Admissions Lore- WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!?!

[AH]

Yea ego, from the admissions counselor I got the idea tha the verbal score represented what you should be able to score or something to that effect.

I was an English major too... did HORRIBLE on games first out, but afer powerscore had it to where (in practice tests) I got a perfect score or one question off.  Too bummed to ever do a complete review of how my score brokedown in lsats.

[SplitFinger]

Mine was exactly on as well - 710 Verbal --> 171 LSAT.

Of course, I took the SAT (no prep) back in 1988, which was before they recentered the scores.

My GRE verbal was 770 (also no prep), which would have been taken in '92 or '93.

Even so, I tend to agree that the real thing going on is that if you're smart enough to score in the 99th percentile on the SAT, there's a good chance you'll score in the 99th percentile on the LSAT as well.

[misery]

Mine was exactly on as well - 710 Verbal --> 171 LSAT.

Of course, I took the SAT (no prep) back in 1988, which was before they recentered the scores.

My GRE verbal was 770 (also no prep), which would have been taken in '92 or '93.

Even so, I tend to agree that the real thing going on is that if you're smart enough to score in the 99th percentile on the SAT, there's a good chance you'll score in the 99th percentile on the LSAT as well.

What do you mean by recentered the scores?  What effect did it have?

[queencruella]

What do you mean by recentered the scores?  What effect did it have?

In fall of 1995, the SAT was recentered to minimize the disparity between math and verbal scores and get the average score close to 500 on each section. I think recentered tests were about 20 points higher on math and 70 points higher on verbal, but I can't remember for sure. I've heard that the SAT was initially designed so that you'd get a score that was roughly equal to your IQx10, hence the desire for an average score of 1000. I don't think the original SAT verbal really had many skills in common with the LSAT, since I remember it to have only a few critical reading passages and the rest was antonyms and analogies.  It was more a measure of the breadth of your vocabulary than anything else.

[SplitFinger]

That's a good summary.

Not that it matters, but it's always annoyed me that if they'd just recentered the test a few years earlier, my score would have gone from "Really Quite Good" to "Demi-God".

And surely, somehow, that would have helped me pick up more chicks (which, along with drinking heavily, is what I spent most of my undergraduate career doing - hence my GPA...)

[as436]

again i think this is ridiculous to compare the two.. not only do the verbal SAT and LSAT test different things, but the numbers just dont work..

at my school, the avg on the LSAT is 161 and on SAT about 1370.. so assuming verbal is 680, then the avg lsat should be what, 168?  And 168 is 97th percentile, is 680 97th percentile for SAT?

[zerofact0r]

...Does everyone at your school take the LSAT...?

[Ego]

...Does everyone at your school take the LSAT...?

Pwned.  Haha. 

I like you dood.

[zerofact0r]

Grazie.

[Ego]

Prego.