Admissions and Application Help

Multiple LSAT Scores—Should You Take the LSAT More Than Once?

Law School Application Timelines

Applications: Electronic vs. Paper

What is the LSDAS?

Choosing a Law School

What to do if you are accepted, waitlisted, or rejected

Deferring Law School

Part-Time Programs vs. Full-Time Programs

The Socratic Method—Pros and Cons

Lewis and Clark Law School Interview

Accredited US and Canadian Law Schools

Recent LSAT News

Accepted/Rejected/Waitlisted

The LSAT is of course the first big challenge for most during the admissions process. But once you’ve sufficiently prepared, taken the test, and completed your applications, you get to wait for responses from the law schools to which you’ve applied. If you are waitlisted, there are steps you can take to maximize your chances of being accepted:

If you want to go to a school that has placed you on its waiting list, make sure that the admissions department knows that you are still sincerely interested. If there is additional information about you that might strengthen your application, you can request that the school add it as an addendum to your file. For example, you might get additional letters of recommendation written on your behalf.

If you are rejected, you can always petition for reconsideration by the admissions committee, but the success rate for this approach is minimal without some significant change or addition to the application. If you are committed to attending a particular school that didn’t accept your first application, you might consider reapplying the following year—just be sure that you’ve improved on your original application as much as possible, perhaps with more work experience, new recommendations, or, better yet, a higher LSAT score.

• Consider Retaking the LSAT

Two of the most important facets of your application are your undergraduate GPA and your LSAT score. For many law school applicants, it’s a bit too late to significantly alter one’s GPA, but thanks to new admissions policies, there has never been a better time to improve on one’s LSAT score. Until recently, law schools generally considered the average of all of a students LSAT scores. Now, however, almost every school looks at a student’s highest score. So if you got waitlisted or rejected the first time around, retaking the LSAT might be the best way to strengthen your application.