It’s time to update your scoreboards! We now officially have 16 law schools that accept the GRE in lieu of the traditional law school admissions exam, the LSAT.
This week, Florida State University College of Law announced they are accepting the Graduate Record Examination. If you’re keeping track, the other law schools currently taking the GRE are: Harvard, Columbia, St. John’s, Brooklyn Law School, Northwestern, Arizona, Georgetown, Hawaii, Washington University in St. Louis, Wake Forest, Cardozo School of Law, Texas A&M, BYU, John Marshall Law School, and George Washington. (Plus UCLA Law and the University of Chicago allow some students to take the GRE. Such as if they’re applying to a joint degree program or if already enrolled in another graduate program at the school.)
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This is part of the seemingly inevitable creep of the GRE onto LSAT turf. Though we currently sit at 16 law schools accepting the alternate exam, according to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep, 25 percent of law schools have plans in the works to accept the GRE. So we can expect more law schools to join Team GRE.
Despite the exuberance of law school hopefuls looking to avoid the LSAT rite of passage, there is a note of caution. The ABA — the body charged with law school accreditation — still hasn’t weighed in on the validity of the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT. ABA Standard 503 requires admissions tests be “valid and reliable,” and the sanctioning body has not made a determination if the GRE meets that requirement. However, several law schools as well as the Educational Testing Service — the makers of the GRE — have done their own studies, which unsurprisingly affirm the validity of the exam. And as more and more schools open up admissions to GRE takers, the trend may be too far gone for the ABA to reel it in.
Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).