Law Schools, LSAT

STEM Majors Who Excel On The LSAT Have No Interest In Law School

Is it any wonder that law schools are gunning to accept GRE scores for admissions purposes?

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A future law school applicant?

Take a look around the average entering law school class, and you’ll find that the vast majority of the students who are about to begin their very expensive, three-year journeys have not only graduated with degrees in social sciences, but they’ve also scored lower on the LSAT than their peers with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). On average, those who have majored in math, physics, and biomedical engineering have scored 160 or higher on the exam, while those with degrees in political science, a stereotypical pre-law major, have scored below 155.

Professor Robert Anderson of Pepperdine University School of Law recently compiled data on undergraduate majors, GPAs, and LSAT scores, and found that the only other majors — aside from the STEM majors mentioned above — that broke the 160 average on the LSAT were classics and linguistics. Check out the rest of Professor Anderson’s findings below (click to enlarge):

In an interview with Karen Sloan of Law.com, Professor Anderson noted the following: “We are sorely underrepresented in people with quantitative and science backgrounds. It’s harming our law schools and draining us of the intellectual rigor that could otherwise be there, and it’s reducing our students’ employment prospects.”

Is it any wonder that law schools are gunning to accept GRE scores for admissions purposes?

Unfortunately, it seems that STEM majors have little to no interest in attending law school. According to a recent study performed by the AccessLex Institute, STEM majors accounted for only 5.7 percent of all 2014 law school applicants. Here are some additional details from Law.com:

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Aspiring lawyers with degrees in the social sciences and helping professions, which includes social work and psychology, made up nearly 48 percent of 2014 applicants, AccessLex found. The arts and humanities majors had nearly 24 percent of all law school applicants, and business and management majors accounted for almost 16 percent. Political science majors alone made up almost 19 percent of applicant pool. Business, criminal justice, psychology and English rounded out the top five.

Compared to the 160 average score of STEM majors on the LSAT, the average score among the 12,693 political science majors who applied in 2015 was 153. Business majors scored an average 149, while criminal justice majors a particularly low average of 146, according to the Law School Admission Council, which administers the LSAT.

The good news is that more and more STEM majors have been graduating from college over the course of the past decade, and some of them may be convinced to attend law school in the future — if the money’s right, of course. Who knows, perhaps STEM majors could be the key to ending the dumbing down of the legal profession once and for all. Good luck with your law school applications, everyone.

Types of College Grads Nailing the LSAT Aren’t Keen on Law School [Law.com]
Law school admissions and college majors [WITNESSETH]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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