Disagree that USNews methodology is arbitrary. It has been published for years for all to see. USNews also accepts input from colleges themselves on its methodology. Recent changes based on input, for example, was to add weight for low income, Pell Grant students.
But yes, its an interest to sell magazines.
You mentioned Pell grants, so I assume you are talking about undergrad rather than law school. The specific weightings were 2.5% on Pell grant graduation rate and 2.5% of Pell grant graduate rate performance. Suppose you were trying to rank the “social mobility” at different colleges, which is the title of the grouping. Would you put small 2.5% weights on the graduation rate of Pell grant kids? Graduation rate is largely a function of the college’s selectivity. It may produce some positive publicity to say USNWR changed their formula to focus on social mobility, but the end result is the colleges appear at the top of the rankings that USNWR wants to appear at the top. Seeing those colleges at the top gives readers a sense that the formula is correct, increasing sales and profitability.
The criteria weighted >5% in USNWR’s “best college” formula is listed below. How are these weightings not arbitrary? Is there any validation or verification that these are the correct weightings to determine “best college?” Do any sources outside of USNWR come to a similar conclusion about best college formula and/or choose similar weightings? Is there any evidence of USNWR changes the listed weightings below in response to feedback from colleges or others indicating ranking is right/wrong? Does anyone think these weightings are expected to produce a meaningful ranking of which college is “best”?
US News rankings and the question of relevance of LSAT scores are two different issues. The fact is that LSAT and other scores have been found useful for decades by law schools,colleges etc to identify student readiness to handle the academic challenges of their schools. Now we’re supposed to believe it when the ABA and others say “never mind “?
Colleges have been going test optional to hide evidence of how race is used in admissions. They know the Supreme Court is about to use the evidence of disparities in scores and admission rates of various groups to ban affirmative action. The law schools will soon follow and go LSAT optional for the same reasons. Tanking USNews ratings which use LSAT scores heavily is just a part of the overall strategy to get rid of mathematical measurements so they can get the “right” mix of minorities without fear of losing any perceived prestige or reputation. US News rankings have serious flaws (eg the expenditure per student measurement) but this move by top law schools (Harvard,Stanford,Berkeley,Columbia and Georgetown have joined Yale) is all part of a larger game to avoid objective measurements like the LSAT
There were ~1000 test optional undergrad colleges prior to COVID, some of which were test optional for decades. However, the rate of test optional colleges skyrocketed during COVID, during a period with limited availability of tests. This limited availability of tests was the key initial driver for the recent increase in test optional colleges. The reasons why most undergrad colleges remaining test optional after COVID is more under control and testing is more available are less clear. I think some key factors are selective colleges like the increase in applications, a growing portion of HS students choosing to not take standardized tests who would not apply to colleges that require them, imitation of peers, internal reviews showing that such tests often adds little in predicting academic success (particularly graduation rate) beyond combination of other available metrics on application, and internal reviews showing that certain groups average worse on standardized testing than on nearly all other criteria used as part of the application, such as low income and URMs. It’s more complex than just trying to hide evidence of race in admission or preparing for a potential future supreme court decision.
Law school admission has historically emphasized standardized test scores far more than undergrad and remained the last hold out that was required to use standardized testing by an external accrediting organization. I think the influence of seeing every other type of college remove such requirements by 3rd parties, mandating that they use admission tests was a key part of their decision. For example, the ABA committee recommendations from April as listed at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/may22/22-may-memo-revisions-501-503.pdf state,
“The recommended revisions to Standard 503 eliminate the requirement of a “valid and
reliable” admission test for individuals seeking admission as first-year J.D. degree students, thereby making the use of an admission test by law schools optional.
…
Moreover, the SRC notes that as of early 2022, the Council remained the only accreditor among law, medical, dental, pharmacy, business, and architecture school accreditors that required an admission test in its Standards.”
