A 163 opens a real list of ranked schools, and at the schools just below that list it starts opening cheque books instead.
The interesting question at 163 is not whether it is good. It is what you want it to buy: a better-ranked admit, or a much cheaper degree one tier down. Those are different applications, and you have to pick.
Yes. A 163 makes a broad band of ranked schools realistic and makes the tier below that generous with money.
Ignore the rankings for a moment and sort by median instead. A 163 sits above 4 schools and level with 4. The level group — Ohio State (Moritz), Wisconsin, SMU (Dedman) among them — is where you look like a typical admit.
These categories describe distance from a midpoint, nothing more. Half of every admitted class came in under the median, so a Reach school is one you apply to with a good story, not one you cross off.
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 163 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 | inside the median range |
| T51-T100 | 51-100 | 156–162 | at or above the median range |
| Sub-T100 / regional | 100+ | 148–155 | above the 75th percentile |
You are past the crowd but not clear of it. About 12.6% of test takers are still at or above a 163, and in absolute numbers that is a lot of people applying to the same places.
The shape of the curve matters more than the point on it. From a 163, one more scaled point moves you 2.2 percentile points, and five moves you 8.1. Those two figures are what any retake decision actually rests on.
School lists are built off thresholds, not percentiles, and the next threshold above you is the T21-T50 band at roughly 165. That is 2 points away.
Gaps that small are almost never knowledge gaps. They are two questions you rushed, or one game you never went back to check — the cheapest points on the test to recover.
There 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 163 really means somewhere in 160–166, and which end you landed on was partly luck.
Across that range you gain or lose 12.6 percentile points for free. Worth a retake if you have somewhere specific to aim; not worth one just to see what happens.
There is somewhere specific to aim, which makes this easier than it feels. The T21-T50 band starts around 165 — 2 points up. A full five would put you at 168.
The usual reason people in this band repeat their score is that they practise questions instead of practising the test. Full timed sittings plus a question-type error log is what actually moves it.
A score becomes a school list only when it meets a GPA. The law school admissions calculator takes both and sorts every school we track into Reach, Target and Likely against their reported medians.
Open the admissions calculatorWork backwards from a school list, not forwards from a target score. Find the programmes whose median sits at or below 163, look at what they actually pay people in your range, and let that tell you whether another sitting is worth it.
Yes. 4 schools report medians at or below 163, with another 4 sitting within two points of it.
A band of 160-166 is worth 12.6 percentile points of variance. With schools keeping the higher score, that asymmetry argues for a retake.
The next point is worth 2.2 percentile points, and the exchange rate improves with distance: 8.1 points for the climb to 168.
No T14 school reports a median at or below 163. That does not close the door, but it does mean the rest of the file has to be exceptional.