LNAT Score Distribution: Every Published Cycle, Charted
A complete 1,814-applicant pool scored one mark at a time, LSE's banded distribution beside it, and the national shape the only public statistics imply.
The LNAT
ScoringThe LNAT Consortium has never published a national score distribution. What exists instead are the distributions individual universities have released, mostly under Freedom of Information, and those carry something a national curve would not: alongside the count of candidates at each score sits the count who were made an offer. The charts below cover every published LNAT distribution we could source, from a complete 1,814-applicant pool at Oxford to LSE’s banded 2,067, plus the last national statistics the Consortium released.
1,814Oxford applicants, scored individually
2,067LSE applicants, in eight bands
0National distributions published
A complete applicant pool, score by score
Oxford’s 2025 disclosure gives a count of applicants and offers at every single Section A score, which no other university has released. Read it closely before generalising from it: one pool, one cycle, and a self-selected one at that.
Figure 1 · Oxford 2025 applicant pool
All applicantsOffer-holdersPool average (24.94)
Every Section A score in one applicant pool
Oxford Law, 2025 entry cycle, FOI 202506/653, as set out in our Oxford LNAT guide. The per-score rows shown here account for 1,767 of the 1,814 applicants in the disclosure; Oxford’s published averages (24.94 applicant, 30.48 offer-holder) are calculated over the full pool.
The applicant distribution is broad and roughly symmetric, peaking between 23 and 28 rather than at the top of the range. The offer distribution sits to the right of it and is much narrower, concentrated between 28 and 35. The two overlap heavily: plenty of candidates who scored 31 or 32 received no offer, because the LNAT feeds into a decision that also weighs grades, personal statement and interview.
The upper tail is thinner than most candidates assume. Only 68 of 1,767 scored candidates reached 35 or more, and the highest score anyone recorded was 41. At 36 you are already around the 99th percentile of Oxford Law applicants, a long way from anywhere near full marks.
What your score is worth as a percentile
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Where does your score sit?
Move the slider to your Section A mark. Everything below is computed from published data, not from a model of you.
26 / 42
60thPercentile among Oxford Law applicants2025 pool, 1,767 scored candidates
69thModelled national percentilefrom the 2015/16 mean of 23.3, sd 5.5
8.5%Oxford offer rate in your bandband 24–26: 25 offers from 293
22.9%LSE offer rate in your bandband 24–26: 116 offers from 506
What that means
Above the applicant average everywhere, and inside the offer-holder range at Durham and LSE. Still below the Oxford and Cambridge offer-holder averages of about 30.
Oxford percentile and offer rate from the 2025 FOI disclosure; LSE offer rate from the 2021/22 disclosure; the national percentile is modelled from the 2015/16 mean and standard deviation and is the softest number here. Nothing is stored and no account is needed.
The table below converts Oxford’s per-score counts into percentiles. Read each row as “this share of Oxford Law applicants scored at or below this mark”. Since the pool scores above the country, your national percentile at any given score sits a little higher than the figure here.
| Section A score | Percentile in the Oxford pool | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 8th | Bottom sixth of the pool |
| 18 | 18th | Below the pool average |
| 20 | 27th | Below the pool average |
| 22 | 37th | Below the pool average |
| 24 | 48th | Around the middle |
| 25 | 53rd | Around the middle |
| 26 | 60th | Around the middle |
| 28 | 72nd | Upper third, approaching the offer-holder average |
| 30 | 81st | Upper third, approaching the offer-holder average |
| 32 | 90th | Top sixth |
| 35 | 98th | Top five per cent |
Computed from the per-score rows in Oxford’s 2025 disclosure, which cover 1,767 of the 1,814 applicants. Percentiles are cumulative and rounded to the nearest whole number.
The same score, two different universities
Oxford and LSE have both released banded distributions with offer counts attached, so their curves can be compared in shape even though the cycles differ. The two curves run in opposite directions.
Figure 2 · Offer rate by score band
Oxford 2025LSE 2021/22
The same score, two very different offer rates
At LSE the offer rate climbs early and then flattens: a candidate scoring 21 to 23 already had a 16% chance, and the rate settles around 32% through the high 20s and low 30s. Oxford stays near zero until the mid-20s and then accelerates, from 9% in the 24–26 band to 27% at 30–32 and 53% at 33 and above.
LSE weighs the LNAT alongside everything else; Oxford uses it to shortlist. So what an extra mark buys you depends on where you are applying. Moving from 22 to 26 shifts your position at LSE; moving from 30 to 34 shifts it at Oxford.
