GRE vs LSAT: Which Test, Conversion, Difficulty (2026)

The Side-by-Side Comparison

Which Law Schools Accept the GRE

The current answer is that essentially every ABA-accredited law school will consider a GRE score for at least some applicants. That was made official by ABA policy changes in late 2022, and the individual school policies caught up through 2023 and 2024. The T14 is fully covered: Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, Penn, Virginia, Michigan, Berkeley, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, and Georgetown all publicly accept the GRE. Most schools ranked outside the T14 also accept it, and the small number that historically required LSAT-only have been moving toward acceptance. If a specific target score is your concern, our guide to which programs need a high GRE score walks through how much the number actually matters by program.

Two important caveats. First, 'accepts' does not always mean 'is treated equivalently'. Some admissions committees have significantly more historical calibration on the LSAT than on the GRE, and a GRE-only applicant can face slightly higher scrutiny (or slightly softer scrutiny if the target school is actively trying to grow non-LSAT applicant volume). Second, some schools require you to submit the LSAT if you have taken it, even if you also submit a GRE score. Read the specific school's page on the current cycle before deciding.

The Official GRE to LSAT Score Conversion

ETS publishes a formal comparison tool that maps GRE Verbal plus Quantitative scores to approximate LSAT-equivalent bands. It is not a one-to-one equation because the tests measure different constructs, but the mapping is stable enough that admissions offices treat it as a working guide. The table below uses the widely-referenced ETS conversion published in the 2018 comparison study and updated in subsequent publications.

Two things to note. GRE Analytical Writing is not part of this conversion; law schools that accept the GRE typically read the AWA score separately as a writing sample. Second, the conversion assumes a roughly balanced Verbal-Quant split; a 328 that is 170 Quant and 158 Verbal converts a little lower for law-school purposes than a 328 that is 165 Verbal and 163 Quant, because law-school admissions weight verbal reasoning more heavily.

Is the GRE Easier Than the LSAT?

This is the most-asked question in the comparison, and the honest answer is 'depends on your strengths'. The two tests are hard in different ways.

The GRE is broader and shallower. It tests Verbal (vocabulary-heavy Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence, plus Reading Comprehension), a full range of quantitative reasoning (arithmetic, algebra, geometry, data interpretation), and one 30-minute analytical essay. The reasoning is spread across two subject areas, but each area is not pushed to the same depth of formal logic that the LSAT requires.

The LSAT is narrower and deeper. There is no quantitative section, no vocabulary, no essay in the main test. But the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections drill harder on formal-logic argument structure, inference, and long analytical passages. The LSAT rewards a specific kind of thinking: identifying premises and conclusions, spotting logical flaws, mapping conditional relationships. That is trainable, but the training curve is steeper than the GRE's.

So who finds which easier?

• STEM applicants (engineering, CS, econ, quantitative fields): the GRE is usually easier because your quantitative background gives you a large tailwind, and the vocabulary-heavy Verbal is a discrete studyable set.
• Humanities and social-science applicants who love long-form arguments: the LSAT is often easier because the analytical reasoning it demands is closer to what you already do; the GRE's Quant section becomes the pain point.
• Career-changers with a math-and-writing background but no formal logic training: the GRE is usually easier as a first exposure; the LSAT can be learned, but the ramp is real.
• Anyone who is a fast timed reader: both tests reward this, but the LSAT rewards it more directly.

One statistical observation from published ETS and LSAC data: the average number of prep hours for a comparable percentile band tends to be somewhat lower for the GRE than for the LSAT, but the variance is high and the sample is self-selected. Do not use average prep-hour figures to pick; use your own strength profile.

The Decision Framework: Which One to Take

Here is a practical decision tree we recommend to applicants who ask which to take.

1. Are you applying to any non-law graduate programs (JD-MBA, JD-master's, or hedging law school against a Master's or PhD)? If yes, take the GRE. It is accepted for law and for graduate school, and doubling up on tests is a waste of time.
2. Are you applying only to law schools, and does at least one of your target schools have any indication of LSAT preference in its published admissions guidance (some do, particularly public state schools with heavy in-state pipelines)? If yes, take the LSAT. Do not fight the school's internal calibration.
3. Are you strong quantitatively and weak in formal logic? Take the GRE.
4. Are you strong in formal logic and long-form argument analysis, and weak in timed math? Take the LSAT.
5. Are you unsure of your relative strengths? Take a diagnostic of each: a full-length GRE mock plus an LSAC free LSAT sample. Compare percentiles, then take the one where you scored higher. This is the single highest-leverage step in the whole decision.

Prep Strategy Differences

Practical differences to plan for.

• GRE prep leans on two big buckets: vocabulary depth and quantitative fluency. Vocabulary is a slow build (spaced repetition over weeks); Quant is a faster build if you have any recent math exposure.
• LSAT prep leans on drilling Logical Reasoning question patterns, learning the argument-structure taxonomy, and building Reading Comprehension endurance for dense passages.
• The GRE gives you an on-screen calculator on Quant; the LSAT gives you nothing quantitative because there is no math.
• Both tests are section-timed. The GRE is section-adaptive (your Section 1 performance sets the difficulty of Section 2 in each measure); the LSAT is not adaptive but has a variable unscored section randomly placed.
• Retake economics: the GRE lets you retake once every 21 days up to five per rolling year (see how many times you can take the GRE for when a retake is worth it); the LSAT is more restrictive (up to three per testing year, five per current five-year period, seven lifetime).

Frequently Asked Questions

The Practical Next Step

Take a diagnostic of each test before you commit. It is the single highest-leverage two hours you can spend on this decision.