HLS in Focus

Recently, at the end of an information session I led here at the Law School, a prospective applicant approached me to ask (I kid you not), “So I got stung by a bee during the LSAT—is that a good explanation for a lower score?”

Naturally, a million responses sprang to mind. How big was the bee? Was it of the “killer” variety? Did it die shortly afterwards? Was it during the logic games section? Obviously the treatment of the bee-sting-induced score is dependent on these follow-up questions…

Actually, as I tell prospective applicants all the time, we will take into consideration a reasonable explanation of a lower LSAT score. If you take the exam twice or more, we generally average those scores, but we may look more at the higher score if it makes sense.

What are some good explanations? First of all, the truth is a good start. If you took the exam cold the first time and then put in some time studying before the second exam, that could easily explain the difference. If the school marching band was practicing right outside the window of the test center, we could see how that might distract. If you contracted the avian flu and barely survived the initial test date, that’s OK too.

Maybe that’s going a bit far. But keep in mind that we might wonder why, if you had such a distracting day, or if you had a death in the family, or some other serious barrier to performance, you didn’t just cancel your score. Or better yet, why not skip the test in the first place? And also keep in mind that having an explanation for a lower score doesn’t put you in a better position than those applicants who don’t have to explain anything at all.

This is not just a numbers game—and I’m sure I’ll get more into that in another entry—but even so, you do have to take the numbers seriously. Your competition does.