What Is the LSAT? The Law School Admission Test Explained for Future Lawyers

The LSAT is the Law School Admission Test: the standardized exam for law school admission that LSAC, the Law School Admission Council, administers.

LSAC describes it as the only admission test accepted by all ABA-approved law schools — American law schools approved by the American Bar Association.

That makes it the one test accepted everywhere in the ABA-approved system.

The test has two parts.

The first is four 35-minute sections of multiple-choice questions.

The second is an unscored writing sample, LSAT Argumentative Writing, which is handled separately from the multiple-choice sitting.

The multiple-choice part takes approximately 3 hours for standard test takers, with a 10-minute intermission between the second and third sections.

One change matters a lot in 2026–27: starting with the August 2026 LSAT, LSAC requires in-person testing at Prometric test centers.

Remote testing survives only as an exception — for limited medical or disability accommodations, or for test takers who live more than 180 miles or three hours from a test center.

If you have read that the LSAT is mostly an at-home test, that information is out of date.

The division of labor around the test is worth knowing.

LSAC administers the LSAT, sets its fees, publishes the testing calendar and releases your score.

The ABA approves the schools.

And the licensing steps that come after law school — the bar exam and the character-and-fitness review that is part of the admission process in every jurisdiction — are handled by each jurisdiction's own bar admission authority, not by LSAC.

Since the August 2024 LSAT, the multiple-choice part consists of two scored Logical Reasoning sections, one scored Reading Comprehension section, and one unscored section of either Logical Reasoning or Reading Comprehension.

Analytical Reasoning — the section everyone called "logic games" — is gone.

If a source still describes logic games, it is describing the pre-August 2024 exam, and the same is true of any source that treats the LSAT as an at-home test in the current cycle.

The writing part, LSAT Argumentative Writing, is unscored — but for first-time test takers, unscored does not mean optional.

Most test takers get 50 minutes for it: 15 minutes of prewriting analysis and 35 minutes to write.

The task is to present a position on a debatable issue using three or four supplied perspectives.

Logistically it sits apart from the rest of the test: it is taken online, on demand, through LawHub with remote proctoring software, and it opens about eight days before each test administration.

First-time test takers must complete it and have it approved before LSAC releases their score, and that processing can take up to three weeks — so build it into your timeline rather than treating it as an afterthought.

LSAT scores run from 120, the lowest possible score, to 180, the highest.

Within that scale, every question is weighted equally and there is no deduction for wrong answers.

Alongside the score sits a percentile rank, which reflects the share of test takers scoring lower over the previous three testing years.

LSAC updates those percentiles every year by the end of July, so a rank is recalculated annually against a rolling three-year window even though the underlying score stays fixed.

Scores also have a shelf life.

A result stays reportable for five testing years after the testing year in which it was earned — testing years run July 1 to June 30 — and scores earned before July 2021 are no longer valid for law school admission.

If a sitting goes badly, you have a short window to keep it off your record: a score can be cancelled within six calendar days of the test date, unless you bought Score Preview.

Score Preview costs $46 before the first test day or $87 after testing, and it extends the decision by giving you six calendar days after score release to cancel.

The LSAT's career effect runs through admission.

It is the common denominator test — the one every ABA-approved law school accepts — and your place among other test takers is part of what you submit: your percentile rank reflects the share of test takers scoring lower over the previous three testing years, and law schools receive every reportable score you have, not a hand-picked best.

That record-reading detail shapes strategy.

LSAC advises law schools that a candidate's average LSAT score is the best predictor of their ability, though some schools place more weight on the highest score.

Retakes are allowed — five within the current reportable score period and seven over a lifetime — and LSAC says test takers taking a second test in the same testing year raise their scores by 2 to 3 points on average.

Because a score stays reportable for five testing years, a sitting you would rather forget can follow you for a while, which is why the cancellation window above exists.

From admission, the chain continues: the schools that admit you are the schools you can actually choose between, and the cost of the one you attend becomes the debt you carry into your early career.

That is the practical sense in which one test day can reach into your career years later.

One part of that chain our research did not quantify: how any given school turns an LSAT score into a scholarship offer.

Aid policies are school-specific, so if money is central to your decision, ask each admissions and financial aid office directly how it uses LSAT scores in its award decisions rather than relying on averages you read online — including on this page.

When the test is behind you, the path runs through law school and bar admission to practice.

The attorney career guide covers what the work looks like at the end of that path; this page stays with the test that starts it.

The short answer runs on acceptance, not requirements: per LSAC, the LSAT is the only admission test accepted by all ABA-approved law schools, while the GRE and JD-Next are each accepted by some schools only.

Submit an alternative and the schools that don't take it are off your list before your application is even read.

The main alternative is the GRE.

ETS, the company that makes it, says 130+ ABA-approved law schools accept the GRE and that the ABA formally recognized the GRE as a valid admissions test in 2021 — numbers worth reading as the test maker's own.

Actual use is another matter.

In the ABA's fall 2025 Standard 509 data, 92 of 196 reporting law schools enrolled at least one first-year student admitted with a GRE score, and GRE-based enrollees totaled ~530 of 42,812 first-years (~1.2%).

On logistics, ETS notes the GRE can be taken at home or at a test center year-round, while the LSAT moved to in-person testing by default in August 2026, with only the limited remote exceptions described above — the trade-off some applicants weigh.

The newest option is JD-Next.

Its publisher's variance list shows 68 ABA-accredited law schools approved to use JD-Next as an alternative admission test, with approval dates from 2023 to 2026.

The publisher describes a variance as ABA permission to use JD-Next in place of the LSAT or GRE under the ABA's admission-test standard — that description comes from the test's owner, and the ABA's own standard text was not accessible when we researched this page.

In the fall 2025 ABA data, 30 schools reported first-year students admitted with JD-Next, about 127 students in total.

So the honest summary: alternatives are real, but the schools' own disclosures show only a small fraction of first-years entering on one — about 1.2% of first-years on the GRE and about 127 students in total on JD-Next — while the LSAT remains the one test every ABA-approved school accepts.

Registration runs through LSAC.

For August 2026 through June 2027, the LSAT costs $253, which includes LSAT Argumentative Writing.

CAS costs $219, and each CAS Law School Report or LSAT-Only Law School Report costs $45.

The fee is the same for first-time and repeat takers.

Changing your test date is free through the registration deadline, $153 up to 7 days after it, and $253 from 8 days after the deadline until testing.

The 2026–27 LSAT is offered in August, September, October, November, January, February, April and June, plus the LSAT–Puerto Rico in February.

Upcoming U.S. and Canada administrations, as of our October 2026 research:

• January 13–16, 2027 — register by December 1, 2026; scores February 3, 2027
• February 12–13, 2027 — register by December 29, 2026; scores March 3, 2027
• April 8–10, 2027 — register by February 25, 2027; scores April 28, 2027
• June 9–12, 2027 — register by April 29, 2027; scores June 30, 2027

After you register, you schedule your actual session through Prometric's ProScheduler tool in an assigned "first register, first in line" scheduling window — registering early moves you earlier in that line.

Since testing is now in person except for the limited exceptions described above, plan around getting to a test center on your date.

Cost help exists: an LSAC Tier 1 fee waiver covers up to two LSATs in the two-year waiver period, while a Tier 2 waiver does not include a retake.

As for preparation, we keep this page general — prep courses are a market of their own and not something we review here.

Start from LSAC's own preparation pages, which lay out the current question types, and practice against the real structure: four 35-minute sections on test day plus the separately scheduled writing.