Is an applicant's LSAT score really all that important to the law schools?

Many law school applicants grossly underestimate the importance of their LSAT score in the law school admission process. They reason, "Certainly, who I am and what I've achieved in my life so far is vastly more important than my performance on a single standardized test." This is rational, but wrong, because of the enormous market impact of the US News & World Report ranking system. Law schools feel great pressure to produce entering classes with high LSAT scores. Thus, extraordinary weight is placed on one's performance on the LSAT. I caution all of my advisees to first construct a developmental path that maximizes the probability of high official LSAT performance.

Often times, parents—even lawyer parents—get this wrong. Their common sense (and parental affection!) tell them that the law schools cannot possibly weigh their child’s LSAT performance so significantly, when considered against the other achievements in their child’s life. Yet the reality is that small differences in LSAT performance result in enormous differences in the decisions of law school admissions officials. As one example, I’ve seen a three-point rise in an advisee’s LSAT score suddenly cause one respected regional law school to award a three-year, full-tuition scholarship (plus a signing bonus!) to the advisee, and another law school, an elite national one, to move him promptly from waitlisted to admitted. In another case, a truly brilliant advisee with a powerfully competitive record was waitlisted at a Top 5 law school. Why? This advisee lacked just one LSAT point. One point.

For more information about my recommendations, please see my detailed advice on top LSAT performance at PrelawAdvisor.com.