For the 14th years, the LEAP Center has offered students the opportunity to take a real LSAT, without the stress and pressure of a score that counts. This is a crucial part of getting to law school: learning your current score so that you can develop a study plan that will get you a score that you want.
This semester, we had forty-three students sign up for LSAT, and we returned to an in-person (with masks and social distancing) format. Thirty-seven of those students showed up on a Saturday morning to take a four-hour test!
The real LSAT has been modified somewhat as a result of COVID, but beginning in August 2021, students will take four sections on test day: Analytical Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, and an Experimental Section. Finally, students will also do a writing sample, although this does not need to be done on test day (it can be submitted about a week before or after).
There are more than 200 law schools in the US, and about 170 of these have a solid or strong record of students passing the bar and gaining employment. To get into one of these latter schools, students need an LSAT of about 150 or higher, with the very highest-ranked law schools looking for LSAT scores of about 175 or more.
As you might expect, the Mock LSAT scores, on average, aren’t as high as many students would like. That’s not a huge issue, because we encourage students to take the Mock LSAT “cold,” with no pre-studying. Once they get their baseline score, they can begin studying, take the Mock LSAT each semester, track their progress, and then as their official test date draws near, they can assess whether they want to take an LSAT Prep Course.
Over the past decades, these efforts have paid off. For the past dozen years, SHSU has consistently ranked in the LSAC’s “Top Feeder Schools” to law schools. Out of the 2,775 or so four-year degree-granting institutions in the US, SHSU ranks around 110 (top 4 percent) as a law school feeder. It’s one of the many programs that have grown in stature at SHSU, and we are excited for the students who are in law school now and those who will be enrolling soon!
Center for Law, Engagement, and Politics 