<p>I am searching right now for URM related admission statistics. Basically, every law school out there, will give you a 25th/75th percentile LSATs and GPA scores of their admitted classes of the past couple of years. I am looking for something similar per law school, but for specific URMs. What were the admitted scores in there for Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Mexicans, etc. </p>
<p>Basically, I'm trying to figure out a way to statistically confirm or deny all the stories ranging from "its little impact" to "they are admitting people with 15 points underneath."</p>
<p>EDIT: I am especially interested in statistics for Puerto Ricans in the mainland US law schools - the raw data from the LSAC doesn't tell me which ones are from the four law schools in the island and which ones are not.</p>
<p>Splitting that difference, 22% of the 60-point testable range on the LSAT would be 13 points.</p>
<p>5.) If you insist on empirical evidence, you should look to the documents producted in conjunction with the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).</p>
<p>6.) Finally, we can paint a circumstantial picture.</p>
<p>See News and Views: The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on Standardized Tests for Admission to Graduate School, J. of Blacks in Higher Ed., available at [The</a> Widening Racial Scoring Gap on Standardized Tests for Admission to Graduate School —<a href=“last%20visited%20Apr.%204,%202010”>/url</a> (“There were 108 blacks scoring 165 or better on the LSAT in 2004.”);</p>
<p>Combine these three sources and make the assumption that the LSAT boost is the smallest mathematically possible boost, which distributes the top 121 black students to the top four law schools (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia).</p>
<p>In other words, a score of 165 virtually guarantees admission to a top-four law school. 31 of our top-121 African American LSAT scorers students will end up at Columbia, and the median will be 165. Compare to Columbia’s normal median of 172 (Boston Consulting Group, Guide to America’s Top 50 Law Schools, available at <a href=“http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law_School_Guide_2009.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law_School_Guide_2009.pdf</a> (last visited Apr. 4, 2010), and the absolute lowest benefit which is even statistically possible is 7 points – and obviously that’s using a variety of absurdly conservative assumptions.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. For the record, while I am in a position of having gotten a low LSAT score and trying to assess what would be the size of a boost and thus wether I do need to retake or jump ship, I also have something even more urgent in my hands: </p>
<p>I am also handling a statistics professor who is giving me a potential pass in such a horrible class by making a paper, so I’m trying to see if I can do it on the topic of law school affirmative action. But for that I sort of need data for the information. African Americans are faring below Puerto Ricans in the LSAT? I was thinking it was the other way around. I’ve actually found people who are otherwise smart and have been scoring in the 130s down here… (sad but true) </p>
<p>That being said, I really do want to avoid a fist fight over the merits of affirmative action, pleasy please? ;)</p>
<p>The Sander and Espenshade papers will be the place to start. Depending on what kind of paper your professor is expecting, a simply summary of those papers might be enough.</p>
<p>Because over the decades African-Americans have developed tremendous political clout and demonstrated the ability to organize effectively toward a cause.</p>
<p>If an elite institution does not enroll a substantial percentage of black students, it can expect immense, threatening pressure. Not so much if it fails to enroll enough Hispanic or Asian-American students, if only because those communities haven’t been able to organize themselves as well to exert the same amount of influence.</p>
<p>“Blacks generally perform worse on standardized testing, that’s why.”</p>
<p>That’s part of the reason. However, top law schools tend to admit considerably more black students than Hispanic students (usually twice as many), even though there are more Hispanics who score above 165 on the LSAT.</p>
<p>This is an old study, but it has some interesting info.</p>
<p>You can also find more recent data on the # of people in each group who take the LSAT.</p>
<p>PS Link doesn’t take you directly to the relevant paper. Scroll over the research button and you’ll see the names of individual reports. One of the most relevant is listed under “statistical reports.” Click on the one by Wightman and Miller. MAKE SURE you also look at the items listed under data.</p>
<p>After scrolling through these, I think there are others that will help you.</p>
<p>Thanks, Mike. First, while it’s not broken down by law school, the data does show the differences in the median LSAT scores on each subsection by m/f and ethnic/racial group. It does show the standard deviation. See, e.g., Table 4. The OP thought that Puerto Ricans did worse as a group than Blacks. Here’s some data which shows the actual results by subsection. </p>
<p>I can’t get the link to work but under data, you can also see how the percentage of different ethnicities among LS matrics and graduates as well as practicing attorneys compares with that in the US population.
You can also see a breakdown of LSAT takers by ethnic group. (Part of the discussion above referenced how many African-American vs. Hispanic LS applicants there are.)</p>
<p>There are some other research papers on the site which also might be relevant to a paper on aff action by law schools.</p>
![http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/20080414gotoschools.jpg[/url]](http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/20080414gotoschools.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
