Anna Ivey is a private admissions counselor who works with people applying to the top business schools and law schools. If you have a question for Anna Ivey, send her an e-mail.

Question: Thank you so much for your helpful advice! I have gained a lot of insight into what law school admissions entails by reading your articles on Vault.com. Now, I hope you don't mind, but I was wondering if I might please ask you a question. First, though, a little background about myself: I am an Asian-American male who graduated from [a nationally recognized state school] with a B.A. in History and a 3.6 GPA. Although my educational stats look decent, I tragically bombed the LSAT exam. What happened was that I was really quite arrogant and decided that I did not need to prepare for the LSATs. Boy, was I wrong: I got a 143.

Of course, I definitely plan to study like crazy this time around and retake the LSATs in either June or October. But, alas, I fear that it may be too late because, as I understand it, most schools average multiple LSAT scores. Even if I were to score a perfect 180 (nearly impossible), I would at best average a 161, and it will most likely be lower.

Thus, I may have inadvertently shut myself out of the top-20 schools, let alone my dream school, the University of Chicago. So, my question is this: Do you have any advice for someone like me? Essentially, I'd like to know, if I study extremely hard and manage to score in the mid or high 160s on my second LSAT exam, do you think I still have a chance at gaining admissions to a top-20 school? Any help would be, obviously, much appreciated!

Anna's Answer: Great question! People "tragically bomb" the LSAT for a variety of reasons. Some people who aced their SATs with no preparation assume that the same strategy (or lack thereof) will work for them on the LSATs. Others work their butts off to prepare for the LSAT but suffer from a debilitating attack of test anxiety/the flu/insomnia/fill in the blank. Some people are lousy test-takers, and others just aren't that bright. The list is endless, but assuming that you're in the category of people who really could do well on the LSAT if he applied himself, chin up! All hope is not lost.

Each law school sets its own policy on multiple test scores. Many schools, like Boalt, average them, so you would have to do considerably better the second time around to bring the average up, and of course you run the risk of scoring lower the second time and dragging your average down. Scary.

Other schools, like Northwestern, weight your highest score the most heavily. So with respect to those schools, there would be no downside to retaking the test.

Still other schools apply hybrid approaches. For example, the University of Chicago averages the scores unless you persuade them that extenuating circumstances render the lower score less reliable. (By extenuating circumstances, they mean things like illnesses and earthquakes and family emergencies, not failure to prepare for the test.) The University of Michigan and Harvard take all your scores, as well as the average, into consideration.

~ Keep in mind that, ultimately, schools always have the discretion to weight the scores however they like in any individual case. I can speak only for myself here, but when I was Dean of Admissions at the University of Chicago, when a file crossed my desk with LSAT scores at least ten points apart, I always gave that person the benefit of the doubt and assumed the he or she just had a bad day the first time.

So let's assume that you do end up scoring a 169 the second time you take the test. Boalt and Chicago would treat you as having a 156 (the sum of 143 and 169, divided by 2), whereas Northwestern would treat you as having a 169. That makes for a 13-point difference (156 vs. 169) depending on the kind of school. Not bad!

For most schools, you should assume the worst  that they will average your scores. Retaking the test makes sense, therefore, only if you're very confident you can do better the second time. People tend to do better each time they take the test, which makes sense if you think about it, because they've had more practice in real-test taking conditions. But the data show that most repeat LSAT takers improve by only a few points, if any, and there are always those unlucky folks who do worse the second (or third or fourth) time. That's a risk you have to factor into your analysis.

What's the likelihood that you'll be scoring, say, a 169 the second time? The good people at the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the organization that writes and administers the LSAT, publish that data in their LSAT/LSDAS Registration Book (available online at www.lsac.org). For example, of the people who were retaking the test in 2001-2002 after having scored a 143 previously, only one person out of 981 scored in the 160-169 range (a mere 0.1 percent!), and none scored in the 170-180 range. In contrast, a whopping 98 out of 981 (10 percent) scored lower than they had the first time, i.e. in the 120-139 range. As a matter of raw statistics, then, the odds are not good that you'll be scoring a 169 the second time around.

But you're you, and not necessarily a statistical average. Much as LSAC and the various law schools wish it weren't so, the LSAT is a very learnable test, and you should be able to boost your score with preparation. You'll have a much better idea whether you should retake the test once you've had some time to prepare and you see how you're doing on your timed practice tests. And if you're one of the statistical outliers who scores in the high 160s or above, you would be foolish to rule out the top-20 schools.

Good luck!

If you have your own question for Anna Ivey, send her an e-mail.

Anna Ivey is a private admissions counselor who works with people applying to the top business schools and law schools, as well as the author of The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on Essays, Resumes, Interviews and More. Formerly the Dean of Admissions at the University of Chicago Law School, she has also practiced corporate and entertainment law in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from Columbia and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where she served as an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review. To learn more about her admissions counseling, visit annaivey.com.