Lauren Butler, UMKC Law
Excerpted below, a recent edition of MAPLA Briefs (the newsletter of the Midwest Association of Pre-Law Advisors), offered some reflections on the impact of the new “unlimited LSAT policy.
____________________
Now that the Law School Council (LSAC) has eliminated the three-times-in-two-years limit on taking the LSAT (beginning in September 2017) how will this affect the advice we give as pre-law advisors? The new policy will allow for unlimited efforts at the test, and soon there will be additional scheduled administrations of the LSAT. Should we encourage students to take advantage of more tests?
Absolutely not, according to the law school admissions staff interviewed for this article. Katherine Sims, Director of Admissions at Baylor Law School, states “My advice to applicants is to still have the goal of only having to take the LSAT one time. The LSAT requires a significant commitment of time and money, so it is in the best interest of the applicant to give it their all on their first attempt.” Pre-law advisors should counsel students to retake the test only when it is “absolutely necessary.”
Furthermore, students cannot assume that law schools will ignore all but the highest score out of multiple LSATs. While some law schools, such as Baylor, will continue to accept the best score of multiple LSATs, others also consider the average score of all LSATs taken. Michelle Heck, Director of Law School Admissions at the University of Missouri explains: “In the past we used the highest score if a student takes it twice. If a student takes the exam three or more times we would look at the high and the average score. This allows us to see if one score may have been an outlier. With the new changes this is still our policy.”
While the LSAC policy change has not resulted in an immediate change in law school admissions policies, admissions staff will be keeping a vigilant eye on applicant behavior. “The first year or two after the change will be a learning curve for us all,” says Lauren Butler, Assistant Director of Law Admissions at UMKC School of Law.