Students interested in applying to law school have a major hurdle to vault. They must take the LSAT or Law School Admission Test. It's a half-day exam offered four times a year, on a Saturday in October, December and February, and a Monday in June. Applicants should take the exam no later than December of the year prior to admission.
The exam includes five 35-minute sections, all multiple-choice, on reading comprehension and accuracy, data organization, critical thinking and analysis. The emphasis of this exam is on logic and reasoning, and the reading selections resemble the kind of reading one does in law school. An analytical reasoning section probes applicants' ability to deduce and analyze relationships between people and situations. And a logical reasoning section assesses the skills necessary to build strong arguments and analyze weak ones. In short, these are not the kind of questions you'd ever find on the SAT, and few people undertake this exam without taking an intense - and expensive - test prep class first.
A final writing section is not included in the final score, but is sent to prospective law schools.
The LSAT is graded on a 120-180 scale. Although law schools use a number of factors in making their admissions decisions, the LSAT carries an enormous amount of weight.
For more information on the LSAT, to register for a test date or to learn more about applying to law school, visit the Law School Admission Council's website.
