Do LSAT/GPA reflect any non-academic personal qualities?

[BoscoBreaux]

If anything, if we were to assume that tencigars has a high GPA and LSAT combination, he proves that there is no correlation. How pedantic! (This would hardly be seen as an admirable trait.)

I never implied that I had high scores.

Your argument is flawed, by the way.  A basic LSAT flaw, too.

The presence of one less-than-admirable trait would not necessitate the absence of any, much less all, other admirable traits.

If I was, arguendo, being pendantic, that would by itself fall far short of "proving that there is no correlation."

End of lesson 

Okay, pedantic AND argumentative. The poor use of grammar and the predicatable stylistc lapses connote,  perhaps, a low LSAT score; the tone, however, screams self-doubt. Despite containing routine grammatical errors, and suggesting a poor understanding of cognative theory, the original post is a lovely example of simplistic thought, which--ironically enough--is rather long-winded! 

[ccorsi]

I bet Hitler would have done well on the LSAT.

C2

[beano]

Would you say, then, that there is some inherent value to reasoning ability, and that there is some correlation between high reasoning ability and admirable character and interesting personality (which I will define as being dynamic with depth)?

We may only disagree on how much.  (And I already admit that I was wrong in my previous assumption of a strong correlation [in the case of law students at least].)

Oh, I definitely think reasoning ability is a valuable and generally positive quality.  Very useful, etc.

That said, performance on the LSAT is not a perfect reflection of reasoning ability (some people perform poorly due to test anxiety, time pressure, not all forms of reasoning are tested, test prep has effects, etc.).  Additionally, the ability to apply logical reasoning in one type of circumstance (a game-like standardized test) does not guarantee or even really imply an ability to apply logical reasoning in everyday life.  Personally, I can do LSAT logic pretty well, but am often horribly unreasonable and illogical when it comes to real life problems and decisions.    Finally, while being "reasonable" is a good thing, I don't think it really has much to do with being "interesting" and enjoyable to be around, but those are pretty subjective qualities.

So ... I guess my argument is that any correlation there is would probably be weak enough as to be masked by all of the other factors that contribute to whether or not one is interesting and admirable. 

And even if we were to say that good reasoning ability is necessary if one is to be a good/interesting/admirable person, I wouldn't think that it could possibly be sufficient in and of itself.

What do you think "interesting" and "admirable" mean, anyway?  We're arguing about something pretty vague.

[hilljack]

The winner of an argument is the person who confuses the other person.  Use some incoherant sentence structure and a handful of five dollar words and you win.

high LSAT and GPA show one of two things or both:
1. Innate intelligence
2. Hard work

If you find either of these things to be admirible or related to some other admirible trait, then you could say that a high score is an indicator of something admirible.  If you don't, fine.  What a frickin stupid argument.

[tencigars]

If anything, if we were to assume that tencigars has a high GPA and LSAT combination, he proves that there is no correlation. How pedantic! (This would hardly be seen as an admirable trait.)

I never implied that I had high scores.

Your argument is flawed, by the way.  A basic LSAT flaw, too.

The presence of one less-than-admirable trait would not necessitate the absence of any, much less all, other admirable traits.

If I was, arguendo, being pedantic, that would by itself fall far short of "proving that there is no correlation."

End of lesson 

Okay, pedantic AND argumentative. The poor use of grammar and the predicatable stylistc lapses connote,  perhaps, a low LSAT score; the tone, however, screams self-doubt. Despite containing routine grammatical errors, and suggesting a poor understanding of cognative theory, the original post is a lovely example of simplistic thought, which--ironically enough--is rather long-winded! 

What a lot of completely unsupported, pretentious gibberish.

I guess you couldn't defend your fallacious reasoning.

[hilljack]

This has to be one of the stupidest arguments in LSD history

[tencigars]

I bet Hitler would have done well on the LSAT.

C2

But he might not have maintained a high GPA; I heard he was very lazy.

Most leaders who did not inherit their positions probably would have done well on the LSAT, I suspect.  I'm not claiming that high reasoning ability equates to admirable character, not by a long shot.

