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Looming LSAT Deadlines Mean Decisions

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If you plan on taking the June LSAT, you should know that some important deadlines are coming up:

Registration Deadline: May 1st (that’s today!)
Late Registration Deadline: May 13th
Test Center Change by Mail, Phone, or Fax: May 13th
Test Center Change Online: May 15th
Test Date Change by Mail, Phone, or Fax: May 22nd
Test Date Change Online: May 24th
LSAT Registration Refunds (partial only): May 13th
Withdraw LSAT Registration – No Refund: June 7th

If you decide to withdraw or reschedule, your next chance to take an LSAT is October – still plenty of time to get applications in for the 2015-2016 cycle, but certainly later in the rolling admissions process.

Personally, I would wait until June 7th to decide whether or not to take the June LSAT. Sure, you’ll lose your registration fee, but at least you’ll have a more current, more representative practice LSAT score to inform your decision. Registering now and withdrawing later won’t make you look bad, as it won’t even show up on your transcript if you do it before the 7th. Just make sure you actually contact LSAC to do so. If you don’t withdraw and simply skip the exam, you’ll be marked as absent, which will look bad to law schools.

You’re probably hitting a plateau right now in your score improvement and bailing on the June LSAT might seem like a good idea. I’ve seen plenty of students plateau at this point in their LSAT prep, only to break through in the final weeks before the LSAT. So keep that in mind.

The other tough choice in the deadline list is test center change. Having a good or bad test center can definitely affect your test day performance, so here’s our blog post reviewing Blueprint area LSAT test centers. In general, you’ll want to take your LSAT at a law school. These test centers will feature big desks, quiet environments, and law student proctors. Almost every LSAT administration brings horror stories about LSAT test centers and their proctors, so do some research before your commit to one.

Once those decisions are in the rearview, the only thing left to do is study. Hurray.

A version of this post originally appeared in November 2014.