LSAC has eliminated the 3 max takes in 2 years rule Forum

[stego]

Any one else think that this signals the beginning of much more impactful changes from LSAC, including maybe the possibility to select which scores to send to schools?

Not sure that's that impactful.

IdK being able to take 8 times in 2 years and only send them that final 174 seems like a big deal.

schools only really look at that 174 and, in all honesty, if you're taking it 8 times that shows some serious dedication

Those people are not dedicated. They are just very very inefficient or dumb. It is problematic that people can take so many times and just present the highest score. Too low a bar for anyone wanting to become a lawyer. Too many law schools and lawyers. More and more intense competition among lawyers together with the decline in value of the average lawyer.

But the Harvard study showed the LSAT wasn't more predictive of law school success than the GRE.
The LSAT was an artificial and unnecessary gatekeeper that kept out people while allowing people who could study for it and learn it to overcome the problems with their GPA or softless lives.
I don't think using the LSAT to keep people out is the best way to limit law school admissions.
I am interested to see what happens in the next 5 years with the GRE.

How do you measure whether the GRE predicts law school success when law students don't take the GRE?
Sure, some law students consider other types of grad school and take it, but are they a representative sample of all law students?

[Npret]

Any one else think that this signals the beginning of much more impactful changes from LSAC, including maybe the possibility to select which scores to send to schools?

Not sure that's that impactful.

IdK being able to take 8 times in 2 years and only send them that final 174 seems like a big deal.

schools only really look at that 174 and, in all honesty, if you're taking it 8 times that shows some serious dedication

Those people are not dedicated. They are just very very inefficient or dumb. It is problematic that people can take so many times and just present the highest score. Too low a bar for anyone wanting to become a lawyer. Too many law schools and lawyers. More and more intense competition among lawyers together with the decline in value of the average lawyer.

But the Harvard study showed the LSAT wasn't more predictive of law school success than the GRE.
The LSAT was an artificial and unnecessary gatekeeper that kept out people while allowing people who could study for it and learn it to overcome the problems with their GPA or softless lives.
I don't think using the LSAT to keep people out is the best way to limit law school admissions.
I am interested to see what happens in the next 5 years with the GRE.

How do you measure whether the GRE predicts law school success when law students don't take the GRE?
Sure, some law students consider other types of grad school and take it, but are they a representative sample of all law students?

I don't know how Harvard did the study but the study was enough to launch the pilot program and it seems the GRE is going to be accepted at all schools in the next few years.
The LSAT was never an outstanding predictor on its own.

The GRE threat is the pressure behind these changes.

[enoca]

But the Harvard study showed the LSAT wasn't more predictive of law school success than the GRE.

That study is irrelevant to the broader question. It only looks at people with a good enough LSAT to get into Harvard who also took the GRE for some reason (I would guess a minority of students).

You mean to tell me the best students at Harvard got a good GRE score too....??? No shit...? Not sure how this is relevant to the 99.99% of the rest of the law school population

[Johann]

Rico is right. You think they give a shit outside what they can report.

[Npret]

But the Harvard study showed the LSAT wasn't more predictive of law school success than the GRE.

That study is irrelevant to the broader question. It only looks at people with a good enough LSAT to get into Harvard who also took the GRE for some reason (I would guess a minority of students).

You mean to tell me the best students at Harvard got a good GRE score too....??? No shit...? Not sure how this is relevant to the 99.99% of the rest of the law school population

Yet the GRE will spread. Not sure what you are arguing about as it is already happening? Maybe you have missed the other threads about it and Spivey's posts?

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/har ... es-n731876

https://gre.economist.com/gre-advice/ad ... ons-advice

[cavalier1138]

But the Harvard study showed the LSAT wasn't more predictive of law school success than the GRE.

That study is irrelevant to the broader question. It only looks at people with a good enough LSAT to get into Harvard who also took the GRE for some reason (I would guess a minority of students).

You mean to tell me the best students at Harvard got a good GRE score too....??? No shit...? Not sure how this is relevant to the 99.99% of the rest of the law school population

Yet the GRE will spread. Not sure what you are arguing about as it is already happening? Maybe you have missed the other threads about it and Spivey's posts?

