Harvard to Allow GRE in Place of LSAT Forum

[Platopus]

Moral of the story if you have a great GPA: don't sit for the LSAT right now. Study for and ace the GRE. Apply to Harvard the first day apps open. Spend the time waiting studying for the LSAT, but don't register until you hear back from Harvard. If rejected, then register for and take he December LSAT and apply to other schools.

Assuming other schools don't follow trend, at least for the 2017 cycle, I see this being the case for a number of high GPA applicants, who may get accepted to Harvard, consider that enough and never take the LSAT (which would open the door to $$$ at CCN and down). I consider this a good thing for those looking for $$$.

Assuming they submit on the first day applications are available, when's the earliest HLS applicants find out whether they are accepted? After the Dec LSAT date right? If someone is seriously thinking about law school, they will still have to take LSATs... unless someone wants to put all their eggs into the HLS basket with GRE scores (seems risky because there's literally no historical data on how the admissions committee interprets that data; I doubt that they even fully understand how to interpret GRE vs LSAT at this point). Would be an incredible waste of time & resources to prepare for 2 different exams... and I warn people not to underestimate the difficulty for GRE.

Very early but this just feels like a win-win for Harvard. First off, they entice people pursuing STEM, MBAs, dual degrees, resulting in a more diverse class. This is exactly why business schools started accepting GRE - to attract candidates from different fields, but especially women & minority students. Not to mention that it allows HLS to be more selective, resulting in better metrics for the law school rankings (not that I think they're going to worry about HLS ranking/reputation anytime soon...)

Just referencing a post in the June 2017 study group, a poster commented "I'm thinking of just saying F the LSAT, take the GRE and roll my dice on H". I would assume this poster is not alone in this mentality.

While you have a point regarding attracting people diverse background and improving selectivity, Harvard maybe forced to drop in yield, as students who are not 100% committed to law school are accepted and instead decided to pursue a PHd or something else. Harvard is then forced to send out more acceptances just to fill the same class size. While this wouldn't negatively affect the actual quality of admitted students, the perception of exclusivity is diminished if Harvard is forced to offer acceptances to students who have stronger commitments to other fields, and who ultimately do not matriculate.

[ImGonnaTakeGRE]

Moral of the story if you have a great GPA: don't sit for the LSAT right now. Study for and ace the GRE. Apply to Harvard the first day apps open. Spend the time waiting studying for the LSAT, but don't register until you hear back from Harvard. If rejected, then register for and take he December LSAT and apply to other schools.

Assuming other schools don't follow trend, at least for the 2017 cycle, I see this being the case for a number of high GPA applicants, who may get accepted to Harvard, consider that enough and never take the LSAT (which would open the door to $$$ at CCN and down). I consider this a good thing for those looking for $$$.

Assuming they submit on the first day applications are available, when's the earliest HLS applicants find out whether they are accepted? After the Dec LSAT date right? If someone is seriously thinking about law school, they will still have to take LSATs... unless someone wants to put all their eggs into the HLS basket with GRE scores (seems risky because there's literally no historical data on how the admissions committee interprets that data; I doubt that they even fully understand how to interpret GRE vs LSAT at this point). Would be an incredible waste of time & resources to prepare for 2 different exams... and I warn people not to underestimate the difficulty for GRE.

Very early but this just feels like a win-win for Harvard. First off, they entice people pursuing STEM, MBAs, dual degrees, resulting in a more diverse class. This is exactly why business schools started accepting GRE - to attract candidates from different fields, but especially women & minority students. Not to mention that it allows HLS to be more selective, resulting in better metrics for the law school rankings (not that I think they're going to worry about HLS ranking/reputation anytime soon...)

Just referencing a post in the June 2017 study group, a poster commented "I'm thinking of just saying F the LSAT, take the GRE and roll my dice on H". I would assume this poster is not alone in this mentality.

While you have a point regarding attracting people diverse background and improving selectivity, Harvard maybe forced to drop in yield, as students who are not 100% committed to law school are accepted and instead decided to pursue a PHd or something else. Harvard is then forced to send out more acceptances just to fill the same class size. While this wouldn't negatively affect the actual quality of admitted students, the perception of exclusivity is diminished if Harvard is forced to offer acceptances to students who have stronger commitments to other fields, and who ultimately do not matriculate.