Given law schools’ history of emphasizing test scores in admission far more than undergrad, I do not think most law schools are suddenly going to switch to test optional, even if the ABA gives them the option to do so.
Medical schools in India and UK require AP type classes in Biology, Physics and Chemistry in order to apply during the 11th and 12th grades. India has tests in most states in those subjects as an entrance exam for medicine.
Some recent evidence that SAT scores predict college graduation rates and academic success. Enough for MIT to make them mandatory again. Others are resisting or obfuscating the evidence. This may apply to the LSAT as well. It’s a cautionary article on downgrading tests scores. The jury is still out
As noted in an earlier post, while MIT was officially test optional during the pandemic, MIT appears to have admitted a negligible portion of their class as test optional. Nearly all persons who applied test optional to MIT were rejected, and nearly all MIT admits submitted tests. This differs from nearly every other highly selective college that went test optional during pandemic. All others except MIT accepted a good portion of class as test optional applicants.
Similarly MIT appears to be one of the only colleges that switched to test required after the pandemic. All Ivies, Chicago, Stanford, Duke, … .remain test optional. Caltech remains test blind. Saying SAT predicts academic success because MIT made them mandatory is no more meaningful than saying SAT is not important because Caltech remains test blind.
I won’t repeat posts about test optional that I’ve made many times before, as it is off topic for this thread. I’ll only say there are a good number of studies suggesting that the increased information gained in predicting academic success from SAT/ACT is largely duplicated in other available information in the test optional application, and test optional admits tend to have similar average GPA and average graduation rates as test submitter admits. It’s not a simple relationship where score of x means you are prepared and will do well in college, while a score of y means you are not prepared and will do poorly in college.
But the LSAT issues are different from SAT/Test optional.
High LSAT scores benefit prospective law school students who:
1- Took challenging classes, operated out of their comfort zone academically, pursued intellectual engagement vs. “protecting their GPA”
2- Flopped around a bit in undergrad; came in as one major, didn’t do well, finally discovered something they love and were good at
3- Ended up being the little fish in the big pond (not the Malcolm Gladwell advice to go where you already know you will excel).
This doesn’t get enough attention IMHO in the “throw out the LSAT” debate. There are a number of highly regarded law schools who are known to like “splitters”-- i.e. high LSAT, lower than typical GPA for that score. I’m sure I haven’t identified all the students for whom that’s the case. But throw out the LSAT and you’re left with the high GPA crowd- which is fine- but it misses some fantastic students who could become very fine lawyers.
The GRE as a substitute? It’s just an easier test.
I have worked for companies which ask new grads for their SAT/ACT scores. And yes, I’ve been called an elitist and god knows what on CC . And many folks PM’d me privately to scream about their brilliant kid who is just a bad test taker. And how unfair it is to judge a 22 year old on the basis of a test they took at 17. yadda yadda yadda.
And yet- the screamers are missing the point. Companies which ask (and there are fewer and fewer of them, now that more colleges are test optional) essentially are putting a finger on the scale for students at no-name colleges (Hey, this kid has a 4.0 GPA at East Podunk Central University. We don’t know what that means. But he got a 1600 on his SAT’s, and that’s gotta mean something. Let’s interview him!"
And we all know the reasons why a talented kid with a 1600 SAT ends up commuting from home to East Podunk Central-- money.
But I would need a lot more evidence before concluding that standardized testing is bad, bad, bad, and that you get better results without it.
At the end of the day- lawyers still need to pass the Bar exam (yes, a standardized test). And churning out graduates who can’t pass the bar is what the “bottom of the barrel” law schools do, not the elite. Whether it’s T-14 or top 20 or however you want to rank them- Cooley won’t be mistaken for U Chicago law school any time soon.
A case has been made to me that perhaps we are misunderstanding Yale’s mission. The LSAT measures reading, comprehension, and analytical abilities that serve most varities of lawyers well.