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/har ... es-n731876

https://gre.economist.com/gre-advice/ad ... ons-advice

But again, the Harvard "study" would be the same as a medical school finding out that some of its students did well on the GRE as well as the MCAT. It doesn't mean that the test is geared towards the study of law/medicine; it just means that some people are really good at taking tests.

I'm not sure why people think that a profession with more graduates than jobs needs fewer barriers to entry.

[enoca]

Yet the GRE will spread. Not sure what you are arguing about as it is already happening?

I didn't say anything about whether or not it was happening...? You claimed the study showed something that it did not.

[enoca]

Look, the Harvard study hasn't been published, so we don't even know what they did. All we know is:

(1) They only looked at Harvard 1L "grades"
(2) They only looked at Harvard students who also had GRE scores for whatever reason (most law students do not, presumably)
(3) Harvard claims: "The statistical study showed that the GRE is an equally valid predictor of first-year grades." They don't elaborate on what that means.

And... (4) Harvard was already looking for reasons to give up the LSAT for the GRE.

LSAC says:

Correlations between LSAT scores and first-year law school grades ranged from .12 to .61 (median is .41).

So in theory, finding just a .12 correlation between GRE and grades could be spun as "equally valid" prediction. But it doesn't really mean anything, especially given the extremely artificially contrived sample of folks with 171+ LSATs and 3.7+ GPAs who actually get into Harvard, and who probably mostly have extremely high GREs as well.

This information doesn't tell us anything about the rest of the law school population at the majority of schools. They are just looking at the tail end of two bell curves that could be wildly different.

EDIT: For all I know, the GRE will end up just as good, but as of now that hasn't been shown in any real way.

[Npret]

Look, the Harvard study hasn't been published, so we don't even know what they did. All we know is:

(1) They only looked at Harvard 1L "grades"
(2) They only looked at Harvard students who also had GRE scores for whatever reason (most law students do not, presumably)
(3) Harvard claims: "The statistical study showed that the GRE is an equally valid predictor of first-year grades." They don't elaborate on what that means.

And... (4) Harvard was already looking for reasons to give up the LSAT for the GRE.

LSAC says:

Correlations between LSAT scores and first-year law school grades ranged from .12 to .61 (median is .41).

So in theory, finding just a .12 correlation between GRE and grades could be spun as "equally valid" prediction. But it doesn't really mean anything, especially given the extremely artificially contrived sample of folks with 171+ LSATs and 3.7+ GPAs who actually get into Harvard, and who probably mostly have extremely high GREs as well.

This information doesn't tell us anything about the rest of the law school population at the majority of schools. They are just looking at the tail end of two bell curves that could be wildly different.

EDIT: For all I know, the GRE will end up just as good, but as of now that hasn't been shown in any real way.

If there is nothing to support the GRE being a valid predictor, then why is the common assumption that the floodgates will open? We haven't seen the data of any test but certainly no one familiar with the data is claiming that the GRE (or GRE plus GPA )won't be as good as the LSAT (or LSAT plus GPA) in terms of law school success. I haven't seen any push back against the GRE other than on these forums from students who are counting on their LSAT score. No one has been saying the GRE won't work for admission purposes. As far as I know Arizona State using the GRE must have done a similar study to be able to accept the GRE. It isn't just Harvard scholars there.

(Anyway, I thought they only looked at 1st year grades for determine the predictive ability of both tests.)

I only brought it up in this thread to echo why LSAC is finally being pushed to change their outdated exam policies.

[cavalier1138]

If there is nothing to support the GRE being a valid predictor, then why is the common assumption that the floodgates will open? We haven't seen the data of any test but certainly no one familiar with the data is claiming that the GRE (or GRE plus GPA )won't be as good as the LSAT (or LSAT plus GPA) in terms of law school success. I haven't seen any push back against the GRE other than on these forums from students who are counting on their LSAT score. No one has been saying the GRE won't work for admission purposes. As far as I know Arizona State using the GRE must have done a similar study to be able to accept the GRE. It isn't just Harvard scholars there.

