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what should be lsat goal score?

lexxx745lexxx745 Alum Member Sage
in General 3190 karma

If your gpa is above 75th for all t14 schools, what is a good goal lsat score that would give you solid chances of getting into at least 1 T14 with some money?

Comments

  • RealLaw612RealLaw612 Member
    edited December 2019 1094 karma

    Score to guarantee T14? 180. Seriously, I never saw the point in aiming lower than the top. Even if you don’t ever hit such heights, make it your goal anyway.

  • lexxx745lexxx745 Alum Member Sage
    3190 karma

    @99thPercentileOrDieTryin said:
    Score to guarantee T14? 180. Seriously, I never saw the point in aiming lower than the top. Even if you don’t ever hit such heights, make it your goal anyway.

    agreed, although having a goal that the chance of me hitting is prolly much lower than winning the lottery is p depressing though

  • cooljon525-1-1cooljon525-1-1 Alum Member
    edited December 2019 917 karma

    @99thPercentileOrDieTryin said:
    Score to guarantee T14? 180. Seriously, I never saw the point in aiming lower than the top. Even if you don’t ever hit such heights, make it your goal anyway.

    actually with that score you will be YP'd to most of the T-14s because they don't think you'll go to their school cause ur stats are too high. As someone who is applying this cycle this is what I learned:

    If your stats are too low, ur screwed. If ur stats are too high, ur also screwed because they don't think ur gonna go there. Honestly its a crapshoot.

    But to answer your question, i'd say 168 and above. And I do agree, shoot for the highest score possible and try your best!

  • RelentlessRelentless Core Member
    edited December 2019 323 karma

    @cooljon525 _ Apologies, what does YP’d mean?

  • cooljon525-1-1cooljon525-1-1 Alum Member
    917 karma

    @CantHurtMe said:
    @cooljon525 _ Apologies, what does YP’d mean?

    YP= Yield Protection

    If a school accepts 1000 students and 500 decide to attend, they will have a 50% yield rate.

    The higher the yield rate, the better.

    If there is an applicant that far exceeds the school's stats, it is expected that the applicant will go to a better school regardless of whether or not they are accepted with scholarship.

    Schools will deny/waitlist people who far exceed their stats because they don't want to accept someone who has very little chance of actually matriculating. This protects their yield %.

  • RelentlessRelentless Core Member
    323 karma

    @cooljon525 Very helpful to know. Thank you!

  • Michael.CincoMichael.Cinco Member Sage
    edited December 2019 2116 karma

    @99thPercentileOrDieTryin said:
    Score to guarantee T14? 180. Seriously, I never saw the point in aiming lower than the top. Even if you don’t ever hit such heights, make it your goal anyway.

    On the face of it that seems reasonable but a person trying to hit 180 would have different test taking strategies than a person trying to hit 168.

  • noonawoonnoonawoon Alum Member
    3481 karma

    I read a comment on here of someone scoring 172&180 and having a 3.81 and still getting a few rejections (as well as some great acceptances!). I don't know their fully story/application at all of course, just read that one comment. But it definitely feels like there are no guarantees.

  • zgnc0616zgnc0616 Member
    41 karma

    When are you applying? I know for a lot of people a 170 is a good goal because it's uniformly viewed as a pretty good score. LSAT still matters more than GPA and this score might not get you into the T6 without fail, but it will definitely get you in the running for the lower T14s and it's at / above medians for a few at the bottom so you might even be able to get some significant money.

    If your goal is HYS, shooting for a 175 is probably a good goal (this is just conjecture though, I didn't apply to those schools). It's high enough to make you really competitive but not necessarily a big red flag such that you'd get YP'ed (which, btw, some schools are known not to do).

    For what it's worth, I ended up with a good cycle as a reverse splitter this year so feel free to reach out if you want to know more about that!

  • 1000001910000019 Alum Member
    3279 karma

    Whatever score helps the school maintain its target 50th percentile.

  • Seeking PerfectionSeeking Perfection Alum Member
    4423 karma

    @noonawoon said:
    I read a comment on here of someone scoring 172&180 and having a 3.81 and still getting a few rejections (as well as some great acceptances!). I don't know their fully story/application at all of course, just read that one comment. But it definitely feels like there are no guarantees.

    That would be me(I assume there isn't another person fitting that description), I have been kind of busy to come back to comment as much as I was for a while, but I just happened to come back and see this comment.

    I ended up taking a $150,000 dollar scholarship to U of M(Michigan is my home state where I plan to stay). I also got in to Columbia(Not much aid), Duke(matched U of M), and WUSTL(independently offered $150,000 which was full tuition for them, but not for Duke or Michigan).

    Stanford and I think Harvard rejected me. I was waitlisted everywhere else in the Top 14 including Yale. I gave a token effort to get off the waitlist at Yale and didn't try anywhere else.

    The waitlists were probably yield protection, but you can get by those if you write letters of continued interest and probably can avoid them better than I did by spending more time writing convincing Why X essays.

    And my GPA obviously wasn't above 75th everywhere. MYLSN seemed to be the best prediction resource when I applied. I'd also go to law school numbers and sort by LSAT and look at what percentage of the people with each score/GPA are getting what scholarships.

    https://mylsn.info/r/pre-law/admissions/search/

    But the overall moral of the story is that you are probably set for getting in with some money if you can get above median and definitely above 75th.

    If you do get an above 75th LSAT, then you should to look school by school if you want to see how competitiive the full tuition scholarships, like the Darrow, the Rubenstein, (NYUs list of different ones) etc are. If you can get one of those options they may be a better value than a spot at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford which only give out need based aid and not very much at that.

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