A 145 is below the national median and sitting on the most improvable stretch of the scale. This page is about what to do with that.
The number in front of you measures how well you currently handle a format most people find alien on first contact. It does not measure how well you will handle it in four months, and the gap between those two things is usually large.
Not yet — but this is the range where preparation shows up fastest, and five points changes the picture substantially.
Roughly 73.9% of test takers are ahead of a 145. That sounds like a lot of ground, and it is — but it is also the shortest ground on the test, because everyone below the median is stacked on top of each other.
The shape of the curve matters more than the point on it. From a 145, one more scaled point moves you 4.1 percentile points, and five moves you 18.2. Those two figures are what any retake decision actually rests on.
Getting out of the 145s is rarely about learning new material. It is about noticing that the same four or five kinds of question keep taking your points, which is invisible until you start writing them down.
Build it in this sequence: get the answers right without a timer, then get them right inside the section limit, then sit whole tests for stamina. Reversing that just teaches you to make the same mistakes faster.
In practice that means three things: a question-type error log so you know where the points go, daily logical reasoning because it is the biggest slice of the test, and a three-month plan so the work has an end date.
The question is not whether you could score higher. It is whether the next point is worth what it costs, and at a 145 that point is worth 4.1 percentile points.
Five points is the realistic unit of a retake, and it would take you to 150. That is not an incremental improvement; it is a different applicant with a different list of schools.
Before deciding how hard to push, go and see what the push buys. Enter a 145 and your GPA into the law school admissions calculator, then change the score to 150 and compare the two school lists side by side.
Compare 145 and 150Treat the number as a centre of gravity rather than a fact. The band around a 145 runs from 142 to 148, and the whole retake question turns on how wide that is in percentile terms.
Because the curve is so steep here, that range is worth 19.9 percentile points. Noise alone can move you further than a casual month of studying would.
Yes, but not immediately. Retaking without changing how you prepare produces the same score twice; the 18.2 percentile points above a 145 are available, just not for free.
Start with untimed accuracy on logical reasoning, since it is the largest share of the test, and only add the clock once accuracy holds. Prep hours against score increase sets realistic expectations for how long that takes.
Tier figures come from our law school tier page, which aggregates ABA 509 medians by ranking band. Individual schools vary, so treat the tier as a starting point.
| Tier | Rank | Median LSAT | A 145 against this tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| HYS (Harvard, Yale, Stanford) | 1-3 | 173–176 | below the 25th percentile |
| T6 | 1-6 | 172–176 | below the 25th percentile |
| T14 | 1-14 | 169–175 | below the 25th percentile |
| T15-T20 | 15-20 | 168–171 | below the 25th percentile |
| T21-T50 | 21-50 | 161–168 | below the 25th percentile |
| T51-T100 | 51-100 | 156–162 | below the 25th percentile |
| Sub-T100 / regional | 100+ | 148–155 | below the 25th percentile |
Plan in months, not weeks. The people who move furthest from this range are not the ones who study hardest; they are the ones who give it a long enough runway to stop making the same mistakes.
A 145 is below every median on our table. Accredited schools do admit in this range, but the leverage right now is in the 18.2 percentile points between 145 and 150.
A band of 142-148 is worth 19.9 percentile points of variance. With schools keeping the higher score, that asymmetry argues for a retake.
One point buys 4.1 percentile points from 145; a full five-point improvement to 150 buys 18.2.
A 145 is below the reported median at every T14 school. Admission is not impossible with an exceptional GPA, but the T14 is a reach at this number.