I'm naturally risk-averse but I just think that's a dangerous mentality. HLS is already one of the most selective law schools so very tough to get in the first place. Also there's literally no information on how the GRE will be evaluated. At least for business school, there's a rough GRE to GMAT conversion tool but obviously nothing like that exists for LSAT.

And what if in the worst case scenario, GRE scores don't come out high enough (I'm assuming 330+ as that's >90 percentile for both verbal & quant). Now you have to scramble to study for LSAT and get applications ready for law school and based on my limited understanding, that seems like not a wise decision.

[Platopus]

I'm naturally risk-averse but I just think that's a dangerous mentality. HLS is already one of the most selective law schools so very tough to get in the first place. Also there's literally no information on how the GRE will be evaluated. At least for business school, there's a rough GRE to GMAT conversion tool but obviously nothing like that exists for LSAT.

And what if in the worst case scenario, GRE scores don't come out high enough (I'm assuming 330+ as that's >90 percentile for both verbal & quant). Now you have to scramble to study for LSAT and get applications ready for law school and based on my limited understanding, that seems like not a wise decision.

Agreed. I think it would be foolish to only take the GRE in the hopes of landing Harvard. However, that won't stop a handful of people every year from doing just that and walking into a mountain of debt when theres $ to be had from the rest of the T-13

[jbagelboy]

In all seriousness, do we think the GRE option willl be reserved for above median GPAs? Or could a below median GPA at an elite university, professional experience, and with a perfect GRE score have a chance? Asking for some friends.

[AJordan]

In all seriousness, do we think the GRE option willl be reserved for above median GPAs? Or could a below median GPA at an elite university, professional experience, and with a perfect GRE score have a chance? Asking for some friends.

As long as law schools are required to submit GPA and LSAT numbers for the rankings, and as long as they care about those rankings, I can't see a world where a perfect GRE and below median GPA gets in barring something extremely out of the ordinary. They're essentially a splitter without the high LSAT; they do nothing for the school's ranking/prestige.

As long as the LSAT is valued in the rankings I still believe anybody with an LSAT above median is going to be in good shape. Yes, the bottom 10% of fringe splitters are obviously hurt by the increased competition. I say that knowing I'm included in that group. But institutional inertia is a thing. This train ain't turning on a dime. Offices are still going to want to maintain that LSAT number, especially as they can now take any number of 4.0 GPAs with GREs.

Reverse splitters who can't score well on either test are the biggest losers here imo.

[Npret]

Moral of the story if you have a great GPA: don't sit for the LSAT right now. Study for and ace the GRE. Apply to Harvard the first day apps open. Spend the time waiting studying for the LSAT, but don't register until you hear back from Harvard. If rejected, then register for and take he December LSAT and apply to other schools.

Assuming other schools don't follow trend, at least for the 2017 cycle, I see this being the case for a number of high GPA applicants, who may get accepted to Harvard, consider that enough and never take the LSAT (which would open the door to $$$ at CCN and down). I consider this a good thing for those looking for $$$.

Assuming they submit on the first day applications are available, when's the earliest HLS applicants find out whether they are accepted? After the Dec LSAT date right? If someone is seriously thinking about law school, they will still have to take LSATs... unless someone wants to put all their eggs into the HLS basket with GRE scores (seems risky because there's literally no historical data on how the admissions committee interprets that data; I doubt that they even fully understand how to interpret GRE vs LSAT at this point). Would be an incredible waste of time & resources to prepare for 2 different exams... and I warn people not to underestimate the difficulty for GRE.

Very early but this just feels like a win-win for Harvard. First off, they entice people pursuing STEM, MBAs, dual degrees, resulting in a more diverse class. This is exactly why business schools started accepting GRE - to attract candidates from different fields, but especially women & minority students. Not to mention that it allows HLS to be more selective, resulting in better metrics for the law school rankings (not that I think they're going to worry about HLS ranking/reputation anytime soon...)

Just referencing a post in the June 2017 study group, a poster commented "I'm thinking of just saying F the LSAT, take the GRE and roll my dice on H". I would assume this poster is not alone in this mentality.

While you have a point regarding attracting people diverse background and improving selectivity, Harvard maybe forced to drop in yield, as students who are not 100% committed to law school are accepted and instead decided to pursue a PHd or something else. Harvard is then forced to send out more acceptances just to fill the same class size. While this wouldn't negatively affect the actual quality of admitted students, the perception of exclusivity is diminished if Harvard is forced to offer acceptances to students who have stronger commitments to other fields, and who ultimately do not matriculate.

