I initially thought that Harvard Law’s willingness to admit students based on GRE scores would reverse legal education’s over-reliance on the LSAT. Unfortunately, the good news lasted for less than a week. Here is a key excerpt of the selectivity methodology for the 2018 US News & World Report Law School Rankings:
Median LSAT and GRE scores (0.125): These are the combined median scores on the Law School Admission Test of all 2016 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program. For the first time, U.S. News used median GRE scores in combination with LSAT scores for this indicator if they were reported for a law school’s 2016 entering class. The University of Arizona was the only school that reported both LSAT and GRE scores to U.S. News for its 2016 entering class.
This is the same methodology that US News uses for colleges that admit based on both the ACT and SAT. USN converts the means to percentiles and then weights them based on their proportion in total admission. Of course this year, only University of Arizona that required a combined mean based on the LSAT and GRE.
Harvard Law may get some terrific applicants who apply to HLS at the same time they are applying to PhD programs. And that may enrich and diversify HLS. But unfortunately, the above change in the USN’s methodology means that the rest of legal education is going to be stuck with the status quo of continued LSAT over-reliance. If you’re a law school, why take on the hassle of processing GRE scores when the median GRE (normalized in percentiles) will need to be at least as high as the median LSAT? It is also unclear if the LSAC, which provides bundling services for law school applications, will process applications using the GRE. Harvard Law can have its own special admissions process, but few other law schools are similarly situated.
Moreover, another barrier is rapidly being erected against the GRE. The ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar is contemplating a change to Standard 503 on admission tests. Under the current Standard 503, law school must use a “valid and reliable admission test to assist the school and the applicant in assessing the applicant’s capability of satisfactorily completing the school’s program of legal education.” Under the proposed revision to 503, the “valid and reliable” requirement has been struck. The Section then proposes a new subparts (b) and (c):
(b) A law school shall not use an admission test other than the Law School Admission Test sponsored by the Law School Admission Council unless the test has been determined by the Council to be a valid and reliable test pursuant to process that the Council shall and publish, and to which it shall adhere. The process adopted by the Council shall be the only method through which admission tests shall be determined to be valid and reliable, and variances may not be sought by law schools under Rule 33 that are inconsistent with this Standard.
Wow, this is quite a power grab underway by the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. The practical translation is this: The LSAT is currently the only game in town. We’ll figure out latter how to vet alternatives — and though we are not psyshometricians, we’ll be the sole and final arbiters of valid and reliable.
In an industry known for glacial change, is it a mere coincident that these bureaucratic agencies are all moving in such a seeming quick and coordinated fashion? A year ago the LSAC was apoplectic with University of Arizona’s decision to start using the GRE, so much so that they threaten to throw Arizona out of LSAC. See Arizona Law’s Embrace of the GRE Draws Ire of LSAT-Maker, WSJ Law Blog (May 2, 2016).. This is a very serious threat because the LSAC provides the Credentials Assembly Service for its members, which enables prospective students to apply to many law schools through a single online portal. But for a letter for 148 law school deans, this ouster would have occurred. See Law School Deans Fight Back Against The Tyranny Of The LSAT, ATL (May 4, 2016).
What does the LSAC think of the new proposed ABA Standard 503? Not surprisingly, the makers of the LSAT really like it. According to an ABA Journal story posted last month, a spokesperson for the LSAC wrote, “The revised standard is an important improvement to the former Standard 503.” See Any LSAT alternatives must be validated through new process, according to proposed rule revision, ABA Journal (Feb. 17, 2017).
That said, the LSAC should not be criticized for promoting and protecting its own institutional interests. What surprised me is how quickly the US News changed its methodology to head-off a future threat. By announcing the LSAT-GRE methodology now, it means that very few schools will follow Harvard’s lead, saving USN staff additional data collection hassles. I wonder if they got a nudge from the LSAC?
The bottomline is that over-reliance on the LSAT does real harm to law schools and law students. I don’t blame the LSAC. I don’t blame U.S. News. It