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LSAT stands for the Law School Admission Test. It is the standardized exam administered by the Law School Admission Council, or LSAC, that most ABA-accredited U.S. law schools require or accept for admission. The LSAT measures reading comprehension, logical reasoning, and analytical skills rather than any legal knowledge, and it is scored 120 to 180.
By Ali Unar, JD candidate at Georgetown Law and founder of Lovare Institut. Last updated August 2026. Every figure on this page was verified in August 2026 against the sources listed below.
LSAT stands for the Law School Admission Test. Note that the middle word is Admission, singular, not Admissions. The test is created and administered by the Law School Admission Council, known as LSAC, the nonprofit that also processes law school applications through its Credential Assembly Service.
The LSAT measures skills rather than content: reading comprehension, logical reasoning, and analytical reasoning. It does not test legal knowledge, history, math, or science, so you do not need any pre-law coursework to take it. The idea is to assess the reading and reasoning abilities that predict success in the first year of law school.
Alongside your undergraduate GPA, your LSAT score is one of the two numbers that most influence law school admission decisions. Most ABA-accredited law schools require the LSAT or accept it, and many publish the median LSAT of their entering class. Because the score carries so much weight, it strongly shapes which schools are realistic targets for you.
People often expand LSAT as Law School Admissions Test with an s, but the official name uses Admission. Another misconception is that the LSAT is the only path into law school; some schools also accept the GRE. Finally, the LSAT is not a knowledge test, so it cannot be crammed like a history exam and rewards skill-building over memorization.
The LSAT, or Law School Admission Test, is the standardized exam most ABA-accredited U.S. law schools require or accept for admission. It measures reading comprehension, logical reasoning, and analytical skills through multiple-choice sections and is scored on a 120 to 180 scale. It is administered by the Law School Admission Council, or LSAC.
The LSAT is administered by the Law School Admission Council, a nonprofit organization known as LSAC. LSAC writes the test, delivers it, and reports scores to law schools. LSAC also runs the Credential Assembly Service that compiles transcripts and letters of recommendation, so it sits at the center of the law school application process.
The official name is the Law School Admission Test, using Admission in the singular. Many people write Admissions with an s, but that is not the correct expansion. The name comes from the Law School Admission Council, LSAC, which likewise uses the singular Admission in its own title.
The LSAT tests skills, not knowledge. It measures reading comprehension, logical reasoning, and analytical reasoning through multiple-choice questions, plus an unscored writing sample. It does not test legal knowledge, math, or science, so no specific major or pre-law coursework is required. The goal is to predict how well you will handle first-year law school work.
August 21, 2026
August 21, 2026