Well,
An applicant’s Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score has become the most determinative factor in the admission process. The LSAT is now widely used as a predictor of success throughout law school and on the bar exam, purposes neither contemplated nor advocated by the test-makers themselves. Most disturbingly, over-reliance on the LSAT serves as a significant barrier to achieving excellence and diversity in law schools.
THE IMPROPER USE OF THIS TEST SHOULD BE ABANDONED.
Notwithstanding the protestations of the LSAC and its psychometricians, who merely sought to design a test that accurately measures limited skills, test scores continue to be accepted today as a gross measure of intelligence and/or of the test taker's general knowledge and academic competence. LSAT measures aptitude, not achievement – a much-contested intention itself. The resulting test score is said to predict whether an applicant will successfully complete the first year of law school. Yet even this limited claim is contested. One study finds that the test explains only 16% of the variance in grades among students enrolled at ABA accredited law schools (while the LSAT combined with GPA explains 25% of the variance). Even more problematic is the variation in the correlation between LSAT scores and first-year grades from school to school. Further, race and gender continue to be negatively correlated with such test scores.
Despite the test-makers' modest goals and warnings from the LSAC against overreliance on LSAT scores, many deans, faculties and law school admission officers continue to treat the test as a nearly-definitive measure of aptitude and merit. Notwithstanding the claims in glossy law school catalogues that admissions is a "personalized", "holistic" process, 70-80% of all admissions are determined strictly on the numbers. The LSAC has emphasized that modest differences in test scores do not matter.
Even as much as 10 points under the current scoring system is inconsequential in predicting the relative success of students in law school.
Yet, despite these cautionary words and the availability of "banded scores", law schools continue to use the LSAT as a blunt instrument to determine the fate of applicants whose scores may be within 2-3 points of each other and to set absolute lines of demarcation for admission. In addition, over-reliance on the LSAT as a valid predictor of first-year grades ignores a large body of scholarship suggesting that law students of color and non-traditional students confront an unfamiliar and often hostile learning environment which may compromise their ability to do well during the first year despite subsequent success in the second and third years and in the profession.
Although the LSAT was never designed to predict overall performance in law school or professional competence in the practice of law, even employers have been known to ask candidates for their LSAT scores in job interviews with firms in the private sector, government agencies, courts and even in legal education. The LSAT does not measure motivation, perseverance, character, interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills, oral communication, empathy for clients, commitment to public service or the likelihood that the applicant will work with underserved communities. Law schools, by neglecting these important qualities, do a disservice to the legal profession and its clients, and they limit the legal profession’s ability to provide meaningful access to legal services to all segments of society.
Admission professionals at law schools across our nation are under tremendous pressure to secure the admission of students with high test scores. This pressure is the result of three forces: A) popular magazine "rankings" and their appeal, in our status-driven culture, to all of us in the academic food chain – applicants, enrolled students, faculty members, administrators, alumni/ae, employers and benefactors; B) the cost-saving aspects of a number-based admission process, which reduces much of the need for human intervention; and C) diversity opponents and others who argue that less reliance on test scores and greater attention to other qualifications will compromise America’s traditional "meritocracy."
- "U.S. News & World Report" Rankings
Ostensibly, "U.S. News & World Report" ranks law schools for the benefit of consumers, namely potential law students and their parents. While this ranking has been condemned by the AALS and the ABA for its methodological errors as well as for its incompleteness, rankings are closely followed by faculty members and administrators, as well as by prospective applicants. In this race to improve or at least maintain their rankings, schools fear a fall down the pecking order and hail a rise as proof of significant institutional improvement. Deans regularly refer to improved rankings and high median LSAT scores in fundraising campaigns and in developing alumni/ae relations. U.S. News relies heavily on the mean LSAT of the enrolled law school class, and a difference of 1 point may separate a "first tier" from a "second tier" school. Consequently, many admission officers, under increasing pressure from deans and professors to better market their school in the popular press, pay inordinate attention to LSAT scores. The process has become a numbers game, with admission officers calculating how many students with certain scores have to be admitted before they can begin to admit candidates with lower scores but with greater over-all merit.
SOME LAW SCHOOLS, CONCERNED ABOUT THE EFFECT OF THE RANKINGS ON THEIR ABILITY TO COMPETE FOR STUDENTS, HAVE ADOPTED QUICK-FIX METHODS TO RAISE lsat SCORES IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN/IMPROVE THEIR RANKINGS IN "u.s NEWS"
Former AALS president Dale Whitman has warned about the incentives for unethical behavior: "The desire for high rankings seems increasingly to induce us to behave in ways that we would not otherwise choose and to distort our educational judgments and priorities." The questionable behaviors he reports include everything from the commonplace distortion of the selection process in order to maintain an LSAT median that preserves or improves a school’s ranking to soliciting the transfer of minority students enrolled in neighboring institutions in their second year when their LSAT scores will not affect the ranking of the school.
The belief that LSAT scores measure the quality of the incoming class and the need to maintain a high median LSAT for ranking purposes has also affected the distribution of financial aid. Schools now "buy" high LSAT scores without regard to need. Given the prohibitive cost of legal education, the enormous debt burden facing so many students, and the limited availability of loan forgiveness programs for students who pursue public interest employment, the practice of using LSAT scores in awarding financial aid is disturbing. The LSAT was not designed to measure the relative worth of law schools. Educational quality can be measured by numerous indicators, including, dare we say, the quality of classroom teaching, as well as the quality and variety of clinical offerings, faculty scholarship, faculty standing in the legal community, the richness and diversity of the student body, the quality of services provided to students, the level of student satisfaction, the success of its graduates, and much more. Unfortunately, the LSAT has been accorded a significance and carries a weight far beyond its original, intended purpose.