Next 9 LSAT Dates, Plus Format Changes

[Dave Killoran]

LSAC has just announced the next 9 LSAT dates as well as some future test format changes! The nine new LSAT dates are:

June 12th, 2021 (last Flex)
August 14th, 2021 (adds Exp + break)
October 9th, 2021
November 13th, 2021

January 15th, 2022
February 12th, 2022
March 12th, 2022
April 30th, 2022
June 11th, 2022

These start dates are the first day of each test administration, and each exam could run anywhere from 2-6 days depending the number of test takers

The June 2021 exam is the last LSAT-Flex, and then starting in August a fourth, unscored section will be added (the return of the Experimental!), along with a 10 minute break between sections 2 and 3. The exam is still online, and taken at home.

Registration for the June 2021 LSAT will open next Monday (2/22) and run through 11:59 pm EST on Thursday, April 29th. This end date is intentional: 4/29 is the score release date for the April test, so anyone waiting on April results before making June plans will have the rest of that day to decide. Registration for subsequent tests—August 2021 and beyond—will begin in mid-May of this year (exact date TBD).

I spoke with LSAC about these changes for a while last night, so if you have any questions, please let me know.

[menkenj]

Thanks Dave, I appreciate you helping to keep students in the loop with LSAC announcements and changes.

I have a few questions if you don't mind.

1. Do you have a sense if the June exam will follow the trend of past June exams where LSAC tries to mix it up?
2. Also, my sense is that law schools will continue to treat flex scores and non-flex scores as equivalent. Is there evidence to suggest anything to the contrary?
3. Did LSAC mention which, if any, of the 2021 exams will be disclosed?

Thanks again!
Julie

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Julie!

Some thoughts here for you:

1. Yes, I do
2. There's no sense at all that schools see these tests differently. To them, they are just LSAT scores!
3. This hasn't been disclosed yet, and is my very first question to them next time we talk

Thanks!

[menkenj]

Hi Julie!

Some thoughts here for you:

1. Yes, I do

I see what you did there

Hopefully you tell us more on a future podcast!

[Dave Killoran]

I will! It's still a few tests away so we need to see what they do in February here first

[luckiesailor]

Hi guys! I'm new here. Could you provide a little more context on "mix it up in June"? Thanks so much!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi guys! I'm new here. Could you provide a little more context on "mix it up in June"? Thanks so much!

Yes, happily Once you begin to study this test heavily, you will eventually become invested in understanding what the test makers are doing. This works on multiple levels, from the logic in the questions, to policy changes, to the source of the tests they use each administration. That last point is what is being asked about here.

LSAC re-uses nondisclosed exams over the years. This is common practice and nothing unusual; it's one of the reasons they don't disclose all exams in the first place!

As a company, we have a long history of studying this test and we have closely tracked what they do for decades. This gives us some unique abilities: we have at times in the past correctly predicted which nondisclosed LSAT they would use for particular tests (rare but occasionally possible) and we can also see the "era" from which they pulled when administering certain exams. This last part is relevant to the question, because some recent tests have come from eras that correspond to PrepTests dates, and the usual way people reference those are as the 40s, 50s, 60, etc. Thus, when someone says "is it from the 80s," what they mean is it from the time span covered by PrepTest 80 through PrepTest 89 (December 2016 through November 2019). In our LSAT podcast, we talk about this phenomenon frequently, so if you listen to any of our test recaps you'll hear us talking about "prior uses" of certain exams, and the time frame they came from.

Recently, LSAC has been drawing exams from all over the place (80s, then 40s, back up to the 80s, then back down to 50s, etc) and so the question is asking me whether I see that erratic pattern continuing. And I did, and I still do

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[natalieb]

This is so helpful, thanks Dave! Any answer yet on which tests will be disclosed? I can’t find this information anywhere!

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Any answer yet on which tests will be disclosed?

Hi Natalie,

Thanks for the post, and great question! We actually don't know yet either. However, we don't see it being likely, although perhaps one test per year may be disclosed randomly. Dave and Jon mention this on their podcast at the 36:25 mark: https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/podcast/79/.

Thanks!