Illinois To Follow Michigan's Attempt To Disregard The LSAT

Last month, we told you about the Wolverine scholars program. The program allows students with a 3.8 GPA at Michigan to bypass the LSAT when applying to Michigan Law School.

Apparently those exacting standards were too draconian for Illinois College of Law. They are now offering an Early Admission Program for Illinois college students that also allows them to bypass the LSAT:

The biggest differences between the two programs involve GPA and additional requirements. Applicants to the University of Michigan will require a 3.8 GPA, while applicants to the University of Illinois will need at least a 3.0 GPA.

However, the University of Michigan will not have separate additional requirements, while the University of Illinois will require additional essays and interviews.

Instant analysis after the jump.


A 3.0 GPA and no LSAT for admission into a top tier law school? To quote Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, “really?” I suggested that Michigan’s program was a way to game the U.S. News rankings (a charge Sarah Zearfoss, dean of admissions at UM Law, denies). But if anything, admitting students with a 3.0 GPA and no LSAT score would seem to hurt Illinois’s rankings.

The median GPA at Illinois College of Law is 3.49, the median LSAT score is 164. Are they honestly saying that college students at Illinois (the 40th ranked University) who can only manage a GPA in the low threes should gain admission to the 27th best law school, without having to score in the mid-160s on the LSAT?

Oh, but there are “additional requirements.”

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“Not all GPAs are created equally,” [Paul Pless, the law school’s assistant dean for Admissions] said. “Even at U of I not all GPA is created equal. A 3.4 in electrical engineering is a good GPA. However, in my own major of political science, 3.4 is not towards the high end.”

I thought the LSAT was a proxy for smoothing over some of these differences between the strength of one’s undergraduate program, but apparently “essays and interviews” can do the trick just as well.

It’s the cynicism of these programs that I find disturbing. A 3.0 at Illinois turns the LSAT into a useless metric for gaining admission into Illinois College of Law, but if you have a 3.0 at Northwestern the LSAT is suddenly very important again to Illinois deans.

And both Illinois’s program and the Michigan version seem designed to help law schools much more than they help students:

Joe Hinchliffe, attorney and professor of political science, said he was concerned that undergraduates who wanted to pursue a law degree now might think they no longer need to take the LSAT. This would be a serious mistake, he added.

“If they are strong enough for an early admissions program, then they are probably strong enough for scholarships and other opportunities that they won’t know about unless they take the LSAT,” Hinchliffe said.

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There are real problems with the LSAT as a tool for law school admissions, but I don’t see how making up “pretend factors” helps anybody’s cause.

UI changes law school admission program [DailyIllini]

Earlier: University Of Michigan Law School: Please Stop The Insanity