Law Schools

So, What Do Law School Hopefuls Think About The New Digital LSAT?

Students report the first digital LSAT went pretty well.

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Well, the first ever digital administration of the LSAT is done, and all the test takers seem to have survived the experience. Now everyone just wants to know one thing — what was it like?

Kaplan Test Prep conducted a survey of 118 Kaplan students who took the digital LSAT (remember, half of the July test takers were assigned to the last pencil and paper exam when they arrived at the test site), and over half of the respondents characterized their experience with the technology as good or better. (The digital LSAT is administered on a Microsoft Surface Go tablet with a stylus for navigation.) When asked about the exam tech — touch-activated page turning, stylus functionality, and time keeping — 17 percent rate it as “very good”; 36 percent said it was “good”; 30 percent described it as “fair”; 14 percent labeled the experience “poor”; and only 3 percent called it “very poor.” Not bad for the first outing of the digital LSAT.

And the most common technological complaint? The stylus, which students described as “sensitive” and one providing more details about what that experience was like:

“The only thing that was really annoying was the highlighting/underlining interface. I kept underlining or highlighting things that I didn’t mean to, or undoing my earlier annotations when I accidentally highlighted more than I needed to. It was hard to control how much I was highlighting and time consuming to highlight individual words or select phrases.”

Anthony Coloca, director of pre-law programs at Kaplan Test Prep, said that while most of their students were hoping to be assigned the LSAT on paper, that was mostly out of familiarity and the digital experience will only become better for students:

“There is always some uncertainty with a test change of this magnitude, which explains why 58 percent of our students overall were hoping to take the exam in its now defunct paper-and-pencil format. Overall, our students cited they were well-prepared with the practice and instruction we provided them and they largely faced the changes in stride. We know the test maker is listening to what pre-law students are saying and we’re confident they will make some adjustments to give students an even more seamless test taking experience.”

According to the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the makers of the LSAT, 99.3 percent of students who were assigned a digital exam were able to successfully complete the exam, but they “won’t be satisfied until that number is 100 percent.” Two digital test sites in Florida were forced to reschedule the exam because of tablet-related issues.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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