A 166 opens a real list of ranked schools, and at the schools just below that list it starts opening cheque books instead.
You have crossed from "did fine" into "has options". A 166 sits at or above the median across a broad band of ranked programmes, which means you are choosing between schools rather than hoping one says yes.
Yes. A 166 makes a broad band of ranked schools realistic and makes the tier below that generous with money.
Sorted against real medians rather than rankings, a 166 looks like this: comfortably clear at 8 schools, level at 4, and slightly short at 10. Fordham, Arizona State, George Washington sit in that middle group, where your score neither carries the file nor drags it.
Do not read those labels as odds. Every school on this list admits applicants below its median annually — that is what a median means. What changes across the columns is how much your GPA, letters and timing have to carry.
Read the last column as the position a 166 occupies in each school’s reported range. Figures are the ABA 509 medians published on our law school tier page.
| Law school | 25th | Median | 75th | Where a 166 sits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yale Law School | 172 | 174 | 176 | below 25th |
| Stanford Law School | 171 | 173 | 176 | below 25th |
| University of Chicago Law | 171 | 174 | 176 | below 25th |
| Harvard Law School | 171 | 174 | 176 | below 25th |
| Columbia Law School | 171 | 173 | 175 | below 25th |
| University of Pennsylvania Law | 170 | 173 | 175 | below 25th |
| University of Virginia Law | 170 | 173 | 175 | below 25th |
| NYU School of Law | 170 | 172 | 174 | below 25th |
| Northwestern Pritzker Law | 170 | 173 | 175 | below 25th |
| University of Michigan Law | 168 | 171 | 173 | below 25th |
| Duke University Law | 169 | 171 | 173 | below 25th |
| UC Berkeley Law | 168 | 170 | 172 | below 25th |
| Cornell Law School | 170 | 173 | 175 | below 25th |
| Georgetown Law | 168 | 171 | 173 | below 25th |
You are past the crowd but not clear of it. About 7% of test takers are still at or above a 166, and in absolute numbers that is a lot of people applying to the same places.
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 4.8 percentile points.
There is a useful asymmetry here. In the T21-T50 band a 166 makes you a typical admit; one tier down it makes you the applicant they want to report. The money is in the second group, not the first.
A ranked admit you pay full price for and a slightly lower-ranked one that costs half as much are not obviously different outcomes three years later. Run both lists before you decide.
Our guide to LSAT scores and scholarship offers goes into how to actually ask.
Sit the same test twice with the same ability and you will not get the same score. The measurement error runs to roughly 2.6 points, so a 166 is shorthand for the range 163 to 169.
Across that range you gain or lose 9 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 T15-T20 band starts around 169 — 3 points up. A full five would put you at 171.
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.
The next useful step is to stop looking at the score alone. Put a 166 and your GPA into the law school admissions calculator and see which of these schools your actual profile lands in.
Open the admissions calculatorWork backwards from a school list, not forwards from a target score. Find the programmes whose median sits at or below 166, look at what they actually pay people in your range, and let that tell you whether another sitting is worth it.
No T14 school reports a median at or below 166. That does not close the door, but it does mean the rest of the file has to be exceptional.
Schools reporting a median within two points of 166 include Fordham, Arizona State, George Washington, Boston College. Check current 509 data before building a list.
The published percentile for a 166 is around 93. Put the other way, 7 out of every 100 test takers score at least this well.
Yes. 8 schools report medians at or below 166, with another 4 sitting within two points of it.