(Anyway, I thought they only looked at 1st year grades for determine the predictive ability of both tests.)

I only brought it up in this thread to echo why LSAC is finally being pushed to change their outdated exam policies.

You've already answered the question yourself. If Harvard stands their ground, other schools will start following suit.

And as mentioned, the existing "study" results are vague and self-fulfilling. They don't show that students in that score band of the GRE would be able to score the same way on the LSAT, much less that they would perform well in law school.

[Npret]

If there is nothing to support the GRE being a valid predictor, then why is the common assumption that the floodgates will open? We haven't seen the data of any test but certainly no one familiar with the data is claiming that the GRE (or GRE plus GPA )won't be as good as the LSAT (or LSAT plus GPA) in terms of law school success. I haven't seen any push back against the GRE other than on these forums from students who are counting on their LSAT score. No one has been saying the GRE won't work for admission purposes. As far as I know Arizona State using the GRE must have done a similar study to be able to accept the GRE. It isn't just Harvard scholars there.

(Anyway, I thought they only looked at 1st year grades for determine the predictive ability of both tests.)

I only brought it up in this thread to echo why LSAC is finally being pushed to change their outdated exam policies.

You've already answered the question yourself. If Harvard stands their ground, other schools will start following suit.

And as mentioned, the existing "study" results are vague and self-fulfilling. They don't show that students in that score band of the GRE would be able to score the same way on the LSAT, much less that they would perform well in law school.

But the point is the LSAT isn't a great predictor or superior to the GRE isn't it? It's irrelevant if a GRE taker would do as well on the LSAT.

I thought each schools had to do studies on the validity of the GRE and they can't just piggyback off Harvards study.

[cavalier1138]

But the point is the LSAT isn't a great predictor or superior to the GRE isn't it? It's irrelevant if a GRE taker would do as well on the LSAT.

I thought each schools had to do studies on the validity of the GRE and they can't just piggyback off Harvards study.

The point is that we don't have enough data to know whether the GRE is comparable to the LSAT. Studying only the sample size of students who took both tests at a single school isn't enough. But intuitively, it's not going to be as good a predictor. The LSAT tests analytical and logical reasoning. The GRE is an advanced SAT test for college graduates. The fact that some students do well on both isn't an indication that the GRE is a predictor as much as that this particular set of students are good at analytical reasoning and English/Math skills.

[stego]

If there is nothing to support the GRE being a valid predictor, then why is the common assumption that the floodgates will open? We haven't seen the data of any test but certainly no one familiar with the data is claiming that the GRE (or GRE plus GPA )won't be as good as the LSAT (or LSAT plus GPA) in terms of law school success. I haven't seen any push back against the GRE other than on these forums from students who are counting on their LSAT score. No one has been saying the GRE won't work for admission purposes. As far as I know Arizona State using the GRE must have done a similar study to be able to accept the GRE. It isn't just Harvard scholars there.

(Anyway, I thought they only looked at 1st year grades for determine the predictive ability of both tests.)

I only brought it up in this thread to echo why LSAC is finally being pushed to change their outdated exam policies.

You've already answered the question yourself. If Harvard stands their ground, other schools will start following suit.

And as mentioned, the existing "study" results are vague and self-fulfilling. They don't show that students in that score band of the GRE would be able to score the same way on the LSAT, much less that they would perform well in law school.

But the point is the LSAT isn't a great predictor or superior to the GRE isn't it? It's irrelevant if a GRE taker would do as well on the LSAT.

I thought each schools had to do studies on the validity of the GRE and they can't just piggyback off Harvards study.

Scooped by cavalier, but I am saying I doubt we have the data at this point to show that.

[Npret]

I'm not sure what you mean. Why would it matter if the GRE taker would do as well as an LSAT taker on the LSAT? We are not going to know that because people won't be taking both tests for the most part. That doesn't mean a high GRE score couldn't study for the LSAT and do well.

[A. Nony Mouse]

But the point is the LSAT isn't a great predictor or superior to the GRE isn't it? It's irrelevant if a GRE taker would do as well on the LSAT.

I thought each schools had to do studies on the validity of the GRE and they can't just piggyback off Harvards study.

The point is that we don't have enough data to know whether the GRE is comparable to the LSAT. Studying only the sample size of students who took both tests at a single school isn't enough. But intuitively, it's not going to be as good a predictor. The LSAT tests analytical and logical reasoning. The GRE is an advanced SAT test for college graduates. The fact that some students do well on both isn't an indication that the GRE is a predictor as much as that this particular set of students are good at analytical reasoning and English/Math skills.

I don't know that we can say anything "intuitively" about which is a better predictor.

[Npret]

Here's a mention of the Arizona State study where ETS found GRE to be as good a predictor as LSAT.

https://law.arizona.edu/arizona-law-school-gre

[cavalier1138]

Here's a mention of the Arizona State study where ETS found GRE to be as good a predictor as LSAT.

https://law.arizona.edu/arizona-law-school-gre

And again, that's the same methodological flaw. You can't just look at a tiny subset of students who took both tests and conclude that the GRE is just as good a predictor of law school success.

I don't know that we can say anything "intuitively" about which is a better predictor.

I disagree. I can intuitively say that the MCAT is a better measure of the skills required for medical students than the LSAT, even though I doubt there's a shred of empirical data on the subject. The LSAT specifically tests skills that students rely on in law school. The GRE tests those skills too, but only tangentially. If these tests were essentially different methods of evaluating the same competencies, that would be a different story. But they're aimed at different competency areas.

[Npret]

Here's a mention of the Arizona State study where ETS found GRE to be as good a predictor as LSAT.

https://law.arizona.edu/arizona-law-school-gre

And again, that's the same methodological flaw. You can't just look at a tiny subset of students who took both tests and conclude that the GRE is just as good a predictor of law school success.

I don't know that we can say anything "intuitively" about which is a better predictor.

I disagree. I can intuitively say that the MCAT is a better measure of the skills required for medical students than the LSAT, even though I doubt there's a shred of empirical data on the subject. The LSAT specifically tests skills that students rely on in law school. The GRE tests those skills too, but only tangentially. If these tests were essentially different methods of evaluating the same competencies, that would be a different story. But they're aimed at different competency areas.

So how do you want people to show the GRE is as good as the LSAT if people don't take both exams?
Now that people (a tiny number) have been admitted on GRE only the test can start to stand alone. But in order for a school to initially use the GRE, it has to be compared to the LSAT.
The MCAT tests specific knowledge. The LSAT tests your ability to do games in a very short period of time. I don't think that is a necessary law school competency.

[cavalier1138]

Here's a mention of the Arizona State study where ETS found GRE to be as good a predictor as LSAT.

https://law.arizona.edu/arizona-law-school-gre

And again, that's the same methodological flaw. You can't just look at a tiny subset of students who took both tests and conclude that the GRE is just as good a predictor of law school success.

I don't know that we can say anything "intuitively" about which is a better predictor.

I disagree. I can intuitively say that the MCAT is a better measure of the skills required for medical students than the LSAT, even though I doubt there's a shred of empirical data on the subject. The LSAT specifically tests skills that students rely on in law school. The GRE tests those skills too, but only tangentially. If these tests were essentially different methods of evaluating the same competencies, that would be a different story. But they're aimed at different competency areas.

So how do you want people to show the GRE is as good as the LSAT if people don't take both exams?
Now that people (a tiny number) have been admitted on GRE only the test can start to stand alone. But in order for a school to initially use the GRE, it has to be compared to the LSAT.
The MCAT tests specific knowledge. The LSAT tests your ability to do games in a very short period of time. I don't think that is a necessary law school competency.

Analytical reasoning and reading comprehension are law school competencies. Math and English are specific subject areas that touch on things like analytical reasoning, but the GRE doesn't directly test those areas int he same way the LSAT does.

