John Marshall Law School plans to start accepting the GRE test for admissions this fall, joining a growing number of schools deviating from taking only LSAT scores from applicants.
The movement started in 2016, when the University of Arizona College of Law announced it would accept either the GRE graduate school entry exam or the LSAT law school aptitude test from prospective students. Then last March, Harvard Law School announced plans to start accepting GRE scores for admission as part of a pilot program.
Law schools around the country, including Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, have followed suit. Accepting scores from the more user-friendly GRE in addition to the LSAT could mean an expanded pool of applicants and a class that’s more diverse, ethnically and academically.
“We know that some students who ultimately come here, their circumstances change,” said Darby Dickerson, dean of Chicago’s John Marshall Law. “Having the GRE option would give that pool of candidates different choices.”
Supporters argue that the GRE, administered multiple times weekly, often via computer, is more accessible than the LSAT, administered a handful of times each year at designated testing centers.
The Law School Admission Council, which administers the LSAT, has made some changes to make the test more accessible. It announced last year that it would lift the limit on the number of times a person can take the test in a two-year period. It also increased the number of testing dates from four to six, starting this year.
John Marshall applicants can submit GRE scores instead of LSAT scores for fall 2018 admission, Dickerson said. But if they have taken both tests, the applicant will have to submit both scores.
“This isn’t in any way designed to whitewash someone’s credentials,” Dickerson said. The decision has been in the making for months, she said.
Law schools must remain in compliance with standards from the legal education section of the American Bar Association, which contracts with the U.S. Department of Education to accredit law schools. Currently, if an accredited school wants to start using an alternative admission test, such as the GRE, it is required to demonstrate that test is as valid as the LSAT in predicting law school success.
Educational Testing Service, the Princeton, N.J.-based nonprofit that administers the GRE, conducted a national validity study last year involving more than a dozen law schools, including John Marshall. The study found that the GRE was a valid indicator of law school success, according to the company. John Marshall also conducted an internal review of the school-level results, Dickerson said.
Pritzker School of Law had planned to start accepting the GRE for fall 2019 admission, but the school announced in October that it would start a year earlier. Accepting the GRE allows the school to try to reach a group of people who otherwise wouldn’t have applied, said Don Rebstock, associate dean of strategic initiatives. That includes prospective students from different academic backgrounds, particularly science, technology, engineering and math, who didn’t plan to take the LSAT.
If it works well at schools that have taken the lead, Rebstock said, he expects the GRE will become very popular among law school admissions.
“The world is watching,” he said.
There are currently about 15 law schools around the country that let applicants submit GRE scores, but more are warming to the idea. Of the 128 law schools that responded to a survey released in September by Kaplan Test Prep, 25 percent said they plan to start accepting the GRE, up from 14 percent in 2016.
But for now, as it has been for 70 years, the LSAT remains the test of measure, said Jeff Thomas, executive director of pre-law programs at New York City-based Kaplan Test Prep. Unless students are applying only to the schools that take the GRE, they still need to take the LSAT.
“This is an evolving story,” Thomas said. “(But) right now, it’s still an LSAT game.”
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