Self-study
Hi! I recently took the June LSAT and had a question about how to determine whether cancelling a score is the right decision. I know score release is still a few weeks away, but I wanted to understand the general guidelines ahead of time so I'm not scrambling once scores come out.
How do you typically advise students to approach score cancellation? For example, does the decision depend on whether the score falls within the median LSAT ranges of the schools we're targeting? Or, if someone is aiming for T14 schools, would you recommend cancelling any score below a certain threshold, such as 170, or is that too simplistic of a way to think about it?
Since this was my first LSAT, I'm a bit unsure how admissions committees view lower scores, score improvements, and cancellations. I'd appreciate any insight on how to evaluate the decision when the time comes.
Thank you!
2
5 comments
It's definitely subjective, but in about 99% of cases I would recommend not cancelling your first score. At worst, admissions committees will see a big score jump after you retake if you didn't do as well as you wanted the first time.
You mentioned you might want to cancel because you have been studying for a while, but admissions committees don't know how long you studied for! For all they know, it could be your cold diagnostic. I would treat your first one with that in mind and probably not cancel, but of course, it's up to you! It's also important to keep in mind most schools only care about the highest score since that is what they report.
Good luck! I hope you see what you're hoping for on score release day!
Hey there! There's no set answer, and it's subjective, but for your first LSAT, the bar for cancellation is generally pretty high. Admissions committees aren't in the business of evaluating every LSAT score you ever received. Assuming you're planning on retaking, there are three future possibilities for your future tests: you improve, you do the same, or you don't do as well as you did the first time. If you top your score down the line, then your first score is pretty much rendered irrelevant, with the bonus that you've demonstrated improvement :) If you get the same score, net neutral. If you get a lower score down the line, then you're going to be really glad you didn't cancel that first score.
If things went so explosively wrong on your first test to the point that you never want anyone to ever see that score, maybe you want to cancel it! I would just add that all applications have an option to add an addendum, so if you want to explain what happened with that test (technical difficulties, mental health, whatever it is), you'll also have space to do so!
I hope that helped, and good luck come score day!
@PhoebeHopp Thank you so much! This is really helpful.
I've been studying full-time since January, and one concern I've had is that if I score in the low-to-mid 160s, it might be better to cancel because I wouldn't want admissions committees to see that score and assume I've been unable to break into the 170s despite studying for a long period of time.
Is that a valid concern, or would you recommend not thinking about score cancellation that way?
@shay_lsat Hey! I don't think admissions committees would care or hold that against you. They are going to evaluate the scores that they see on file, and they don't know how long you studied for. If you have a 160 as your first test and a higher score as your second one they will just see that you improved. A 160 is not a "bad" score by any means. Also, as far as I know, cancelling a test will also show up on your file (so they will be able to see that you cancelled, but they won't know your score). Because of this, as Phoebe mentioned, there aren't many strong incentives to cancel your first score.
@AsemanShahsavand Just to solidify what @AsemanShahsavand said: if you cancel your score, law schools will see that you cancelled your score. In that case, they may guess that you scored lower than low-to-mid 160s, since not many people would cancel a low-to-mid 160s, especially on their first attempt. I'd be much more comfortable having a score in the 160s than having a "withdrawn/cancelled," regardless of what scores you get in the future.