Comments on: Who Needs a Title? (LSAT/GPA/Admissions/random)

by: Taco John

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:26:40 +0000

I would comment on this here, but I wrote a post on it, so my opinion is here.

by: Janine

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 02:17:09 +0000

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.

by: Josh

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 00:53:46 +0000

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.

by: Janine

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 21:00:07 +0000

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.