The percentile indicates where the test taker falls in the overall pool of test takers. For example, a score of 160 represents the 84th percentile, meaning a student with a score of 160 scored better than 84 percent of the people who have taken the test in the last three years. The percentile is critical since it is a true indicator of your positioning relative to other test takers, and thus law school applicants. Using the three-year pool of information provides Law Services with a stable and accurate percentile for each score. Otherwise percentiles could vary significantly from test to test as different groups of test takers performed better or worse.
Historical analysis shows that percentiles do change from year to year, but only by minute amounts.
Instead, each test taker competes against the students from the three previous years. In fact, because of question pre-testing through the use of experimental sections, the conversion chart for each LSAT is supposedly set before the test is administered. Only minor adjustments are then made to normalize the test. The normalization yields a rough bell curve. These facts provide some explanation for the Score Conversion Charts examined earlier.