Accommodated LSAT Scores and US News & World Report

An accommodated LSAT usually entails extra time for the test taker. This can be either time-and-a-half or double time. An LSAT applicant seeking accommodations for a learning disability or other impairment must provide a recent physiological or medical exam (which can cost $2,000), documenting the learning disability or impairment. One can also expect to have to prove an extended history of accommodations (in high school, on the SAT, and in college).

LSAC tends to be stricter in granting extra time than the College Board, which administers the SAT.

If you have taken the LSAT with accommodations, your score is not to be reported to the American Bar Association, which is where U.S. News & World Report gets its data for ranking purposes. And if you took the LSAT once with accommodations and once without, NEITHER score is to be reported. I have found that some law school admissions personnel do not know about that last provision of the rule. They think that their option is to report: (1) the higher accommodated score; or (2) the lower unaccommodated score. This is incorrect.

The ABA rule on this matter states:

If a matriculant took the LSAT under nonstandard conditions you should exclude this matriculant from your calculation of 75th, median and 25th percentile calculations. This exclusion should apply whether the matriculant took the LSAT one time or multiple times, so long as at least one test was taken under nonstandard conditions.

For more information see Part 2, Enrollment, of the ABA’s Annual Questionnaire.

For more information from LSAC, see Accommodated Testing.

For more information about my work to assist law school applicants, please see my website PrelawAdvisor.com or send an e-mail to BradDobeck@aol.com.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Thank you for clarifying the rules.