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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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Good by what metric? I certainly wouldn't want to try to go into law with a score like that, like it sounds like his new plan was. You're not competing with most of the population, what their scores would have been doesn't matter at all.

In Sweden such a score means you can barely squeeze into one of the less popular engineering programs. It isn't bad but it certainly isn't good either.

A formula that I've seen says LSAT = (0.048 * SAT) + 100, which would suggest a 1400 SAT corresponds to roughly a 167 LSAT. Probably not enough AFAIK to get you into a top 20 program, but I think you could find a law school willing to take you.

Though I'd guess you're likely to end up on the unfortunate end of the bimodal distribution.

Counterpoint: my 1380 SAT score translated to a 177 LSAT and admission to multiple T-14 law schools. I still ended up on the unfortunate end of the bimodal distribution, but that's because I did too well on the LSAT, if anything. Punching above my weight on the standardized test meant I may have been just as smart as my classmates, but I was a much worse student with much less developed soft skills. It wasn't the not quite smart enough students who struggled. Outside of a couple courses like fed courts, nothing you're learning is that complex compared to other academic disciplines. It was the students like me who lacked good study habits, institutional knowledge, amd networking skills who had a rough time.

I would say that a mid-160s LSAT is perfectly acceptable for admission at any number of regionally well respected law schools from which one can get a decently high paying job at a mid-size law firm or local biglaw branch (assuming you can stay in the top half/third of the class, which is definitely doable with a 1400-SAT-level IQ). You're not going to be a professor, clerk for a Supreme Court Justice, or get a cushy $200k gig right out of law school, but most of the profession is still open to you. Unless you live in a major metropolis, more than half of your local DAs probably scored under 1400 on their SATs (and that's not even counting the DEI hires)

It was the students like me who lacked good study habits, institutional knowledge, amd networking skills who had a rough time.

Ah, the gifted kid paradox. Everything in the early years is easy, so you don't develop study skills and grit, and then when you face something actually tough it crushes you.

(Also, AMD networking skills are extremely important -- how are you going to succeed if you can't connect your Ryzen gaming beast to the internet for studying? :P)

Though I'd guess you're likely to end up on the unfortunate end of the bimodal distribution

Exactly.