Cycles differ, pools differ. Oxford’s data is from the 2025 cycle and LSE’s from 2021/22, and each pool self-selects differently. The shapes are comparable; any single pair of bars is not.
The underlying counts
| Score band | Oxford applicants | Oxford offers | LSE applicants | LSE offers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0–14 | 113 | 0 | 156 | 1 |
| 15–17 | 139 | 1 | 201 | 7 |
| 18–20 | 231 | 4 | 351 | 21 |
| 21–23 | 277 | 5 | 445 | 71 |
| 24–26 | 293 | 25 | 506 | 116 |
| 27–29 | 307 | 45 | 264 | 85 |
| 30–32 | 233 | 62 | 112 | 36 |
| 33 and above | 174 | 93 | 32 | 8 |
| Total | 1,767 | 235 | 2,067 | 345 |
Oxford’s 33–35 and 36–41 bands are merged into “33 and above” to match LSE’s wider top band. Oxford’s banded total of 1,767 sits just under the 1,814 applicants in the disclosure.
The national picture, as far as it exists
No per-score national distribution has ever been published. The closest available is the 2015/16 Pearson VUE technical report, which gives the mean and standard deviation for 7,849 candidates but no counts. The chart below draws the shape those two parameters imply. It is a model rather than a measurement, and the label stays on it throughout, because a real score distribution on a 42-item test comes out lumpier than a smooth curve.
Figure 3 · Modelled national shape
Modelled national curveOxford applicant average
The national shape implied by the only public statistics
Modelled, not observed. Curve is a normal distribution with the candidate-weighted mean (23.27) and mean standard deviation (5.5) published in the Pearson VUE LNAT technical report for 2015/16 (7,849 candidates). The Consortium has not published per-score national counts, so the curve shows what those two parameters imply rather than a count of candidates, and the percentile labels rest on the same assumption.
A national mean of 23.3 with a standard deviation of 5.5 puts about two thirds of all candidates between 18 and 29, and fewer than one in fifty above 34. It also puts Oxford’s applicant average of 24.94 well clear of the national mean, which is what self-selection does to a pool and tells you nothing further.
Treat percentile claims sceptically. Any site quoting a precise national LNAT percentile is either modelling it the way we have here or citing a university pool as if it were the country. Either is defensible when stated. Most are not stated.
What the distributions do not tell you
- They exclude the essay. Every chart here is Section A only. Section B is not centrally marked, and no university has released an essay distribution alongside its MCQ one.
- They are single cycles. Oxford’s is 2025, LSE’s is 2021/22. For year-on-year movement, use the averages over time.
- They measure the whole application. The offer rate in a score band includes everything else those candidates brought with them, since people who score well tend to have stronger grades and statements too.
- They are pools. A percentile among Oxford Law applicants is a harder percentile than the same number nationally.
FAQ
Is there an official LNAT score distribution?
No. The Consortium publishes no national distribution and its public results page carries no statistics. The distributions that exist are university disclosures, mostly obtained under Freedom of Information.
What percentile is a 30 on the LNAT?
Within Oxford’s 2025 applicant pool, 30 is about the 81st percentile. Nationally it would be higher, because the Oxford pool scores above the national mean. There is no published national percentile table.
What was the highest LNAT score anyone got?
In Oxford’s 2025 pool the maximum was 41 out of 42, achieved by one candidate. The 2015/16 national report records a maximum of 39 across 7,849 candidates. Nobody in either dataset scored full marks.
Does a higher score guarantee an offer?
No. Even in the 33-and-above band, Oxford turned down almost half of applicants in 2025. A high score moves the odds a long way and leaves the decision open.
How we checked this
The Oxford distribution is from FOI 202506/653 covering the 2025 entry cycle, and the LSE distribution from FOI 4064 covering 2021/22; both are set out in full in our Oxford and LSE guides. National parameters come from the Pearson VUE LNAT technical report for September 2015 to June 2016. The national curve is modelled from that report’s mean and standard deviation, and carries the modelled label wherever it appears; every other chart plots disclosed counts unchanged. Universities that have released no distribution are absent rather than approximated.
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Scoring
Average LNAT score
The national mean, the university averages, and how they have moved.
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What is a good LNAT score?
Turning a percentile into a decision about where to apply.
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Best LNAT preparation resources
What moves a score, ordered by the problem each one solves.
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