Special Episode: August Score Release

Um, first off, Ethan, how should we determine, how should a student determine whether or not they're going-- they should retake the test if, if, if the number that they've gotten back is, is good enough for their purposes or if they should retake it to try and get it higher?

Yeah.

There can definitely be a lot of nuance based off of your specific situation, but there is a general kind of heuristic you can use.

So if you're, if you wanna be in a good position applying to law schools, you either need to have the GPA median they're gonna be looking for or the LSAT median they're looking for.

Um, so if you already have the GPA median, there is a little less pressure on exactly getting to the LSAT median.

And actually, what's important, I should clarify, is not the LSAT median from the year before, but the LSAT median the school has already planned it's going to try to target, which might be one or two points a- above the score from the previous year.

Um, so if you already have the GPA and, uh, you know, you get your score back and it's kind of at least at the 25th percentile and maybe you feel like you're tapped out, that might be a situation where not retaking could be okay.

Um, yeah.

Wait, quick question, maybe kind of a silly one.

How do you figure out what are their targeted-

Yeah

... uh, medians for the next year? Just add one or two points, or can you look those up?

Basically, yeah.

All of them.

Um, they, they're definitely not gonna say what median they're targeting.

That's actually like an institutional secret in the school-

Right

... kind of playing against other schools.

Generally, the LSAT median is going to be either what it was last year or plus one.

In very rare instances, particularly for like T30 and below schools, it might be plus two or three.

So like you just have to control what category the school is gonna put you in, right? Like, obviously the best category is to be above both the GPA and LSAT median.

Um, but it's okay to be in the category of above the GPA median and then kind of like just below the LSAT median.

Like you kind of have a score that's comparable in the same score band as the median they want.

It's just technically not at the median.

You still have a fighter's chance.