How The Grinch Lost The LSAT Exams: A Crappy Christmas Caper

You’re a monster, LSAT Grinch! Which would-be law students will be affected by the missing LSAT answer sheets?

onDecember 23, 2015 at 11:10 AMDecember 23, 2015 at 8:20 PM

Earlier this month, thousands of would-be law students sat down at testing locations across the country to take an exam that would play an incredibly significant role in the caliber of law school they’d be able to get into, and thus later impact the quality of job they’d be able to land after graduation. Of course, we’re speaking about the LSAT, a test that is administered three times each year, but this time around, some of those who decided to take the December exam were in for a nasty surprise.

Prospective law students have been anxiously awaiting their scores, but it seems that some of their answer sheets never made it to LSAC for grading. Test-takers who took the exam at the University of California at Santa Barbara were informed yesterday that their LSATs were missing. What’s the solution here? Automatic 180s for everyone?

No such luck. Here’s an excerpt from LSAC’s email to the unlucky examinees:

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As of this date, the answer sheets and test-related documents from [the UC Santa Barbara] test center have not arrived at the Law School Admission Council. At this point, we have declared the answer sheets to be lost. To protect the integrity of the scores, we will not score these answer sheets even if they are found.

You will be receiving a full refund of your December LSAT registration fee (this does not apply to fee waivers). In addition, you have the option of taking a make-up test at no additional charge, to be administered on January 9, 2016.

In that email, Daniel Bernstine, President of the Law School Admission Council, apologized for the inconvenience and went on to state that “[l]oss of answer sheets in transit is an extremely rare occurrence” — but history tells us that’s not exactly true.

LSAT answer sheets are sent to LSAC via UPS, and according to one of our sources who has spoken to UPS about this debacle, “they seem to be looking for anyone not UPS to blame.” It’s no surprise that UPS is trying to defer blame here; this is the second time in recent years that the shipping company has lost LSAT answer sheets. In February 2012, UPS lost LSAT exams that were taken at the University of Tampa in Florida.

Happy holidays from LSAC! If you took the LSAT at UC Santa Barbara and were hoping to have all of your law school application materials sent out before the New Year, then it’s time to make other plans. Perhaps it would serve you best to treat this as an impromptu visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future and use this experience as an opportunity to learn your law school lesson before it’s too late.