No-Show on the LSAT

[sdk]

If someone doesn't show up to take the LSAT, are there any penalty? How do law schools look at that?

[Jon Denning]

There is no "penalty," but you will lose your registration fee and it will appear as an Absence on your official file. Fortunately schools really don't care about absences, so there's no harm done admissions-wise, and since you didn't take the test it doesn't count as one of your three tests in two years (the max limit allowed by LSAC).

Certainly better to be absent than to take the test and get a low score or have to cancel.

[Anne Chaconas]

As a side note, though, even though a single absence doesn't really affect your application or how law schools see you, multiple absences don't look great, and may signal to schools that you're "flaky" or can't handle the pressure of a lengthy standardized test (neither of which are good things). Like Jon said, an absence is definitely better than a low score or a cancellation, but think carefully about that no-show if you're already got one (or more) absences on record.