How much is an LSAT point worth? Merit aid at the T14 and Texas law schools

An LSAT point is worth whatever it moves you across, and the lines that matter are each school’s median and 75th percentile LSAT, published every December in its ABA Standard 509 report. If a realistic retake gain would carry you from below a target school’s median to above its 75th, the point is typically worth a large share of a year’s tuition in merit aid; if you’re already above the 75th, or far below the 25th, the same point is worth close to nothing. This guide shows you how to price it for the Texas schools and the T14, using the 509 data, and how to turn that into a retake decision.

You probably have a score in hand and a deadline in view, and someone, maybe you, maybe a parent, is asking whether another four months of study is worth it. The right way to answer is not “how much higher could I score” but “which lines would a higher score cross, and what does each school pay for crossing them.” Both halves are checkable in an afternoon.

Why schools pay for LSAT points

Law school merit aid is not primarily a reward. It is a purchase. Schools report their entering class’s 25th, 50th and 75th percentile LSAT and GPA to the ABA, those medians drive rankings, and rankings drive applications and tuition revenue. A school whose median slipped a point has a problem it can solve with money: offer larger grants to applicants above its current 75th percentile until enough of them enroll to pull the median up.

That gives the market a shape. Applicants above a school’s 75th percentile are the ones the school needs. Applicants between the median and the 75th are useful and get moderate offers. Applicants between the 25th and the median help on GPA or diversity of background but cost the school on LSAT, so offers shrink. Applicants below the 25th are admitted for other reasons and usually pay close to sticker.

The 509 report tells you where those lines are and what the school paid last year. The grants table lists the percentage of the class receiving a grant and the 25th, median and 75th percentile grant amount. Read the two tables together.

The Texas schools: 2025 ABA 509 LSAT bands

Below are the LSAT percentiles for the fall 2025 entering classes as reported in the December 2025 Standard 509 reports and transcribed by third-party trackers. Confirm each against the school’s own PDF before you put it in front of a parent; every figure here is marked for that reason.

Look at the gap between the median and the 75th in every row. At UT it is one point. At SMU, one point. At Baylor, one point. At Houston, two. The applicant who scores at a school’s median and the applicant who scores two points higher are, from the school’s side of the desk, different purchases.

Now the grant side. Pull each school’s 509 and write down three numbers from the grants table: percent of students receiving a grant, median grant, and 75th percentile grant [verify, each school, 2025 509]. Those numbers are not reproduced here because they belong next to the school’s name on your own sheet with the year attached. For the public schools, also note resident versus non-resident tuition, since a grant is worth more against a larger sticker price.

The T14: where a point buys prestige and where it buys money

The top fourteen schools, in the conventional grouping, are Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, NYU, Virginia, Michigan, Duke, Northwestern, Berkeley, Cornell and Georgetown. Their LSAT bands are tight at the top. Recent 509 data shows Yale around 172 / 174 / 176 and Stanford around 171 / 173 / 176 [verify, 2024 or 2025 509], Harvard’s median in the same 173 to 174 neighborhood [verify], Chicago’s 75th at 176 for the class of 2028 [verify], and the remaining T14 schools with medians roughly 169 to 173 [verify, 2025 509 reports].

Two things follow for the retake decision. At Yale, Stanford and Harvard, merit aid is small or need-based, so a point above the median buys admission odds, not money. At the schools from Chicago down through Georgetown, merit aid is substantial and competitive, and a score above the 75th percentile (175 and up at the top of that group, 171 to 173 lower down) is what gets the large offers. A 170 at a school whose median is 171 is below the median; at a school whose 75th is 169, the same 170 is a scholarship candidate.

The practical move is to list the T14 schools you’d attend, write their 2025 25th / median / 75th from the 509 reports next to your current score, and mark which line you sit at for each. Most applicants find they are above the 75th at some, at the median at others and below the 25th at a few. The retake question is whether a realistic gain changes any of those marks.

The pricing formula

Write this on one page. For each target school:

1. Your current score’s position: below 25th, 25th to median, median to 75th, or above 75th.
2. Your realistic retake score (the guide on a 16-week schedule is explicit that 8 to 12 points from the high 150s is a target, not a promise) and its position.
3. If the position changes, the grant difference you’d expect, estimated from the 509 grants table: roughly the difference between the median grant and the 75th percentile grant if you cross from the median band to above the 75th [verify per school].
4. That difference times three years.
5. Divided by the points gained, which gives you the value of a point at that school.

Now set that against the cost of the retake: the registration fee, which LSAC lists at $253 for the August 2026 to June 2027 testing year [verify], the four months of time, and any tutoring. The tutor cost guide lays out what each tier runs. Even the most expensive option, our full 16-week program at $12,800, is a fraction of a three-year grant difference at any school where your score sits near the medians. At a school where you’re already above the 75th, the same $12,800 buys you nothing you didn’t have.

When a retake is not worth it

The honest cases where you should apply with the score you have:

• You’re above the 75th percentile at every school you’d actually attend. More points buy a different list, not a better offer.
• Your realistic gain, judged from a hand-reviewed recent PrepTest rather than hope, doesn’t cross any line. Moving from 160 to 163 at a school with a 166 25th percentile changes nothing about your offer.
• The retake would push you past a school’s priority deadline or out of the early part of rolling admission, and the school in question doesn’t give much merit aid anyway. The June or August guide covers the timing side.
• You’ve already taken it three times with flat results. A fourth attempt without a change in method is a fourth copy of the same score.

In every other case, which is most cases for applicants in the 160s targeting Texas schools or the lower T14, the retake math favors another sitting, because the lines are close together and the money on the other side of them is large.

Texas-specific notes

For Texas residents, the public schools (UT and Houston) have a lower sticker for in-state students, which means a grant of the same dollar amount covers a larger share of tuition, and a full-tuition award is a smaller check for the school to write. That makes above-75th Texas residents attractive purchases for the public schools [verify tuition figures on each school’s site]. For SMU and Baylor, private tuition is higher and so are the grant amounts needed to compete with the publics, which is why their 509 grant tables typically show a higher share of the class receiving aid [verify, 2025 509].

A UT undergraduate applying to UT Law should note the 2025 bands specifically: 166 / 172 / 173 [verify]. A 170 is below UT’s median. A 174 is above its 75th. Those four points are the entire difference between “admitted, probably paying” and “the applicant UT wants to buy,” and they are the four points the plateau guides on this site are about.

Rick’s note: I ask every retake student to bring me their target schools’ 509 printouts with the LSAT and grant tables highlighted. If the lines aren’t close to their score, I tell them not to hire me. Half the value of the diagnostic is finding out whether the retake is worth doing at all.

What to do this week

1. List every school you would actually attend. Download each one’s December 2025 Standard 509 report and write the 25th / median / 75th LSAT next to the school with the year.
2. From the same reports, write the percent receiving grants and the median and 75th percentile grant amounts.
3. Mark where your current score sits for each school, and where a realistic retake score would sit. Use a hand-reviewed recent PrepTest for “realistic,” not your best day.
4. For each school where the position changes, run the five-step pricing formula and write the value of a point.
5. If the numbers favor a retake and your recent PrepTest is in the 160s, send it to us for a debrief and we’ll tell you whether the gain you need is realistic in your window. If they don’t favor a retake, apply now.