I'm a senior in college and I just took the LSAT in December; I got a 152. I know that this is not the brightest score one could get but considering the limited time I had to prepare, I'm surprised I even made that range. However, I want to go to a good school. Not Yale or Harvard but a decent, reputable one. I hated taking the LSAT. I'm not very good with standardized tests, I very much disagree with the whole law school application system. It feels like one big business dedicated to weeding off those who cannot afford super expensive prep courses. But I know that a standardized test is need to measure student's abilities. I was wondering if you would recommend I take the test again.And, is it true that, on average, people are only able to improve their score by a couple of points? Thanks so much!

The law school you attend, in my opinion, only has an impact on what job you get right out of school. The rest of your career is open to your own ambitions and how far you decide to take it after that. With a 152 score its a good idea to re-take the test if you want to get into a good school, if you are going to study and put the effort into it. It you are not going to study harder, then leave it alone. You do not want to score lower the second time. But, that is a presonal decision.

It's true that retakes generally don't change the score much - with low scores a slight improvement is typical with appropriate preparation.

The LSAC publishes data on how repeat test takers fare on subsequent LSAT tests. 24.1% of test takers take the LSAT at least twice. For a first score of 152 here is how repeat test takers fared (from the LSAC's LSAT info book):

3 scored between 130 and 139
143 scored between 140 and 149
941 scored between 150 and 159
129 scored between 160 and 169

So in general, the average is not far from 152 on retake, but a bigger risk of scoring under 150 than above 160.

The former dean of admissions at U Chicago says that if a student scored 10 or more points better on retake, they gave the benefit of the doubt and kept the higher score. Do you think you can prep enough (and spend the money on a serious prep course) to bring your score up 10 points? Based on repeat stats, I would recommend not retaking, but if you are confident in your prep you might want to take the risk.

Have you already tried the law school search tool on this site?