And the answer to your question is that I don't want people to waste their time showing that the GRE is "as good as" the current admissions test, because it's not testing the same competency areas. I would find it just as silly if people were trying to use the LSAT to get into a generic graduate program. There's no benefit to allowing the GRE to sub for the LSAT except in that it increases the number of applications and allows Harvard to reject more applicants and artificially increase their selectivity.

[Npret]

Here's a mention of the Arizona State study where ETS found GRE to be as good a predictor as LSAT.

https://law.arizona.edu/arizona-law-school-gre

And again, that's the same methodological flaw. You can't just look at a tiny subset of students who took both tests and conclude that the GRE is just as good a predictor of law school success.

I don't know that we can say anything "intuitively" about which is a better predictor.

I disagree. I can intuitively say that the MCAT is a better measure of the skills required for medical students than the LSAT, even though I doubt there's a shred of empirical data on the subject. The LSAT specifically tests skills that students rely on in law school. The GRE tests those skills too, but only tangentially. If these tests were essentially different methods of evaluating the same competencies, that would be a different story. But they're aimed at different competency areas.

So how do you want people to show the GRE is as good as the LSAT if people don't take both exams?
Now that people (a tiny number) have been admitted on GRE only the test can start to stand alone. But in order for a school to initially use the GRE, it has to be compared to the LSAT.
The MCAT tests specific knowledge. The LSAT tests your ability to do games in a very short period of time. I don't think that is a necessary law school competency.

Analytical reasoning and reading comprehension are law school competencies. Math and English are specific subject areas that touch on things like analytical reasoning, but the GRE doesn't directly test those areas int he same way the LSAT does.

And the answer to your question is that I don't want people to waste their time showing that the GRE is "as good as" the current admissions test, because it's not testing the same competency areas. I would find it just as silly if people were trying to use the LSAT to get into a generic graduate program. There's no benefit to allowing the GRE to sub for the LSAT except in that it increases the number of applications and allows Harvard to reject more applicants and artificially increase their selectivity.

Ok you can object all you want but that decision has already been made. I thought you were just objecting to the study. You just oppose the GRE at all.
There are other reasons to allow the GRE but there is no point in discussing them.
I disagree that the LSAT is a test that shows law school competency and without GPA it's not a great predictor of law school success anyway.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, I'm just suspicious of the idea that the LSAT really tests skills necessary for law school significantly more effectively than any other standardized test.

[stego]

My issue is rn the LSAT is a hard test (for most people), a lot of people study for it a lot, and it's like 40-50% of what law schools look at.

The GRE is an easier test and my understanding is generally people don't study for it as much and it's not a big factor in most grad school admissions.

Maybe eliminating the LSAT in favor of the GRE would be a positive thing for applicants in various ways but it would completely change the process given the outsized importance the LSAT has now.

[ms9]

Yeah, I'm just suspicious of the idea that the LSAT really tests skills necessary for law school significantly more effectively than any other standardized test.

It correlates with first-year aw school performance better than anything else they currently have, and better than almost all other standardized tests for their respective higher education fields.

I think it starts breaking down quickly when you look at what variables make an effective lawyer, though. Indeed, per Bill Henderson at Indiana, it correlates negatively with the ability to network.

[cavalier1138]

Yeah, I'm just suspicious of the idea that the LSAT really tests skills necessary for law school significantly more effectively than any other standardized test.

I'm sure the LSAT could be improved, but it's a hard sell that general math or reading competencies are the same thing.

I find it weird that people think that the GRE is applicable to law school, but no one would argue that the LSAT is applicable to other fields. That alone indicates that people see the LSAT as a particularized test.

[Npret]

Yeah, I'm just suspicious of the idea that the LSAT really tests skills necessary for law school significantly more effectively than any other standardized test.

It correlates with first-year aw school performance better than anything else they currently have, and better than almost all other standardized tests for their respective higher education fields.

I think it starts breaking down quickly when you look at what variables make an effective lawyer, though. Indeed, per Bill Henderson at Indiana, it correlates negatively with the ability to network.

What else has been used to predict law school success? You mean it's better than GPA alone?