Your LSAT percentile tells you exactly where you stand compared to every other test taker. A score of 160 means you performed better than approximately 73-80% of everyone who took the LSAT — but what does that mean for your law school chances? This guide provides the complete LSAT percentile chart, explains how LSAC calculates percentiles, and shows what percentile you need for different law school tiers.
The table below pairs each LSAT scaled score with its approximate percentile — the percentage of recent test takers who scored at or below that number. A percentile of 80 means you performed better than roughly 80% of people who sat for the LSAT; it does not mean you got 80% of questions right.
Because the LSAT uses a scaled score rather than a raw percentage, percentile is the most useful way to compare your performance to the applicant pool. Find your score on the left side of the table, then check the corresponding percentile — that number, not the raw score itself, is what admissions offices implicitly weigh against your target school's medians.
A handful of scores anchor the distribution and are worth memorizing. A 153 sits at roughly the 50th percentile (the median). A 160 lands near the 80th, a 165 near the 90th, and a 170 near the 97th. Perfect scores (180) fall in the 99.9th percentile — only a tiny fraction of test takers reach them each year.
These benchmarks matter because the scale compresses as you move up. A 10-point jump from 150 to 160 crosses about 35 percentile points, while a 10-point jump from 165 to 175 crosses only 9. That compression is why each additional point becomes harder to earn — and more valuable — the higher you climb.
| LSAT Score | Approximate Percentile | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| 180 | 99.9th | Perfect score — extremely rare |
| 175 | 99th | Top 1% of all test takers |
| 170 | 95th-97th | Elite — competitive at T14 schools |
| 165 | 86th-92nd | Very strong — competitive at top 25 |
| 160 | 73rd-80th | Strong — competitive at most schools |
| 155 | 58th-67th | Above average — many options |
| 153 | ~50th | Median score — half score above, half below |
| 150 | 38th-44th | Below median — some options available |
| 145 | 22nd-27th | Below average — limited options |
| 140 | 13th-15th | Well below average |
LSAC doesn't calculate percentiles against just the test takers from your administration. Instead, it uses a three-year rolling average of every LSAT taken in that window. This smooths out short-term fluctuations and ensures your percentile reflects your standing against hundreds of thousands of recent test takers, not just the few thousand who happened to sit on the same day.
The practical effect is that percentiles are stable from one administration to the next. Your 165 in June won't mean something noticeably different from a 165 in October — the rolling window changes too gradually for that. Year-over-year shifts do happen, but they're typically measured in fractions of a percentile at most score points.
Your scaled LSAT score comes from a raw score — the number of questions you got right — run through a scoring curve specific to your test form. The percentile is then applied on top of that scaled score, answering a completely different question: how did this scaled score compare to everyone else's over the last three years?
This two-step process is why you can't convert raw questions right directly into a percentile. Two students with identical raw scores on different test forms can end up at the same scaled score of 165 — and therefore the same percentile — even though their underlying tests had different difficulty curves. The curve normalizes for difficulty; the percentile normalizes against the population.
T14 law schools — Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, Penn, UVA, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, and Georgetown — post median LSAT scores in the 169-174 range. In percentile terms, that's roughly the 95th to 99th percentile of all recent test takers.
To be a strong applicant at a T14 school, you generally want to score at or above the 95th percentile, which corresponds to about a 170. Percentile is particularly useful here because it frames the competitive landscape honestly: you're aiming to be in the top 5% of everyone who took the LSAT in the last three years — not just the top 5% of your prep class.
Top 50 programs — schools like Vanderbilt, USC, Boston University, George Washington, and Ohio State — post medians that stretch from about 160 at the lower end to 168 near the top. That maps to roughly the 75th through 95th percentile range.
The takeaway is that you don't need an elite percentile to be competitive at a good regional or national law school. Hitting the 80th percentile (around a 160) opens up most of the top 50, and scoring in the 85th-90th percentile range makes you competitive at the top of the tier. Percentile thresholds also drive scholarships here — schools in this band often reserve merit aid for applicants above their 75th percentile mark.
| Law School Tier | Target Percentile | Score Range | Example Schools |
|---|---|---|---|
| T14 | 95th+ | 170-180 | Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia |
| Top 25 | 85th-95th | 165-170 | Vanderbilt, USC, Boston University |
| Top 50 | 75th-85th | 160-165 | George Washington, Wisconsin, Ohio State |
| Top 100 | 55th-75th | 155-160 | Many strong regional programs |
| All ABA Schools | 40th+ | 150+ | Broad range of accredited programs |
Although LSAC's three-year rolling window keeps percentiles broadly stable, the test-taker population itself changes. In years when law school applications spike — typically during economic downturns or periods of social upheaval — more students prepare more intensively, and average scores tick up. That can shave a percentile point or two off a given score.
The reverse happens in softer cycles: fewer heavily prepared applicants, and a given score corresponds to a slightly higher percentile. These shifts rarely exceed 1-2 points at any given score, but they're worth keeping in mind when comparing percentile charts published years apart.
The practical impact of a competitive year is less about your percentile shifting and more about what schools expect. When application volume rises, admitted-class medians rise with it, which means the same percentile that comfortably cleared a school's median last year might only match it this year.
That's why many applicants target scores 2-3 points above a school's reported median rather than just meeting it. Your percentile is a description of your performance; what matters for admissions is how that performance compares to the specific class the school is building. In tight cycles, give yourself a cushion.
Work backwards from where you want to go to school. Pull the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile LSAT scores from your target schools' ABA 509 reports, convert those scores to percentiles using the chart above, and set your goal at or above the median of your strongest target. That gives you a concrete percentile target you can actually aim at in practice tests.
Framing goals in percentile terms is often more motivating than fixating on a single scaled score. "Move from the 65th to the 85th percentile" describes a meaningful shift in competitiveness that a 5-point scaled-score jump (155 to 160) can disguise. It also helps you understand how close you actually are to specific school tiers.
Percentile gains come fastest in the middle of the distribution. Lifting your score from 150 to 155 moves you roughly 20 percentile points, because the testing population is densely clustered there. The same 5-point jump from 165 to 170 only moves you about 7 percentile points, because fewer test takers are competing at the top.
Plan your prep around where you are on the curve. If you're starting in the 40s or 50s, foundational skill-building in logical reasoning and reading comprehension typically produces the biggest percentile returns. If you're already in the 90s, gains come from timing, precision on the hardest question types, and minimizing careless errors — the work is finer-grained, and each additional point is earned rather than absorbed.