LSAT Scoring Scale
This week’s podcast discusses the LSAT scoring scale. We’ll hear from experts Dave Killoran, CEO of PowerScore Test Preparation; Andrew Brody, Vice President of Content Development at The Princeton Review; and Glen Stohr, Senior Manager of Product Development for the LSAT with Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions.
Dave Killoran begins by delineating the differences between an LSAT “raw score” and “percentile score,” noting that the former is based purely on the number of actual questions a student got correct on a single test, while the latter pits a student’s raw score against the last three years of LSAT scores as archived by LSAC. Killoran also discusses the LSAT scale conversion chart, which provides test takers with the score they are most familiar with—a number from 120 to 180. Killoran closes by putting to rest a common LSAT misconception: Students often think that their score is based off their performance as compared to other students in their testing center—however, says Killoran, this is simply not true. No matter how your testing neighbor does on the LSAT, he explains, your score will be based on how many questions you got correct on your own test, and not how many questions you got correct as compared to those in your testing center.
Our second guest, Andrew Brody, also discusses the scaled score, and talks about what students can do to obtain that covered 180. He goes a step further in his explanation of scaled scores, and discusses LSAT score bands, and how they can affect a student’s (and law school’s) perception of an LSAT score. Brody, like Killoran, emphasizes the importance of the scaled conversion chart, and encourages students to become familiarized with how it works and how it produces scores–by doing so, he says, students will known more about their scoring capabilities and how to harness them.
Our final guest, Glen Stohr, echoes our first two guests’, definitions of the raw, scaled and percentile scores and numbers. He then proceeds to explain the difference between “tough” and “easy” LSATs. Stohr also answers a question that many prospective law applicants posit by explaining that that the majority of law schools use the highest overall LSAT score, rather than an average of all a student’s LSAT scores, for admission purposes. In closing, Stohr underscores the importance of studying for, and striving to do the best possible, on the LSAT—the score will have an impact not only on where a student attends law school, but can also affect how much financial aid (if any) they are awarded.
Dave Killoran – CEO and President of PowerScore
Andrew Brody – Vice President of Content Development with the Princeton Review
Glen Stohr – Senior Manager of Product Development for the LSAT with Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions