Law Schools

ABA Looks To Roll Out The Red Carpet For The GRE

The LSAT isn't the only game in town.

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If you’ve been paying attention to the world of legal education, you know change is afoot. The LSAT was once the only standardized test if you had aspirations to become a lawyer. But there’s a new kid in town, with more test dates and applicability to other graduate programs, the GRE has quickly become the new hotness. To date, 17 law schools have decided to accept a GRE score in lieu of an LSAT score for admissions decisions.

But the decision to accept the GRE has not been without peril. The ABA — the law school accreditation body — has taken its sweet time weighing in on the validity of the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT. ABA Standard 503 requires admissions tests be “valid and reliable,” and whether or not the GRE meets that requirement is debatable. Though several law schools have done their own studies affirming the validity of the exam. So has the Educational Testing Service — the makers of the GRE — though their pro-GRE findings are less surprising.

Now it finally looks like the ABA is making progress on answering the looming GRE question — and fans of the LSAT may be disappointed.

An ABA committee recommended eliminating the accreditation standard mandating that schools use a standardized test in admissions. That’s good news for GRE fans, but the saga isn’t quite over yet — the move must still be approved by the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and the ABA’s House of Delegates.

As reported by Law.com, this is certainly a relaxing of the standards, but don’t think it’ll be a free for all:

It’s unlikely that law schools will opt to admit students with no standardized test scores at all, even without a formal accreditation standard requiring the LSAT or another test. Under a proposal from the Standards Review Committee, the ABA would presume schools using no admissions test are out of compliance with the standards. The schools would then have to actively prove that they’re not admitting students with little chance of graduating and passing the bar exam. Moreover, the modified interpretation of the ABA’s admission standard would stipulate that schools use a “valid and reliable test,” but would not take any position on which tests fit that bill.

The administrators of the LSAT (the Law School Admission Council) and the GRE (the Educational Test Service) have weighed in on the upcoming changes:

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“The schools are still going to have to show that any test they use is valid and reliable, and the LSAT has been shown to be,” said Kellye Testy, the president of the Law School Admission Council. “It’s opening the door for schools to think about alternatives, but the value of the test isn’t just to the schools, but to the applicants.”

“It removes the burden of the ABA being the arbiter of what is a valid and reliable test, which seems appropriate,” [David Payne, vice president of Educational Test Service] said.

Obviously, the LSAC now has to focus on selling their test to students — they can no longer depend on being the only game in town to get people to take the LSAT. And this is good news for ETS, the stage is now set for their domination of the law school market.

That is if the proposed changes get approved by the ABA.

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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