Paul L. Caron
Dean





Saturday, May 20, 2017

Facing Competition From GRE, LSAC Allows Applicants To Take LSAT An Unlimited Number Of Times

LSAT (2015)In the face of growing competition from the GRE (which is now accepted by Arizona and Harvard), the LSAC today is permitting 1,000 applicants to take a digital version of the LSAT.  In additional, the LSAC is removing the limit on how many times students can take the LSAT (the former limit was three times in any two-year period).

The ABA and LSAC require law schools to report each applicant's highest LSAT score, which counts 12.5% in the U.S. News rankings.  The rule change thus gives wealthier students who can afford to take the LSAT multiple times an enormous advantage in law school admissions.

The rule change also will increase LSAC's revenues, which were $59.7 million in its most recent publicly available Form 990.  LSAC has $238 million of assets and paid its President $692,000.  Four other employees were paid over $300,000. 

From Jeff Thomas, Kaplan Test Prep's executive director of pre-law programs:

LSAC removing its testing limit and potentially offering additional testing dates is very student-friendly. The additional flexibility could go a long way in destressing the admissions process. Dean Kellye Testy, LSAC’s newly announced president and CEO, has shared desires to evolve the organization, so this would seem to fit the bill. LSAC is also likely concerned, understandably, about losing marketshare to ETS, now that Harvard Law School has announced that it will begin accepting scores from the GRE in addition to scores to the LSAT. Other law schools may be waiting in the wings to do this too. Offering the test more times throughout the year and allowing students to take it more than three times over a two-year period might make the LSAT a more attractive option for test takers. But our advice to students will always remain the same: prep once, get one killer LSAT score, and leave no doubt to admissions officers about your candidacy to your top law school choices.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/05/facing-competition-from-gre-lsac-allows-applicants-to-take-lsat-an-unlimited-number-of-times-.html

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