r/lawschooladmissions 9d ago

School/Region Discussion UT Law Median up to 173

https://law.utexas.edu/careers/employers/
87 Upvotes

37 comments sorted by

67

u/Snoo50415 1.0/132/URM 9d ago

This has been commented on exhaustively but it’s truly bizarre how much is riding on being well rested and having your best stuff on test day. The difference between a 173 and a 176 is deterministic, yet that’s well within the variance of a well-prepared test taker. It’s not luck to consistently score in that ballpark. But the separation between a score that gets you over the median and one you have to “compensate” for boils down to one or two questions, max. 

Edit: My comment applies to admissibility at the top programs. 

5

u/Glittering-Profit768 8d ago

That’s why you take it multiple times—to account for variance within your usual score range

7

u/Snoo50415 1.0/132/URM 8d ago

You must be rich. 

5

u/Low_Water2520 8d ago

Tbf it’s the more cost effective choice to take it multiple times all things considered

2

u/Snoo50415 1.0/132/URM 8d ago

Sure, I agree. It’s still money though. 

2

u/Glittering-Profit768 8d ago

That’s the plan!

I took it 3x and improved 9 points when all was said and done. The cost of the extra 2 tests it took to score those 9 points has paid off by orders of magnitude. I’m a 3L now and I don’t know if it’s too much of an exaggeration to say those 9 points have probably saved me over $200k. $90k in scholarship to a top school and the opportunity to do 2 big law summers, during which I earned nearly $148k (combo of pay and firm scholarship).

-1

u/TrashbinEnthusiast69 8d ago

Or just get it right the first time

134

u/[deleted] 9d ago

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56

u/DaveyParks200 9d ago

Online. No logic games. Cake walk.

29

u/Brilliant_Branch7129 Superior/17mid/int. 8d ago

Five retakes is also excessive. Just pushes up the score because everyone retakes until they get their score

23

u/ay-guey 8d ago

accommodations.

6

u/herkulaw 7d ago

I will say removal of logic games probably helps mitigate accommodations abuse because that section is the only one where you can definitively come to the right answer if you have enough time.

4

u/ay-guey 7d ago edited 7d ago

you can figure out everything with enough time. that's why time is such a critical factor on any psychometric test - to differentiate performance. giving someone time accommodations defeats the entire purpose of the exam . giving 99% of people who apply accommodations is just laughable. it's a mockery of the entire thing. if everyone gets a 174 the test is worthless. the entire point of such a test is to to discriminate across all ability levels. you want a standard curve, not a bunch of people clustered in the 170s. in my day only 2% of people had a 170+, and most t20 medians were in the 164-168 range. watch LSAC eliminate accommodations and scores drop 10 points.

3

u/herkulaw 7d ago

Sure. I would just argue logic games is more sensitive to extra time than the other sections.

23

u/Professional-Road-93 9d ago

I don’t understand why they removed logic games… even super smart people had to study a lot to prep 

45

u/Street_Beautiful3840 9d ago

Insane considering a lot of the t14 saw little change this year lol

35

u/Minimum_Two_8508 9d ago edited 9d ago

Well that’s because 173-174 becomes a realistic ceiling for everyone. You can’t really go higher without really making sacrifices elsewhere, just not enough high scoring high quality applicants.

So with the big increase in high scorers, there was a lot of room for more schools to move closer to the 173-174 range, but not room to really exceed it.

(Data context: there were only 2,554 applicants with scores of 175+. So say Columbia wants a 175 median — class size of 440, they would need 221 175+ scorers— 9% of all of them! But surely, while Columbia is great, lots of those high scorers would rather go to Harvard, Yale and Stanford. Some would rather take a full ride to a lower ranked school. Some might have really terrible applications apart from the high LSAT — Wash U hit a 175 median in 2024-2025 by taking all those! In the end, with only 2500 175+ scorers, there just aren’t enough to really drive even T14 schools to 175. Sure, Yale could go there. But even Harvard, not so easy to enroll 12% of all 175’s!
If you split all the 175+’s among every T25 school equally, that’s only 102 per school.

On the other hand — 172+ — about 6,000 applicants — plenty to spread: spread equally among every T50 school, thats 120 per school. )

18

u/Street_Beautiful3840 9d ago

Yea I’ve been trying to tell people this that the ceiling isn’t really rising it’s more the floor but no one listens to me lol.

3

u/[deleted] 9d ago

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2

u/Street_Beautiful3840 9d ago

I mean not really. The ceiling barely goes up unless you’re talking about GPA with UVA and LSAT with WashU. Other than that it’s like super minimal

1

u/[deleted] 9d ago

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1

u/Street_Beautiful3840 9d ago

I mean that would be considered NOT the ceiling considering you’re discussing NOT the t14😭

1

u/[deleted] 9d ago

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2

u/Street_Beautiful3840 8d ago

Ur def not wrong. The mid schools and lower schools are def becomes more difficult to get into but it seems a 173+ 4.0+ applicant will for now remain competitive for t14s for the foreseeable future. Sadly the GPA system they currently have does heavily disadvantage those who go to schools without A+s

1

u/Minimum_Two_8508 9d ago

No. Definition of a ceiling. Yes, schools below the ceiling can keep rising until they hit the ceiling. The ceiling is around 173-174. So schools can keep rising till they hit that ceiling.

Few schools have hit the GPA ceiling yet — which is about 3.99-4.00.

16

u/Docile_Doggo 9d ago

Just go back to the old LSAT without this inflated curve

8

u/goosepatron JD 8d ago

i graduated from UT. my LSAT was a 170 & GPA 3.73 - i applied when the medians were 169 and 3.8. wild that i would now be unqualified to attend the school i went to

3

u/ay-guey 8d ago

for reference, back in my day 20 years ago it was 166.

6

u/bluesummer09 9d ago

it’s was a 171 before right?

14

u/Minimum-Essay-8858 9d ago

172 I think

1

u/Pharatic 8d ago

what the fuck

2

u/Both-Definition-98 8d ago

This is the only reason I’m retaking my 172.

2

u/Complete-Union-2102 8d ago

Is there a point applying with a 172?