Applying in December

[aac13134]

Hi everyone,

I am in need of some advice regarding application timing. I just took the August LSAT and am guessing I fell somewhere in the 159-162 range. I am confident that with a couple more months I can reach where I want to be (mid 160s). I plan on signing up for the November LSAT, which would put me on track for applying in early/mid December.

I'm less worried about getting into schools at that point in the cycle as I am about scholarship money. How much more difficult is it to obtain significant scholarship sums in December as opposed to, say, September or October? Is it a severe disadvantage? Or is it still worth gunning for the additional LSAT points?

Thanks for everything you guys do!

[Paul Marsh]

Hey aac13134! For admissions purposes, applying earlier in the cycle does give you a slight bump over applying later in the cycle. However, that's typically offset by any in your LSAT score. For most schools (particularly non-T14), a January applicant with a 165 will generally beat out the November applicant with a 164, all else equal. Here's a nice blog post from PowerScore about it:

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/does-s ... r-chances/

Now as for scholarships. I don't know if there's any hard data out there like there is for admissions, but the same thing is generally true: applying earlier will help a bit, but having a higher score is even better for scholarships.

Best of luck!