LSAT Retake Calculator
Should you retake? Enter your current LSAT, target score, and GPA. We project your odds at the T25 before and after the retake, then tell you whether to sit, consider, or retake. Free, no signup. Powered by ABA 509 admissions data.
Enter your current and target LSAT, plus GPA, to see how a retake moves your odds.
Frequently asked questions
- How many points do retakers typically gain?
- LSAC publishes retaker statistics each cycle. Average gain on a second attempt is roughly 2 to 3 points. About 30% of retakers improve by 5 or more points; about 15% score lower than their first attempt. Most of the gain comes from familiarity with timing and section transitions, not raw skill jumps. Plan your retake assuming 2 to 3 points of gain: anything more is upside, anything less means you should rethink your study plan before sitting again.
- Does retaking the LSAT hurt my application?
- Schools see every LSAT score on your file (LSAC reports them all), but they report only the highest score to the ABA for their median calculation. This makes "super-scoring" the de facto standard: admissions committees focus on your highest score for ranking purposes. A second attempt with no improvement is mildly bad signal; a third attempt with no improvement looks worse. There is no formal cap, but most schools weight your highest score heavily and the trend matters less than the peak.
- When does retaking NOT make sense?
- Three scenarios: (1) you are already at or above your target schools' 75th percentile, where the marginal gain is small relative to the risk of a lower score. (2) Your current score is within 1 to 2 points of your target, where the model already gives a strong probability and a retake has diminishing returns. (3) You do not have time to study substantively before the next sitting; a retake without 2 to 3 months of additional prep usually returns a similar or lower score. The calculator above flags these cases as "sit" recommendations.
- How is the projected probability calculated?
- For your target LSAT, we run the same admissions model used in our admissions-probability calculator: calibrated using each school's reported percentile spread, with GPA factored in alongside LSAT. The "current" and "projected" probabilities you see are averaged across the T25 (top 25 schools) by default. Pro users can run the same projection against their specific target school list rather than the T25 average.
- How many times can I take the LSAT?
- LSAC limits you to 3 attempts per testing year, 5 attempts in five years, and 7 attempts total over your lifetime. Cancellations count toward these limits. If you are considering a third or fourth attempt, the marginal gain has to be substantial: both because of the cap and because admissions committees scrutinize repeat-retaker patterns. The calculator does not enforce these limits, but factor them into your decision.