Law Schools

GRE Secures Another Victory In The Great Law School Admissions Testing War

Which law school has decided to offer the alternative entrance exam?

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Another day has passed during the early law school application season, and yet another law school has decided to accept the GRE for admissions purposes. At this point, there will be no stopping this trend. Which law school has decided to offer the alternative entrance exam this time?

It’s Penn State Law – Dickinson, which is clocking in with the decision to hop on board the good ship GRE to “increas[e] access to law school for applicants” and “diversify[] the legal profession” about seven months after its sister school at University Park. Just like University Park’s GRE protocol, conditions apply for Dickinson’s step into the future of admissions testing. As Penn State News reports:

Under Dickinson Law’s new policy, a GRE score may be utilized only when a reportable LSAT score does not exist. If an applicant has a reportable LSAT score on file, a GRE score will not be considered in lieu of an existing LSAT score (and applicants are not required to report GRE scores in this instance).

Applicants should keep in mind that the standardized test score is only one component of the application. Most admissions committees consider myriad factors when evaluating candidates for both admission and scholarship opportunities. “Applicants should, of course, prepare seriously for whichever entrance exam they choose to take,” [Bekah Saidman-Krauss, assistant dean for admissions and financial aid at Dickinson Law] advised. “They should also keep in mind that an LSAT or GRE score is merely one of many factors considered as part of Dickinson Law’s holistic application review.”

The list of law schools that are expanding their horizons beyond the LSAT is now quite long. Here are the 30+ schools that accept the GRE for admissions purposes:

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 more and more law schools are on board with the GRE, the  body responsible for law school accreditation, the American Bar Association, hasn’t officially weighed in on using anything other than the LSAT in admissions. ABA accreditation Standard 503 currently mandates that law schools require admissions testing and that the test used be “valid and reliable.” (In August, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar officially withdrew a resolution before the ABA House of Delegates that called for the removal of Standard 503.) Whether the GRE meets that standard, the ABA hasn’t officially said. But with this much momentum, stopping the GRE ball from rolling will be a monumental task.

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Dickinson Law now accepting Graduate Records Examinations [Penn State News]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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