Who Needs a Title? (LSAT/GPA/Admissions/random)
Very Unnecessary and foxes for now recently posted (VU here, foxes here) about the importance of GPA and LSAT in the admissions process. foxes decries the emphasis on numbers, but Janine (VU) defends the LSAT as an opportunity to make up for other parts of her application hurt by extenuating circumstances. Without the personality or eloquence of either, here are my thoughts.
Most parts of a law school application are based on performance over a relatively long period of time. Achieving good grades, taking part in extracurriculars, and getting to know someone who can write a letter of recommendation all require a certain time commitment. For cases like Janine’s, where family crises and degree changes hurt these aspects of her application, some measure of an applicant’s ability at a particular moment in time is certainly needed. The LSAT and personal statement serve this purpose.
The problem is that GPA and LSAT score are such a big part of the decision to admit or deny someone. Some people will be overlooked because they don’t perform well on standardized tests, because they had a bad test day, or because they didn’t find a field they were passionate about until their third change of major, despite significant involvement in extracurriculars, glowing recommendations, or great writing ability. A de-emphasis on GPA and LSAT would help these applicants and wouldn’t necessarily hurt applicants like Janine. If admissions counselors were, instead of looking for scores in a certain range, trying to find proof of intelligence, writing ability, and perseverance, they could read her personal statement and look at her application in light of the things she had to work through to find perseverance in her family troubles, writing ability in her personal statement, and intelligence in her LSAT score.
Since GPA and LSAT score are reasonably good predictors of law school performance, many people feel the heavy reliance on them in admissions is justified. I think this is slightly off. Of course schools want students that will do well in classes, but a school’s reputation is more important than the quality of its students. Law schools aren’t looking for students that will succeed in law school; they’re looking for people who will succeed after law school. Having alumni in highly visible, important positions makes and preserves a school’s reputation. Schools should select the students they think would be the most successful lawyers. Since the practice of law requires more than just test-taking skills, such things as perseverance, personality, and writing ability would become more important to admissions counselors.
This doesn’t seem like a bad way to go about things. Unfortunately, the prestige-based nature of law screws up this whole process. Since the US News rankings have such a strong effect on prestige, schools admit students with high GPAs and LSAT scores to keep or improve their rank. Students from highly-ranked schools have better opportunities (in general) than other students. These alumni have a better chance of ending up in important positions that improve the school’s reputation. As GPA and LSAT percentiles go up, so does the school’s rank, which improves the career opportunities for graduates. So now GPA and LSAT seem to be reasonable predictors of post-law school success.
The current system is pathetic. Admissions decisions shouldn’t be based predominantly on an applicant’s numbers. It’s hard to blame the schools for not wanting to drop in the rankings. It’s hard to blame the students for going to the schools that give them the best opportunities. But as long as law is so ridiculously prestige-based, I can’t see things changing.
Will I be able to look past the numbers, as I wish the schools would do, and choose the school that’s best for me, regardless of its place in the rankings? Will I refuse to look down on students at lower-ranked schools? If I’m ever in the position to hire fellow lawyers, will I choose them based on their competence rather than their alma mater? I sure hope so.
Will I change anything? Probably not.
Update!: Kristine’s take on things. And here’s a post I was looking for earlier about Northwestern bagging on the LSAT scores of past classes.
February 18th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
I think a de-emphasis on the LSAT/GPA combo would be great (as I said, there is no escaping the fact that the LSAT and standardized testing in general are in part Just Plain Evil), but I do think there is room for *some* numbers-based considerations and wouldn’t be in favor of eliminating the LSAT entirely. More to the point, I think that expressing hostility towards people with “good” or “better” numbers who seem to lack the “real-world experience” based on a brief summary seen on the Internet (not talking here about foxes’ post, but about the boards) is juvenile and dumb.
I also agree that the whole “LSAT/GPA as indicator of success” argument doesn’t quite hold — not only does it raise all the obvious issues (of how to measure success, how important a strong possibility of “success” actually should be to an individual or to the make-up of a class), but I wonder if anyone has tried to correlate, for example, strong/weak personal statements (as judged by admission committee people) to success in law school. I seriously doubt it. LSAT/GPA are correlated to success because they’re straightforward and measurable.
I hadn’t even been thinking about the other side of the coin — the prospectives’ choice of schools. I wonder what it means that despite my belief that numbers are inescapable and occasionally necessary, I chose the lower-ranked school. Possibly just that I am confusing.
February 18th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
My post started off vaguely responding to yours and foxes’s (foxes’? where does the apostrophe go there?) posts, but then it wandered off somewhere into my brain, where it got lost. I’m not sure I actually had a point, and I’m impressed you actually read it.
I agree that sometimes we numbers candidates (yeah, I’m one too. I don’t have a good reason for it, though.) get beat up on. On the flip side, people that got into schools with median numbers much higher than theirs get beat up on, too (think mariecutie if you read LSD). I think people put themselves in a group (”numbers” or “life experience”) and just attack members of the other group. It sucks all around.
I think we pretty much agree on things, but I have to blather on forever and clarify myself a few times to say it.
Hmmm… You may be confusing, but since I’m arguing for a greater emphasis on “other factors” that would hurt my chances, I think I’ve got you beat.
February 18th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
It does cut both ways, and it’s so ridiculous. I understand the urge to look for anything to make your own situation seem explicable (either “the law schools care only about numbers” or “the whole thing is whack, look at this person with totally horrible numbers who got into X”), but the committees are crafting a class out of a pool, and I doubt their decision-making boils down to any one consistent rationale.
In a broad sense, I think “other factors” help us all by humanizing the process and letting a broader range of people have a crack at entering the profession, so advocating for them makes sense. And while I’m not saying that everyone is a unique and beautiful snowflake, I do think that everyone has *something* special about them, so I don’t necessarily believe it would even be a detriment to those who haven’t cured a cancer lately to see this become a more central focus.
February 21st, 2005 at 12:26 pm
I would comment on this here, but I wrote a post on it, so my opinion is here.