A 147 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.
A 147 is a low score with a high ceiling above it. The gap to 152 is the largest cheap gain on the test.
Percentiles are brutal below the median, and it is worth knowing why before you read too much into yours. A 147 sits at the 34th percentile, which reflects how tightly packed this part of the scale is rather than how far you are from being good at the test.
The curve is steepest through the 140s and 150s and nearly flat above 172, which is why the same five points mean completely different things to different people. For you they are worth 18.4 percentile points.
The instinct at a 147 is to study more. The better instinct is to study narrower. Almost everyone in this range is losing points to the same handful of question types over and over, and until you know which ones, extra hours mostly reinforce the habit.
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.
Admissions committees read two numbers, not one, and the interesting question is which of yours is carrying the other. With a 147, that depends entirely on the GPA sitting beside it.
The two numbers are not weighted equally, which is the part worth knowing. Schools guard their LSAT median harder than their GPA median, so a high-LSAT/low-GPA applicant does better than the mirror image of themselves. A 147 is not yet on the good side of it, which usually points back at the score.
Splitters and reverse splitters covers how committees treat each case.
Numbers in isolation do not tell you much. Run a 147 with your real GPA through the law school admissions calculator, then run it again at 152 — the difference between those two lists is what the next few months of studying are actually worth to you.
Compare 147 and 152There is a fact about the LSAT that nobody mentions until you are staring at a score report: it cannot measure you to the point. A 147 really means somewhere in 144–150, and which end you landed on was partly luck.
The band covers 21.4 percentile points, which is a lot of ground to be handed by chance. It also means a retake has real upside before you get any better at the test — and no downside worth worrying about, because the higher score is the one that counts.
Yes, but not immediately. Retaking without changing how you prepare produces the same score twice; the 18.4 percentile points above a 147 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 147 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 median, inside the 25th–75th |
Keep a written record of what you get wrong and why. The 18.4 percentile points between here and 152 come almost entirely from errors you are already making repeatedly.
The next point is worth 3.3 percentile points, and the exchange rate improves with distance: 18.4 points for the climb to 152.
A 147 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.
There is no tier or school in our tables where a 147 is the typical admitted score.
A 147 is approximately the 34th percentile, so about 66.3% of test takers score at or above it.