The Law School Admissions Council announced Feb. 11 that, starting in August, it will remove the remote option for students to take the Law School Admission Test, the required entrance exam for law school. The change is part of an effort to preserve the “security and integrity” of the test, according to a council news release.
The council introduced the remote testing option for students in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to offer it due to student requests, according to the news release. Now, the organization decided in-center testing will better prevent people from violating testing rules. Despite this new change, the council will offer limited remote testing for students with medical accommodations or those without access to a testing center.
“We are not taking this step lightly,” the release wrote. “Remote testing with real-time proctoring was a vital service for both test takers and schools during the pandemic, and we understand that some test takers may prefer remote testing for convenience, comfort, or other reasons. But given the security and test integrity benefits of in-center testing, moving toward in-center testing is the right decision at this time.”
The move comes after the council suspended online LSAT testing in China due to concerns over companies and test-takers promoting cheating, according to an August 2025 council news release. Certain Chinese companies offered cheating services for standardized tests and were becoming “increasingly aggressive,” the council wrote.
Remote test-takers currently account for about 40% of all test-takers, according to the news release. However, the majority of people who have experienced a temporary hold on their LSAT score took the exam online. Lisa Merritt, a pre-law advisor at the University, said the change will benefit students.
“I’ve got a lot of students who said they took it remotely for one reason or another, and that actually made it harder,” Merritt said. “When they were able to arrange to take it at a testing center, they actually did better.”
Despite the council removing the remote testing option for most students, Merritt said she strongly encourages those who have medical accommodations or who do not have proper access to a testing center to take the test remotely.
“There are real issues where accommodations need to be made,” Merritt said. “You don’t want somebody to have to pay money to go stay at a hotel to get to a testing center.“
Emma Vetrano, a sociology junior who signed up to take the LSAT at a testing center in March, said she was not aware a remote option existed, but she believes removing it does make sense for security reasons.
“I know that there was an issue with people having other people take the LSAT for them (with) fake IDs,” Vetrano said. “I can only imagine how much easier it is to do online.”
Vetrano said while it is possible she would have gotten some benefit signing up for a remote LSAT, she does not think taking it online would significantly impact her testing experience.
“Our generation, we’re familiar with taking tests in person and online,” Vetrano said. “We have that versatility, so I don’t think there would be that much of a difference.”
Merritt said the council is right to do all it can to limit cheating because she says it is not fair that some test-takers are able to buy the exam and get into law school fraudulently.
“There are always going to be people trying to hack the system,” Merritt said. “But you want to minimize that as much as possible to create an equitable playing field for everybody.”