Harvard's yield is the second highest in the country. I think they will be fine. They also interview every candidate. I think they will be fine.

Why not wait a year and find out what happens?

[radio1nowhere]

Why not wait a year and find out what happens?

Where's the fun in that?!

[SPerez]

This strikes me as really weird. I've taken both, as have a significant contingent of my friends, and (as others have pointed out) the GRE is the easier test by far.

That said if "The statistical study showed that the GRE is an equally valid predictor of first-year grades" is true, then I think this is a problem for LSAC more than anyone else. If a more accessible, generally easier, much more convenient test, already taken by a much larger number of students has the same predictive power as their test, that's a problem for them.

Though to be fair, I'm a little dubious of the methodology though I was never good at this stuff, so someone people explain if I'm thinking about this wrong. Since they only studied the GRE's of current and former HLS students with GRE + LSAT, everyone in their sample has a high enough LSAT score to get into HLS in the first place. How is it that they can tell that the GRE is a predictor, if everyone in the sample also had am extremely high LSAT? It seems like they would have to make the (I think unjustified0 assumption that everyone with a high GRE could have gotten and equally high LSAT. I just don't get how else they could separate the two.

All they have to show is that GRE is just good a predictor as the LSAT at 1) predicting performance in the first year of law school ONLY, and 2) ONLY for Harvard students. #2 makes it, in my layperson/non-stat mind, not so much a problem that it doesn't include lower LSAT scorers. They only way they could get data on GRE-only takers would be to find a bunch and have them go through the first year of law school just for the lolz.

The real problem to me is how you can claim the GRE "predicts first-year performance" when you don't even give real grades? Harvard still only gives High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, and Fail (which no one gets), right? But yeah, sure, not shocked that the GRE is just as good (read: just as pointless) as the LSAT at Harvard for predicting who will be in the (I'm guessing) more than half the class who gets a Pass.

Prof. Perez

[SPerez]

What do you all think the chances are that other schools are going to implement this policy during the next cycle as well? Do you think they'll wait to see how it affects Harvard, first?

With the ABA meeting about this, I assume many will be pushing for a blanket rule allowing it for everyone. Their piecemeal approach they chose at their meeting a few years ago - requiring each school to do their own study individually - always seemed weird to me.

But now they have a handful of schools all reporting the "same" result (that the GRE is just as valid): Harvard, Wake Forest, Arizona, and Hawaii. (Arizona got all the publicity, but they invited Wake and Hawaii to participate in the study with them.)

If the ABA does allow any school to accept the GRE, assuming they don't add any weird limitations on it, then I would assume virtually all schools would begin accepting them right away, and all within a year. Then USNWR would come up with some flawed way to count the GRE in their rankings.

Like others have said, it could be a boon for schools with large/diverse Graduate Schools. (Cue Infilaw frantically trying to affiliate with graduate programs.) If I were still an adcom, I'd of course look at the percentile on the GRE, but I would probably need to see a higher percentile than I would otherwise on the LSAT and I would put even more emphasis on the UG record (grades, rigor of school/program). I can see many schools still being distrustful of the GRE and hesitant to take students without stellar writing, UG grades, and a clear reason for wanting to go to law school. I would also worry about whether this would lead to a tiny wave of these students taking the bar and failing because they weren't completely sold on practicing or having the license for their non-lawyer career, but take it anyway for whatever reason.

Also like others have pointed out, this only helps the student who doesn't take the LSAT. Once you do, the school has to report the score per ABA rules. I could see prelaw advisors maybe counseling students they know to be weaker test takers to start with the GRE their senior year and assess their options before going for the LSAT.

Prof. Perez

[aptivych]

What do you all think the chances are that other schools are going to implement this policy during the next cycle as well? Do you think they'll wait to see how it affects Harvard, first?

With the ABA meeting about this, I assume many will be pushing for a blanket rule allowing it for everyone. Their piecemeal approach they chose at their meeting a few years ago - requiring each school to do their own study individually - always seemed weird to me.

But now they have a handful of schools all reporting the "same" result (that the GRE is just as valid): Harvard, Wake Forest, Arizona, and Hawaii. (Arizona got all the publicity, but they invited Wake and Hawaii to participate in the study with them.)

If the ABA does allow any school to accept the GRE, assuming they don't add any weird limitations on it, then I would assume virtually all schools would begin accepting them right away, and all within a year. Then USNWR would come up with some flawed way to count the GRE in their rankings.

Like others have said, it could be a boon for schools with large/diverse Graduate Schools. (Cue Infilaw frantically trying to affiliate with graduate programs.) If I were still an adcom, I'd of course look at the percentile on the GRE, but I would probably need to see a higher percentile than I would otherwise on the LSAT and I would put even more emphasis on the UG record (grades, rigor of school/program). I can see many schools still being distrustful of the GRE and hesitant to take students without stellar writing, UG grades, and a clear reason for wanting to go to law school. I would also worry about whether this would lead to a tiny wave of these students taking the bar and failing because they weren't completely sold on practicing or having the license for their non-lawyer career, but take it anyway for whatever reason.

Also like others have pointed out, this only helps the student who doesn't take the LSAT. Once you do, the school has to report the score per ABA rules. I could see prelaw advisors maybe counseling students they know to be weaker test takers to start with the GRE their senior year and assess their options before going for the LSAT.

Prof. Perez

Thank you Prof. Perez for your very helpful and insightful comment.

I have a question then - what if a student has already taken both the LSAT and the GRE, and did better on one than the other (say, a perfect score on the GRE but a 165 on the LSAT)? Would the student's application be evaluated in light of the LSAT score only? That does not seem like exactly a fair process when considering another student who has only taken the GRE only and also got the same perfect score will be evaluated with only their GRE score. How would a student who's taken both then have to work on their application so that they have every chance of standing out?

Secondly, is there a date when we will learn how the ABA voted on this matter? It appears they had a meeting this past weekend but couldn't find much info yet on how they have voted, so wanted to ask the others in this forum. Thanks.

[SPerez]

What do you all think the chances are that other schools are going to implement this policy during the next cycle as well? Do you think they'll wait to see how it affects Harvard, first?

With the ABA meeting about this, I assume many will be pushing for a blanket rule allowing it for everyone. Their piecemeal approach they chose at their meeting a few years ago - requiring each school to do their own study individually - always seemed weird to me.

But now they have a handful of schools all reporting the "same" result (that the GRE is just as valid): Harvard, Wake Forest, Arizona, and Hawaii. (Arizona got all the publicity, but they invited Wake and Hawaii to participate in the study with them.)

If the ABA does allow any school to accept the GRE, assuming they don't add any weird limitations on it, then I would assume virtually all schools would begin accepting them right away, and all within a year. Then USNWR would come up with some flawed way to count the GRE in their rankings.

Like others have said, it could be a boon for schools with large/diverse Graduate Schools. (Cue Infilaw frantically trying to affiliate with graduate programs.) If I were still an adcom, I'd of course look at the percentile on the GRE, but I would probably need to see a higher percentile than I would otherwise on the LSAT and I would put even more emphasis on the UG record (grades, rigor of school/program). I can see many schools still being distrustful of the GRE and hesitant to take students without stellar writing, UG grades, and a clear reason for wanting to go to law school. I would also worry about whether this would lead to a tiny wave of these students taking the bar and failing because they weren't completely sold on practicing or having the license for their non-lawyer career, but take it anyway for whatever reason.

Also like others have pointed out, this only helps the student who doesn't take the LSAT. Once you do, the school has to report the score per ABA rules. I could see prelaw advisors maybe counseling students they know to be weaker test takers to start with the GRE their senior year and assess their options before going for the LSAT.

Prof. Perez

Thank you Prof. Perez for your very helpful and insightful comment.

I have a question then - what if a student has already taken both the LSAT and the GRE, and did better on one than the other (say, a perfect score on the GRE but a 165 on the LSAT)? Would the student's application be evaluated in light of the LSAT score only? That does not seem like exactly a fair process when considering another student who has only taken the GRE only and also got the same perfect score will be evaluated with only their GRE score. How would a student who's taken both then have to work on their application so that they have every chance of standing out?

Secondly, is there a date when we will learn how the ABA voted on this matter? It appears they had a meeting this past weekend but couldn't find much info yet on how they have voted, so wanted to ask the others in this forum. Thanks.

If a student has an LSAT score, the school has to report it so then the GRE would just become another data point just like everything else in the file that is relevant but doesn't directly impact rankings or reportable stats (e.g. grad school GPA, quality of UG program, LORs, etc.). That specific scenario you give might sound unfair on its face, but it's really no different than what happens now. No two applicants are ever "equal" in that sense. Some people with 2 LSATs have big increases, others have big decreases. Some people have high GPAs from easy schools and easy majors, others have so-so GPAs from difficult programs. Every applicant has a different set of plusses and minuses to their application.

As to what a student who has taken both should do with their application, it's simple. They should do exactly the same thing they should do if they only had the LSAT or only had the GRE. Maximize every single aspect to highlight their strengths. You want to write the best PS, regardless of what your LSAT score is. You want the highest LSAT you can get, regardless of what your GPA is. You want the best LORs regardless of what your grades are. How an applicant can make themselves stand out doesn't change.

I have no idea what the timeline might be. They aren't known for moving quickly, though. They never announce their decisions right away, I think it's usually months. (If someone was bored, they could probably search the ABA website and cross-reference past meetings with when the related reports/decisions were announced to get an idea.) If someone hasn't already, I bet Spivey could ask his old boss that he still is in close touch with for some inside info.

Prof. Perez

[chicagoburger]

What do you all think the chances are that other schools are going to implement this policy during the next cycle as well? Do you think they'll wait to see how it affects Harvard, first?

With the ABA meeting about this, I assume many will be pushing for a blanket rule allowing it for everyone. Their piecemeal approach they chose at their meeting a few years ago - requiring each school to do their own study individually - always seemed weird to me.

But now they have a handful of schools all reporting the "same" result (that the GRE is just as valid): Harvard, Wake Forest, Arizona, and Hawaii. (Arizona got all the publicity, but they invited Wake and Hawaii to participate in the study with them.)

If the ABA does allow any school to accept the GRE, assuming they don't add any weird limitations on it, then I would assume virtually all schools would begin accepting them right away, and all within a year. Then USNWR would come up with some flawed way to count the GRE in their rankings.

Like others have said, it could be a boon for schools with large/diverse Graduate Schools. (Cue Infilaw frantically trying to affiliate with graduate programs.) If I were still an adcom, I'd of course look at the percentile on the GRE, but I would probably need to see a higher percentile than I would otherwise on the LSAT and I would put even more emphasis on the UG record (grades, rigor of school/program). I can see many schools still being distrustful of the GRE and hesitant to take students without stellar writing, UG grades, and a clear reason for wanting to go to law school. I would also worry about whether this would lead to a tiny wave of these students taking the bar and failing because they weren't completely sold on practicing or having the license for their non-lawyer career, but take it anyway for whatever reason.

Also like others have pointed out, this only helps the student who doesn't take the LSAT. Once you do, the school has to report the score per ABA rules. I could see prelaw advisors maybe counseling students they know to be weaker test takers to start with the GRE their senior year and assess their options before going for the LSAT.

Prof. Perez

Thank you Prof. Perez for your very helpful and insightful comment.

I have a question then - what if a student has already taken both the LSAT and the GRE, and did better on one than the other (say, a perfect score on the GRE but a 165 on the LSAT)? Would the student's application be evaluated in light of the LSAT score only? That does not seem like exactly a fair process when considering another student who has only taken the GRE only and also got the same perfect score will be evaluated with only their GRE score. How would a student who's taken both then have to work on their application so that they have every chance of standing out?

Secondly, is there a date when we will learn how the ABA voted on this matter? It appears they had a meeting this past weekend but couldn't find much info yet on how they have voted, so wanted to ask the others in this forum. Thanks.

If a student has an LSAT score, the school has to report it so then the GRE would just become another data point just like everything else in the file that is relevant but doesn't directly impact rankings or reportable stats (e.g. grad school GPA, quality of UG program, LORs, etc.). That specific scenario you give might sound unfair on its face, but it's really no different than what happens now. No two applicants are ever "equal" in that sense. Some people with 2 LSATs have big increases, others have big decreases. Some people have high GPAs from easy schools and easy majors, others have so-so GPAs from difficult programs. Every applicant has a different set of plusses and minuses to their application.

As to what a student who has taken both should do with their application, it's simple. They should do exactly the same thing they should do if they only had the LSAT or only had the GRE. Maximize every single aspect to highlight their strengths. You want to write the best PS, regardless of what your LSAT score is. You want the highest LSAT you can get, regardless of what your GPA is. You want the best LORs regardless of what your grades are. How an applicant can make themselves stand out doesn't change.

I have no idea what the timeline might be. They aren't known for moving quickly, though. They never announce their decisions right away, I think it's usually months. (If someone was bored, they could probably search the ABA website and cross-reference past meetings with when the related reports/decisions were announced to get an idea.) If someone hasn't already, I bet Spivey could ask his old boss that he still is in close touch with for some inside info.

Prof. Perez

Since USNews take GRE and GMAT equally in ranking business schools, one can assume they will do the same for law schools.
There will be a flood of foreign GRE takers to apply law schools here because why not.
The law schools will be forced to put a hard quota on Asian kids I predict.

[A. Nony Mouse]

But the ABA doesn't govern business school admissions, and for the moment the ABA requires reporting LSAT scores if an applicant has them.

[theboringest]

the tl;dr is that this is bad news for most applicants, as their ability to use the LSAT to distinguish themselves/leverage scholarships would dramatically go down, and it has the potential to reverse the applicant decline.

[Veil of Ignorance]

the tl;dr is that this is bad news for most applicants, as their ability to use the LSAT to distinguish themselves/leverage scholarships would dramatically go down, and it has the potential to reverse the applicant decline.

Ya, that's how I'm seeing it. I'm applying ASAP

[ms9]

I just did an interview on this with The Economist and I believe Dean Soban is being interviewed by them as well. The article should be up by the end of this week, or early next. She will obviously have the best take of any human on the Harvard impact. To the extent I could, I tried to address how this impacts applicants in general, particularly this upcoming cycle -- which is to say if you aren't already in a graduate degree program or heading to a graduate degree program that requires a GRE, I think this coming cycle won't look much different than past.

I suspect the ABA will rather soon allow all schools to take the GRE, that this will then open the flood gates to doing to (like in 2008 with GE and b-schools), that USNWR will equalize the GRE with LSAT, that HLS was thus smart to be a first-mover among the elite schools here and all 4 schools were smart to do their own internal studies, and that the option of being able to take the GRE or LSAT will elicit improvements to the LSAT, namely much more frequent test dates and probably quicker test score results. These are all just predictions -- change in legal ed is slow.

Perez, are you talking about Syverud? he is past Chair of ABA Legal Education. I don't think he would know?

[theboringest]

the tl;dr is that this is bad news for most applicants, as their ability to use the LSAT to distinguish themselves/leverage scholarships would dramatically go down, and it has the potential to reverse the applicant decline.

Ya, that's how I'm seeing it. I'm applying ASAP

Yup. I'd suggest that (based on Spivey's most recent post in this thread) that we're at the end of the "golden age" of law school applications where a solid LSAT score opened a lot of financial and opportunity doors.

[TomLawSchool]

Very possibly.

[Veil of Ignorance]

US News kind of resolved this issue, right? It says on their new metric that they are going to convert GRE and LSAT scores into percentiles and weight every score (whether GRE or LSAT) equally in terms of rankings. But you can literally only miss 1 question on the GRE and stay at 99%, which correlates to a 173 LSAT (usually Harvard's median). So basically unless there are a bunch of perfect GRE students out there ready to apply to law school, this won't increase selectivity all that much.

[grades??]

US News kind of resolved this issue, right? It says on their new metric that they are going to convert GRE and LSAT scores into percentiles and weight every score (whether GRE or LSAT) equally in terms of rankings. But you can literally only miss 1 question on the GRE and stay at 99%, which correlates to a 173 LSAT (usually Harvard's median). So basically unless there are a bunch of perfect GRE students out there ready to apply to law school, this won't increase selectivity all that much.

I would guess there are. Plus the GRE is much easier to get that type of score than the lsat. I know a close friend who spent maybe 4 hours max studying for the gre and got a perfect score. He went to a decent undergrad and did alright, but not a 4.0 type of student. There will be many more 99% GRE scores than 99% LSAT scores.

[jingosaur]

US News kind of resolved this issue, right? It says on their new metric that they are going to convert GRE and LSAT scores into percentiles and weight every score (whether GRE or LSAT) equally in terms of rankings. But you can literally only miss 1 question on the GRE and stay at 99%, which correlates to a 173 LSAT (usually Harvard's median). So basically unless there are a bunch of perfect GRE students out there ready to apply to law school, this won't increase selectivity all that much.

