Taking too many tests?

Comments

• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  March 2018 4428 karma

  I'm sure that adcoms will doubt the significance of a small imrovement a little more. What if you just got it by accident?

  However, fundamentally their ranking depends on your highest score not their feelings about whether it was representative so it probably won't effect decisions much.

  Finally, you can never take it so many times that a better score stops looking better. The question is whether the bad tries distract from the good one. The good one in the future is still going to help rather than hurt.
• AspiringHRLawyer Alum Member

  March 2018 13 karma

  following...
• m.c lshopeful Alum Member

  March 2018 edited March 2018 614 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection" said:
  I'm sure that adcoms will doubt the significance of a small imrovement a little more. What if you just got it by accident?

  However, fundamentally their ranking depends on your highest score not their feelings about whether it was representative so it probably won't effect decisions much.

  Finally, you can never take it so many times that a better score stops looking better. The question is whether the bad tries distract from the good one. The good one in the future is still going to help rather than hurt.

  Like Seeking Perfection said, their rankings only count the highest on your record. Since they deal with medians, it gets goofy. If a school has a median LSAT of 160 and they are looking at an applicant with a 165 and a different applicant with a 180, there is really no difference between the two in bumping up their median. They both shift the median one point closer to 161. It works similarly with GPAs and whether the scores are getting boosted or dropped. This is why you often hear people saying that you need the 75th percentile in a school's GPA or LSAT if you are at the 25th of the other. In a sense, you are balancing in the ranking system.... +1 in your 75th and -1 in your 25th = 0.

  We often get so wrapped up in the numbers game and assume that is all the admissions will see. What we forget, though, is that these admissions offices really do want real people. They care about who you are, what you've done, and what you will bring to their new entering class. They are creating a 1L team and sometimes the tallest guy (highest LSAT) is not always the best player.

  That being said, you should do the best you can to be a +2 in the numbers game but a 0 is perfectly fine. Even a -2 can be fine if they like who you are. Ever year, there are plenty of people getting into schools while below both medians.