Return to Blog Homepage

Your October 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction

BPPCaption-contest-lsat-blog-october2

We’re on day four of celebrating Halloween — and, it should be noted, it is not even Halloween yet — and some pre-law folk are getting into the holiday spirit today by visiting one of the most haunted “houses” of them all: an LSAT test center. As you are undoubtedly aware, today is the October 2019 LSAT, the first October LSAT since 2015. And, given its proximity to All Hallows’ Eve, it’s the spookiest LSAT, by far. For all those pre-law folk who are now emerging from classrooms, hotel conference rooms, or wherever you took this test, you deserve a well-earned congratulations, irrespective of whether you’ve mastered all the tricks to make this exam a treat.

As for us, we’re excited for this LSAT administration to be just a normal LSAT administration. Every recent LSAT has brought a ton of changes to the test. Whether it was the elimination of the test day writing section in June 2019, or the hullabaloo of the July 2019 exam, or the first all-digital exam in September 2019 — the recent tests have been a bear to cover. This one, to us at least, just feels like a “normal” LSAT test day — at least as normal-feeling as an afternoon spent in a dreary test center with dozens of other sweaty law school hopefuls can be.

And we hope for the sake of all of you emerging from those centers that this exam had that “normal” feeling — that there weren’t any frightful games (like there were in September) or too many hair-raising LR questions. Early reports suggest that was the case — a pretty standard set of games and none-too-memorable Logical Reasoning questions, and a very difficult Reading Comp section (which is, unfortunately, the norm for current LSATs). It sounds like the topics of the games included shelving books, South American travel guides, and assigning attorneys to cases. The passages were about Latin jazz, Indonesian volcanoes, intellectual property, and ice drilling. Also, contrary to what we predicted, it didn’t seem like this was a re-used old test, as far as we can tell.

But maybe you disagree! Let this post serve as a safe space for your own thoughts and feelings about this test. If there was something ghastly or ghoulish you want to rehash, your comments are always kindly received. It should be noted, however, that we can’t get too specific here, lest we get smote by LSAC. Here’s a pretty good description of post-exam rules of discourse.

And assuming this was a difficult exam for you, you can … ahem … ghost your score by canceling it. Before doing so, you can read up on LSAC’s official cancellation policy here. Or you can hear it from us: you have until Sunday, November 3rd, 11:59 pm Eastern to cancel. So you have some time. Sleep on it. Take a look at this video, featuring sage advice from Blueprint co-founder Matt Riley.

Before canceling, you should also be aware that nearly every law school will simply use your highest LSAT when constructing your academic index, or whatever calculation it uses to assess you as an applicant. Although law schools will see every score you got on the LSAT in the last five years, the vast majority of them won’t hold having multiple LSAT scores against you to a significant degree. For most test takers, our recommendation is … don’t cancel. Choose to receive your score, just on the chance that you’ll be happy enough with the score that you don’t have to study for the next exam. For a more thorough discussion of this issue, check out this blog post.

No matter the decision, you survived this haunted house. Now, we hope you can close this post, leave your computer for a little bit, and enjoy the some real Halloween festivities. You only have a few more days until it’s actually Halloween and the celebrations must come to an end.