Should I Re-Take the LSAT in February?
Good question! First off, we’ll be discussing this in our upcoming workshop in which we’ll review the December LSAT.
If you’re just looking to take an LSAT, it doesn’t matter which one you take — just take it after you’ve prepared! But if you already have taken the LSAT and are wondering whether to re-take, there’s a lot more to say. The question of whether you should re-take in June, Sep/Oct, or Dec has one set of answers. If you are wondering whether to re-take in one of those non-February months, take a look at some previous posts – should I re-take the LSAT & how to improve your LSAT score. But for February you get a special set of answers just for you!
In general, the answer is NO. Here’s why (and thanks to Ann Levine for some help on this one):
1. It’s hard to improve an LSAT score significantly in one month. Caveats: if you truly had a bad day on test day, and having such a day is completely out of the ordinary for you, sure, a re-test could conceivably show serious improvement. But, so you know, most people don’t improve that much. For example, the average person who re-takes the LSAT with a score between 150 and 160 improves only 2.4 points on the re-take (and the re-take improvement gets worse as you go up the score ladder). For most people, those 2.4 points are not enough to significantly alter your application — and for most folks, those 2 and almost a half points definitely do not warrant a re-take because . . .
2. To submit an application and then say you’d like them to wait until your February score arrives means that because of rolling admissions, you’ll be competing for fewer spots than if you submit with a December score. (And you’re obligated to tell a school if you’re re-taking.) Similarly . . .
3. If you’re hoping to use a new score to convince a school to pull you off its waiting list and you’re submitting an application with a December score, the June LSAT should be just fine for such purposes.
This may be the excuse you were waiting for to not get back on the LSAT bandwagon for a while. For those of you who are going to go for the Feb re-take, good luck and dig deep to beat the averages!