I would guess there are. Plus the GRE is much easier to get that type of score than the lsat. I know a close friend who spent maybe 4 hours max studying for the gre and got a perfect score. He went to a decent undergrad and did alright, but not a 4.0 type of student. There will be many more 99% GRE scores than 99% LSAT scores.

Yup, there are way more people who take the GRE than there are people who take the LSAT so there will be a lot more 99% percentile GRE scores. I scored 99th percentile on my GMAT diagnostic and was in the low 160s on my LSAT diagnostic.

[Veil of Ignorance]

US News kind of resolved this issue, right? It says on their new metric that they are going to convert GRE and LSAT scores into percentiles and weight every score (whether GRE or LSAT) equally in terms of rankings. But you can literally only miss 1 question on the GRE and stay at 99%, which correlates to a 173 LSAT (usually Harvard's median). So basically unless there are a bunch of perfect GRE students out there ready to apply to law school, this won't increase selectivity all that much.

I would guess there are. Plus the GRE is much easier to get that type of score than the lsat. I know a close friend who spent maybe 4 hours max studying for the gre and got a perfect score. He went to a decent undergrad and did alright, but not a 4.0 type of student. There will be many more 99% GRE scores than 99% LSAT scores.

Yup, there are way more people who take the GRE than there are people who take the LSAT so there will be a lot more 99% percentile GRE scores. I scored 99th percentile on my GMAT diagnostic and was in the low 160s on my LSAT diagnostic.

OK, but at least it's not going to be a "back door" for Harvard to accept legacies or Tiffany Trump or whatever, without hurting their numbers. I personally am glad US News took action on this.

[AJordan]

Interesting. This method almost seems like the schools are going to be able to median at 99% which might make a 99% LSAT even more valuable than it already is? Hmmmm.

[grades??]

US News kind of resolved this issue, right? It says on their new metric that they are going to convert GRE and LSAT scores into percentiles and weight every score (whether GRE or LSAT) equally in terms of rankings. But you can literally only miss 1 question on the GRE and stay at 99%, which correlates to a 173 LSAT (usually Harvard's median). So basically unless there are a bunch of perfect GRE students out there ready to apply to law school, this won't increase selectivity all that much.

I would guess there are. Plus the GRE is much easier to get that type of score than the lsat. I know a close friend who spent maybe 4 hours max studying for the gre and got a perfect score. He went to a decent undergrad and did alright, but not a 4.0 type of student. There will be many more 99% GRE scores than 99% LSAT scores.

Yup, there are way more people who take the GRE than there are people who take the LSAT so there will be a lot more 99% percentile GRE scores. I scored 99th percentile on my GMAT diagnostic and was in the low 160s on my LSAT diagnostic.

OK, but at least it's not going to be a "back door" for Harvard to accept legacies or Tiffany Trump or whatever, without hurting their numbers. I personally am glad US News took action on this.

It wont be a backdoor until US News actually does convert and include GRE numbers. From my understanding and I might be wrong, Harvard at least has next year to backdoor before this is all reported

[Veil of Ignorance]

US News kind of resolved this issue, right? It says on their new metric that they are going to convert GRE and LSAT scores into percentiles and weight every score (whether GRE or LSAT) equally in terms of rankings. But you can literally only miss 1 question on the GRE and stay at 99%, which correlates to a 173 LSAT (usually Harvard's median). So basically unless there are a bunch of perfect GRE students out there ready to apply to law school, this won't increase selectivity all that much.

I would guess there are. Plus the GRE is much easier to get that type of score than the lsat. I know a close friend who spent maybe 4 hours max studying for the gre and got a perfect score. He went to a decent undergrad and did alright, but not a 4.0 type of student. There will be many more 99% GRE scores than 99% LSAT scores.

Yup, there are way more people who take the GRE than there are people who take the LSAT so there will be a lot more 99% percentile GRE scores. I scored 99th percentile on my GMAT diagnostic and was in the low 160s on my LSAT diagnostic.

OK, but at least it's not going to be a "back door" for Harvard to accept legacies or Tiffany Trump or whatever, without hurting their numbers. I personally am glad US News took action on this.

It wont be a backdoor until US News actually does convert and include GRE numbers. From my understanding and I might be wrong, Harvard at least has next year to backdoor before this is all reported

Pretty sure it's already included