Harvard Law School recently announced a significant change in its admissions process: It will now accept GRE scores in addition to LSAT scores. With this move, Harvard joins only a few other law schools that are no longer requiring applicants to submit LSAT scores with their applications.
This change has the potential to alter the landscape of law school admissions, but it is impossible at this point to predict its full effect. Why did Harvard make this change and what does this potentially mean for prospective law students? Here we will try to answer these questions and identify additional important but yet unanswered questions about this change.
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Reasons for the Change
In its statement, Harvard identified two main reasons for this change. First, the school believes it will “expand access to legal education,” particularly for international students, for those who have taken the GRE while considering other graduate programs, and for students pursuing joint degrees for which the GRE is required.
Second, Harvard believes this change will make the law school application process more affordable by eliminating the additional costs of standardized test preparation and registration for those who would need to take both the GRE and LSAT.
Looking beyond Harvard’s stated goals, it appears that this policy is aimed — at least in the short term — at prospective students who already have GRE scores. By removing the most stressful and time-consuming element of the law school application process for those applicants, Harvard likely expects to attract some applicants who have taken the GRE for other reasons. Since applicants taking the GRE are likely to come from other academic backgrounds, Harvard may see a more diverse applicant pool next cycle.
It is important to note, though, that we do not anticipate this change to meaningfully affect the difficulty of gaining admission to Harvard. In fact, with a potentially broader and larger applicant pool, the acceptance rate at Harvard may even drop.
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Impact for Prospective Students
Harvard’s new policy will not affect the vast majority of prospective law students. Unless you have your heart set on attending Harvard Law School and don’t want to apply anywhere else, you still need to take the LSAT.
The practical requirement to take the LSAT won’t change until many other schools, particularly those at the top of the rankings, also begin accepting GRE scores.
If you are planning on applying to Harvard, though, you might consider taking both the LSAT and GRE. If you struggle with LSAT logic games or are an especially good quantitative standardized test-taker, your GRE score may place you in a better position than your LSAT score.
Look at your SAT, SAT subject test, ACT math and GMAT quantitative scores, as applicable, to determine your level of proficiency on quantitative standardized tests.
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Longer-Term Implications
Although we know Harvard’s reasons for taking this step, the school’s actions leave unanswered questions about the longer-term implications of this. For one, will other schools follow Harvard’s lead?
The answer to this question will determine whether Harvard’s decision signals a broader shift in the world of law school admissions. The institution’s decision will carry much more weight than when the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law made the same decision last year.
Further, how will Harvard and other schools measure GRE scores against LSAT scores? If more law schools begin accepting the GRE, many applicants will have to make a strategic decision as to which test to take.
But to make such a decision, applicants will need to know how to compare LSAT scores with GRE scores. Until Harvard provides guidance on its treatment of the GRE or produces data from its research regarding score equivalence, prospective law students will be in the dark.
Finally, does Harvard’s decision indicate that the LSAT fall out of favor eventually? It is, of course, impossible to tell at this point, but I expect that the LSAT is not going anywhere.
One of the advantages of the LSAT for schools like Harvard is that its scores do an excellent job of separating people at the very high end of the bell curve. A 170 is generally the 97th percentile, meaning that 10 points of the 60-point scale fall within the top 3 percent of all test takers. The GRE, on the other hand, has a much less expansive score distribution at the very top and bottom of the bell curve.
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GRE vs. LSAT: What Prospective Law Students Need to Know originally appeared on usnews.com