[tencigars]

Would you say, then, that there is some inherent value to reasoning ability, and that there is some correlation between high reasoning ability and admirable character and interesting personality (which I will define as being dynamic with depth)?

We may only disagree on how much.  (And I already admit that I was wrong in my previous assumption of a strong correlation [in the case of law students at least].)

Oh, I definitely think reasoning ability is a valuable and generally positive quality.  Very useful, etc.

That said, performance on the LSAT is not a perfect reflection of reasoning ability (some people perform poorly due to test anxiety, time pressure, not all forms of reasoning are tested, test prep has effects, etc.).  Additionally, the ability to apply logical reasoning in one type of circumstance (a game-like standardized test) does not guarantee or even really imply an ability to apply logical reasoning in everyday life.  Personally, I can do LSAT logic pretty well, but am often horribly unreasonable and illogical when it comes to real life problems and decisions.    Finally, while being "reasonable" is a good thing, I don't think it really has much to do with being "interesting" and enjoyable to be around, but those are pretty subjective qualities.

I agree that the LSAT is far from a perfect measure of reasoning ability.  Your mention of the time factor hits home with me.  I have a slight learning disability--visual processing speed--but did not take the test with accommodation.  As a result, I ran out of time in most sections.  I actually sent a photocopy of my Scantron along with my application to a couple of the very top law schools hoping it would tell the story: columns of bubbled C's.  I didn't "get to" (guessed C) more questions than the total number of questions I answered incorrectly.  Ironically, bubbling B instead of C would have raised my score a couple of percentile points.

So ... I guess my argument is that any correlation there is would probably be weak enough as to be masked by all of the other factors that contribute to whether or not one is interesting and admirable.

Maybe so.  As you know, I had hoped otherwise.

And even if we were to say that good reasoning ability is necessary if one is to be a good/interesting/admirable person, I wouldn't think that it could possibly be sufficient in and of itself.

Agreed.

What do you think "interesting" and "admirable" mean, anyway?  We're arguing about something pretty vague.

For definition of "admirable character" I kind of have in mind the original definition of character.  Edith Hamilton wrote of how the ancient Greeks celebrated what we had in common rather than our differences as we tend to do today, and how they especially celebrated those who showed an exceptional amount of a particular type of character.  They imprinted coins with the faces of those individuals, which is actually how the meaning of the word "character" originated.

When I say someone has character, I usually mean he has a great amount of some of the qualities that most people admire and respect: honesty, compassion, loyalty, etc.  (By the way, I rather suspect that you have character, beano.)

As for "interesting," I don't have a definition in mind really, and it's more subjective.  I haven't gotten around to making a case for that correlation.  I can say, however, that people who have the ability to reason well are more interesting  to me.  They can hold an intellectual conversation and can engage my interest when others might bore.

[tencigars]

I agree with most on here that said that there isn't really a correlation between admirable personal qualities and a high GPA and/or LSAT. I would agree that it should be correlated more often than not with dedication, motivation, and other characteristics that would make sense in a good student, but even that is not guaranteed. There are some people who don't study all that much yet do ridiculously well in classes. Sure, it's not very common, but it is possible. As far as desirable personal qualities like kindness, compassion, and the like, I don't think high GPA or LSAT would be predictive of these. Being a good student may indicate reasoning ability, or at least the potential for it, but I don't think it would be accurate to state that this reasoning ability would be used to be kind and compassionate and be a generally good person. Loads of people use said reasoning ability for entirely different claims. Many people may use that ability to build themselves up at the expense of others, so some may even claim that these things could be evidence of a correlation in the reverse, although I don't believe that, either. I think they're pretty independent of each other, personally.

You would say zero correlation then?  Or would you allow for some small amount?

[HippieLawChick]

"I agree with most of your post.

Could you argue an case for there being some inherent value to reason?  And, separately, some correlation between reasoning ability and qualites of admirable character or at least interesting personality (the original description of the correlation, I believe)?"


I agree with much of what you said later in clarification of your original post.  If I wasn't so tired right now, I would carry on with this discussion.  Just wanted to thank you for providing something interesting on this site.  It has been a little lame lately!