might not be enough.

Columbia and UChicago are also somewhat “black-boxy” as well, though not nearly as much as the top 3 schools, and NYU is commonly viewed as being substantially less of a black box than the rest of the T6 schools.

See Also

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Puttingasidethe issue of unpredictability, let’s look purely at the numbers for the T6:

To go deeper into these numbers, we will take a snapshot of my Alma Mater, The University of Chicago. Even though UChicago’s 25th percentile LSAT score looks somewhat low(166), keep in mind that most of the class had at least a 170 LSAT score. Most of the successful applicants with LSAT scores in the 166-169 range were likely high GPAers as well. There may also be some early decision admits or early-cycle applicants with strong soft factors thrown in there too.

In general, students with LSATs in this 167-169 range tend to accept offers from T6 schools at a very high rate than their 170+ peers (who often get several offers from schools in the T6). Therefore, schools need to admit far fewer students overall in this lower range.

So if we take a look at LawSchoolNumbers for LSAT scores it took to get into UChicago, the picture for sub-170 applicants is somewhat bleak. The most recent graph showing applicant scores (based on user-submitted data) shows no admitted students with GPA below 3.6. I give this as an example to explain why the T6 is justly dubbed ‘170 Land.’

Given that a 170 puts you in the 97th percentile of all LSAT takers, it’s easy to see why the T6 schools are hallowed ground.

At the very top of the pack, we have Yale and Harvard, which have 25th percentile LSAT scores right at the 170-mark. Count on having a tough time getting into those schools without a high GPA (3.75+) and LSAT above 170. Only with a 175 or better do we start to see some successful applications with a GPA below 3.7.

With all that said, these schools do take students in these lower ranges. If you are shooting for a “reach” school (one where your numbers are both below median), focus on crafting a superb application and personal statement, then give it a shot. If you have the right set of ‘soft factors,’ things like great work experience and other distinctions, the school might take you regardless of slightly weak numbers.

Scholarship Money at the Top 6 Law Schools

First, a note on scholarship money in general: by and large, scholarship money is not given out from some sense of magnanimity. Law schools use scholarship money to attract the students necessary to maintain their ranking in the USNWR.

Schools spend money to attract the best students to their school. They do this by offering them scholarships. This makes it more likely that these students will go there.

Most of this money attracts students towards the front edge of who they think they can get: the high-quality students who would likely go to better-ranked schools unless they get some money.

Further, some scholarship money is awarded to average applicants—those with LSAT/GPA numbers between the school’s 25th and 75th percentile goalposts—to keep up acceptance rates.

Schools have less need to give money to students who have LSAT and GPA numbers around (or below) their 25th percentiles since those students will typically matriculate in sufficient numberswithout such enticement.

The traditional wisdom is that you want to hover around the 75th percentile numbers for the target school if you want to get scholarship money. Luckily you don’t necessarily need both 75th percentile LSAT and GPA because they can mix and match students to get the numbers they want.

Thus, for T6 schools, the LSAT score goodenough to give you a strong shot at a scholarship offer will be in the 171-173 range, depending on the school. Receiving this LSAT score places you in the 99th percentile of all those taking the LSAT, so it should be somewhat apparent why schools use the money to draw these students in… there aren’t many such students to go around.

Students with numbers above the schools’ medians also have a relatively good shot at scholarships. Schools offer these students money to get them to come and help prop up ‘yield,’ the ratio of students accepting offers to offers made. This increases the school’s apparent selectivity, which helps them in the rankings.

Good LSAT Score for Penn, Virginia, Berkeley, and Michigan- The Middle T14

What is considered a good LSAT score for Penn, Virginia, Berkeley, and Michigan?

Berkeley was traditionally considered an outlier among the T14 for the greater emphasis they place on GPA. While this appears to be their practice still, they are very close to their peer schools, having a 25th percentile at 163 and a 75th at 170. So any high side 160s LSAT score might be good enough for Berkeley.

Berkeley is further notable, however, because if you look at user-submitted application data on LawSchoolNumbers, there are a fair number of applicants getting accepted with scores in the lower LSAT range for the schoolwithouta stellar GPA to balance it out. If any school in the T14 can honestly boast that they look at the total applicant, not just their numbers, it may be Berkeley.

The other schools in this group have a more traditional hard-line whereby the lower the LSAT is, the higher the GPA necessary to balance it out. Perhaps the big difference between these schools and those above them is that LSAT score-wise 170+ scores give you a great shot of admittance even with a relatively low (~3.5) GPA. 172, in particular, looks like the magic bullet. A 172 is a good (great even) LSAT score for the middle T14, and it will probably draw some scholarship money offers.

Higher and perhaps you start to run into what is called ‘yield protection’: schools will tend to waitlist rather than accept students they feel are perhaps out of their league and wait for a further show of interest on the applicant’s part before admitting them. Note that being waitlisted in such a situation may mean you are in an excellent position to get $$$ from the school if you show heavy interest. Hovering in the 169+ range here should be enough to see some scholarship offers from the middle T14 schools.

Good LSAT Score at Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, and Georgetown- The Rest of the T14

The story here is much the same here as at the tier above, and it is clear that the bottom T14 schools (Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, and Georgetown) are drawing from the same part of the applicant pool as the middle T14 schools:

Northwestern is serious about its emphasis on work experience. Someone who already has demonstrated success in the business world can expect a boost that may make up for a lower LSAT score. That said, such applicants usually boast a high GPA too. Northwestern also is purportedly fond of ‘splitter’ applicants with a high LSAT score. It appears from looking at LawSchoolNumbers that a 172 tends to score an acceptance at Northwestern even with a GPA in the lower 3.0-3.5 range.

At these schools, a 170 or better is again a magic bullet. After that, as the LSAT score goes down, GPA has to go up to balance it for the best chance of receiving a letter of acceptance. Typically, when you hit the 25th percentile for LSAT score, an applicant then needs around 75th percentile GPA to see a good result. So taking Duke as an example, those admitted to Duke with an LSAT score of 166 (the 25th percentile LSAT) typically had a 3.8 or better GPA.

Also, a higher proportion of the people in this lower LSAT range are waitlisted compared to high LSAT/low GPA splitters, indicating that more candidates are applying with high GPA numbers. In other words, high GPA/low LSAT students are less scarce and therefore slightly less in demand. At schools in this tier, it is clearly somewhat better to be applying with the high-end LSAT score (~171) and a slightly worse GPA than the other way around.

This has been a brief tour of the LSAT score game in the rarefied atmosphere of T14 admissions. For a lengthier discussion of law school admissions, you may find it helpful to consult a book on the subject, such as the well-known Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments thread, and I will respond. I hope this helped your understanding of what a good LSAT score for the T14 is!