Top Law School Getting On Board With The GRE

Welcome to the (GRE) party!

In a trend that just doesn’t want to stop, yet another T14 law school has decided to afford prospective students the chance of opting out of the traditional law school entrance exam, the LSAT. Well, at least for some students.

That’s right, Berkeley Law is the latest law school to experiment with the GRE. Beginning in the 2019-20 application cycle, the school will begin a three-year pilot program to allow some applicants to attend on the basis of their GRE or GMAT score. And who will be able to sit out the LSAT? The program is designed for students interested in concurrent or combined degree programs, and specialized practice fields. As the school noted in its statement about the change:

“After careful examination, we determined that while the vast majority of applicants will (and should) take the LSAT, some applicants could reasonably be evaluated on the basis of alternative assessments,” said Kristin Theis-Alvarez, Asst. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. “Berkeley Law is a public law school with a longstanding commitment to access, to serving the public good, and to developing lawyers and leaders who will tackle our society’s most pressing and complex challenges – now and in the future. This has always meant that we seek to enroll candidates who are outside-of-the-box thinkers, and who want to build a multi-disciplinary toolkit to take forward with them into their careers. As always, our application review remains holistic. Test scores – from any source – are important, but not dispositive.”

The list of law schools that are expanding their horizons beyond the LSAT is growing.  HarvardYaleColumbiaSt. John’sBrooklynNorthwesternArizonaGeorgetownHawaiiWashington University in St. LouisWake ForestCardozo School of LawTexas A&M, BYUJohn Marshall Law SchoolFlorida StatePaceUCLAChicago-Kent College of LawPennUSCCornellBuffaloNYUFlorida International University College of Law, SMU Dedman, and Penn State Law at University Park. (University of Chicago and University of Georgia both allow candidates in dual degree programs to skip the LSAT.) And we are likely to only see this trend continue. According to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep, a full 25 percent of law schools have plans to accept the GRE. Another Kaplan study determined 49 percent of students surveyed support the move to the GRE.

Even though the GRE is gaining popularity in law school admissions, don’t expect an official statement from the American Bar Association — the body responsible for law school accreditation anytime soon. The accreditation body’s lack of an official response has functionally ceded the question to law schools. ABA accreditation Standard 503 currently mandates that law schools require admissions testing, and that the test used be “valid and reliable,” but what that means for the GRE isn’t clear. (Though a number of law schools and ETS, the maker of the GRE, have done their own validity testing.) The ABA considered a resolution that would elimination the testing requirement in admission, however, in August of last year, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar officially withdrew that resolution before the ABA House of Delegates. Since then, it’s been radio silence from the ABA.

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