What Is an Average LSAT Score?
What is an Average LSAT Score?
If you’re looking to get into a top notch law school, scoring a solid points total on the LSAT is crucial.
High profile professions all have their scary entrance exam — for medical school, it is the MCAT that keeps students up at night. For word crunchers, it is the uniform CPA exam. For those of us applying to law school, nothing gives us the cold sweats like the LSAT.
LSAT scores range from 120 to 180 — 120 is the lowest, 180 the highest. According to the FNBC blog, a good LSAT score is 160 or higher. They also mention that as part of your LSAT score, you’ll see a percentile rank that lets you know what percentage of test takers in the last five years scored below you.
The article goes on to give a ballpark figure for a “good” SAT score — 160 or higher, according to the writers at FNBC. What should you consider an average LSAT score?
Scores between 140 and 160 are considered “average”, but that is such a wide range of scores you have to understand that there’s a further hierarchy between these numbers. 140-150 are on the low end of average, 141-149 is overall average, and 151-160 is in the higher end of average LSAT scores. Start scoring above 160 and you’ll find yourself in better company. To really shine in your application to the so called T14 schools (the top law schools in the country) you need to be scoring above 165, and of course, the higher the better.
Let’s take a look at the LSAT and GPA scores for the top five law schools in the country as determined by the Gourman Report. –
- Harvard — LSAT 170 – 176, GPA 3.74 – 3.95
- Yale — LSAT – 169 – 177. GPA 3.81 – 3.97
- Standford — LSAT – 168 – 172, GPA 3.76 – 3.94
- Columbia — LSAT – 170 – 175, GPA 3.58 – 3.82
- UC Berkeley — LSAT – 164 – 170, GPA 3.70 – 3.92
Looking at this chart, you can probably tell that there is plenty of wiggle room, especially the further away you move from the top two schools. If you have a killer GPA but didn’t perfectly ace the LSAT, there’s a chance that you could find yourself at UC Berkeley or Columbia, just not Harvard or Yale.
An average LSAT score is difficult to calculate precisely — but it seems having a solid GPA and a better-than average LSAT score will put you ahead of most of the competition.
This is one of a series of posts we’ve written about various college prep subjects, and about entrance exams in particular. The others include:
- What Is an Average ASVAB Score?
- What Is an Average MCAT Score?
- What Is an Average DAT Score?
- What Is an Average GMAT Score?
- What Is an Average PSAT Score?
- What Is an Average GRE Score?
- What Is an Average LSAT Score?
- What Is an Average ACT Score?
- What Is an Average SAT Score?
You might also be interested in this page about average SAT scores, too.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 5:19 am and is filed under Career, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The mathematical average LSAT score is usually 151, with very small year-to-year variability. I was a little surprised to see the effort here to try to affix a number to a “good” LSAT score. For my students, a “good” score is the score that gains them admission to the law school(s) of their choice, as well as being a score that I’m satisfied reaches their potential. For students looking at Harvard, as the article points out, a 161 simply rules them out. On the other end, a 155 would be fantastic for students seeking admission at Detroit-Mercy. Like any other test, students must prepare to do their best and try to reach their goals, rather than shooting for an arbitrary number.
John Rood
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