Law Schools

LSAT Notches Unexpected Victory In Ongoing Slugfest With GRE

Members of the administration at this law school have changed their minds about accepting the GRE for this application season.

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It used to be that the only way to get to law school was to survive the gauntlet that is the LSAT. It was a rite of passage, but it is one that has slowly but surely been eroding. See, there’s a new test in town. Okay, the GRE really isn’t new, but as part of the law school application process, it’s very much the new kid on the block.

Legal academia initially looked at the GRE with some trepidation, but after Harvard Law started to accept the alternative exam, the floodgates opened. At last count, 17 schools have accepted the GRE for admission (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, George Washington, Pace, and Florida State, plus UCLA Law and the University of Chicago allow some students to take the GRE, i.e., if they’re applying to a joint degree program or if already enrolled in another graduate program at the school). Plus, according to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep, a full 25 percent of law schools have plans in the works to accept the GRE.

You might think that everything was full steam ahead for Team GRE… but you’d be wrong.

Above the Law recently learned that George Washington Law has changed course on the GRE. On December 5, the school announced they were accepting the GRE, saying:

“We are committed to attracting a diverse student body with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and career paths,” said GW Law Associate Dean for Admissions Sophia Sim. “This change in our admissions policy will provide expanded access to legal education for an increased number of qualified applicants.”

But now that’s changed. According to an ATL tipster, the decision was made mid-application process:

I wanted to inform you that as an applicant for the 2018 cycle, specifically to George Washington University Law School, I had the unfortunate experience of discovering that mid-application cycle they decided to stop accepting the GRE. I specifically prepared for the GRE because GW announced that they would accept it and I was never at any point informed of their decision to reverse it. Only after e-mailing them as to why my CAS report was not requested from LSAC did they tell me that they are no longer considering the GRE.

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That sounds awful — the tipster reports they are likely to need to postpone their law school applications for a year in order to account for the sudden change.

We reached out to GW Law to find out what was being done to accommodate the students who relied on their December announcement and a spokesperson had this to say:

In terms of notifying students, we told everyone that applied in an email.  We did announce it to all GRE applicants when we decided to discontinue the first week of January, less than four weeks after we started accepting (including the winter break).  We offered refunds for GRE scores and extended the deadline/expedited review for anyone deciding to take the June LSAT. For a few, we guaranteed admissions if they took the June LSAT and placed within a certain percentage. It impacted less than 10 applicants.
Any inquiries to our general account were told that we were accepting GRE scores for next cycle, and we offered the same refund/June LSAT option for those as well. There were less than 15 inquiries in total.

It seems the folks at GW really are trying their best to accommodate the admittedly small number of students affected. But why exactly did the school do an about face?

It seems ABA Standard 503 is to blame. Those following along with the ongoing LSAT/GRE saga will remember that ABA Standard 503 requires alternative admissions tests be “valid and reliable,” and whether or not the GRE meets that requirement is an open question. In making their initial announcement accepting the GRE, GW relied on the validity testing done by the Educational Testing Service — the makers of the GRE — which, unsurprisingly, affirmed the validity of the exam. But the school now believes they need to do a school specific validity test, as the GW spokesperson told Above the Law:

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[W]e did change our position to accept the GRE in addition to the LSAT because of the ABA requirement to do a school specific site survey. We had not had one done before we made the announcement because ETS had done one and we were told that was okay to use. We then got word that we had to have a school specific study done to make sure we could accept that test. This was a few weeks after we made the initial announcement to accept the GRE.  In an abundance of caution we decided we needed to do our own site survey, which we are doing at this moment, and stop accepting the GRE for this admissions cycle. We absolutely plan to accept it next year, provided we are permitted.

So it seems like the GRE is still on the horizon for GW Law School… it just might take a year longer than anticipated.

headshotKathryn 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).

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