Score Preview Question

[mightydonut]

Hi, I have a question about how score preview works.
I took the October Flex yesterday and I'm also signed up to take the November Flex. I also have the score preview for first-time test takers (October was my first LSAT). I haven't done the LSAT Writing yet.

To my understanding, if we don't complete the LSAT Writing, then we won't be able to see our scores, but would it be okay to purposely not complete the LSAT Writing in order to delay receiving my score? I guess I mean to ask, if I deliberately delayed my score release, would my Score Preview still be eligible? I won't be able to know my November score until more than 3 weeks into November, but if I do my Writing now, my October score will probably be released before November. Which means I'd have to decide whether or not to cancel my score before knowing my November score.

Would my Score Preview still stand if I deliberately refrained from completing my Writing section (at the expense of not knowing my October score for a few more weeks)? Or does Score Preview only work when I complete the process in what is expected to be the "normal procedure"?

Thank you in advance!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi mightydonut,

Good question! This is certainly a problem that many people encounter, namely, having to decide whether or not to take a given LSAT administration before one has the scores returned from the prior test administration.

Further, I think that LSAC and the LSAT have certainly undergone significant changes within a short timeframe--the transition to no longer requiring students to take the writing section on the same day as the rest of the test was only last year, and this year has obviously involved the need to accommodate remote testing through the LSAT Flex.

These recent changes might reasonably leave test takers with uncertainty about the writing sample, which is compounded by the reality that the writing sample of the LSAT is one of the least important aspects of one's application. In my understanding of the relevant factors of your situation, delaying your writing sample wouldn't necessarily cause a delay in your score being released, but there are still reasons to do it sooner rather than later. It appears that LSAC still sends one's scores on the test out to schools as it would normally do on a scheduled score release date, even if the applicant hasn't completed the writing section. However, in reviewing LSAC's explanations on its FAQs about the score preview option, I found the following question and answer:

What if I have a hold on my score for some other reason, such as not having completed my LSAT Writing requirement or a review of technical difficulties during my testing session? Do I lose my six-day score review opportunity?

The six-day score review opportunity only starts when your score is released to you. For example, if scores for your test administration were released on Friday, September 18, but you had a hold on your score due to a review of technical difficulties and your score was released to you on Friday, October 2, you would have until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time, Thursday, October 8, to decide whether to keep or cancel your score.

See here: https://www.lsac.org/lsat/taking-lsat/l ... re-preview. Though I didn't find any explicit explanations from LSAC stating that one's score would be delayed if one did not complete the writing section, this Q and A appears to suggest that LSAC reserves the right not to release an applicant's test score and could raise a failure to complete the writing section as a reason for doing so. Even if this were this case, it would seem to be LSAC's prerogative rather than that of the test taker.

Independent of LSAC's procedures, many schools have application instructions that explicitly state that the writing section is a required component of the application. This could potentially result in a school never making a decision on an otherwise complete application, simply because the applicant hadn't taken the writing section. It could also be possible that some schools don't explicitly state such an instruction but take it to be implicit that an applicant must complete all aspects of the LSAT for the person's overall application to be considered complete.

Lastly, Dave Killoran has a recent post on the writing sample here: https://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewtopic.php?t=32697. Discussing the August test, he explains that a queue developed as LSAC processed writing samples and reached out to applicants about issues. Thus, this could be an additional delay in your applications being considered complete by some schools.