But, what if, Yale is actually looking for activist lawyers, as Dean Gerken’s letter strongly suggests? Clearly if that were the case, she has to tilt the scale in favor of (not that she has suggested this so far) other aspects of the application than the LSAT. And perhaps this is also where the ABA is coming from. They want activist lawyers. Perhaps they are looking for community organizers etc. Surely Yale doesn’t want any more corporate lawyers – they probably never did, unless the person will donate massively 20 years hence. They want to influence the court and policy. That is the legacy the school is seeking.
are you speculating that the ABA is inferring that future activist lawyers don’t have the chops to do well on a standardized test that “measures reading, comprehension, and analytical abilities”? And/or is Yale?
They may have kindered motives. I am not saying activist lawyers don’t have the analytical chops. Simply that if you want more activist people, you need to relax on some of the other constraints – like analytical ability. It is almost mathematical. If you are at a corner solution already, and you want to move to another corner of the solution space, you need to give up on some other criterion.
I am not aware of any law school saying that they are in favor of dropping LSAT, including Yale. The letter linked in the first post implies that law schools may be reluctant to admit students without the highest possible LSAT score out of fear of hurting their USNWR ranking, which is a completely different issue.
So “activist people” are not “analytical”?
You should read what I wrote one more time and understand what I am trying to say. Don’t want to repeat it.
There is no one 'type" of activist lawyer. The most successful lawyer I know (partner at a top white shoe law firm) claims that the most gratifying case he ever won was to get a man out of jail (after 25 years) from a wrongful conviction. One of the non-profits who work in this area “shopped” the case to about 25 top firms around the country- and this litigator (big ego, big mouth) was convinced that he could win it. He used the resources of his wealthy firm (paralegals, associates, administrative time) to get the conviction vacated and told me “I didn’t care what it cost us. This conviction was a stain on the entire criminal justice system and I couldn’t let it stand”.
And he won- even though he is not a criminal lawyer. Compelling evidence of fraud by the police, and a coverup, and there will be a string of convictions down the road of massive public corruption and collusion to send an innocent man to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
Isn’t this judicial activism at its finest? All lawyers can be activists and they come from all different kinds of law schools.
Wasn’t MIT’s policy during COVID-19 that applicants should send SAT/ACT results unless testing was not available, so not as “optional” as one would ordinarily see a “test optional” policy as. Presumably, MIT felt that SAT/ACT had some value, if only for quickly weeding-out applicants with math scores low enough to suggest unlikelihood of succeeding in the math and physics GIR courses.
In contrast, Caltech went SAT/ACT-blind and still is. Probably for Caltech, the minimum academic strength admissions looks for is high enough that applicants must present some indicators to pass that bar, and that SAT/ACT has a ceiling that is too low for that purpose, and there probably are not many applicants who would have math scores below the top-end of those tests anyway (so the quick weed-out that may be needed at MIT may not be applicable to Caltech).
It is. I am unsure if Yale has this kind of activism as a primary interest – well heeled partners at top law firms fighting against the frequent eggregious wrongs perpetrated against common people. They want to have Assistant DAs etc into the country to make large scale change in the template that they have in mind – whatever that is. And to have legal scholars in academia make the intellectual case for precisely that kind of change tha is being conducted on the ground by the ADAs etc.
I wonder what portion of the test optional policies were successful for kids applying into stem majors at other elite schools such as Harvard or Stanford. Since MIT has mostly stem applicants, it is easy to dump on them for being different than Harvard, Stanford and others.
Activism is activism. Sometimes it’s misconduct in the criminal justice system, sometimes it’s large corporations dumping toxic sludge in a river, sometimes it’s financial fraud— but law schools (especially Yale) teach the tools that are required to move the needle on the injustices.
I’m not sure what you are implying in your posts. Yale produces fine lawyers, many of whom end up in law firms, many of whom end up in government/court system, some of whom end up in academia training the next generation.
There is an activist angle to law. And there is an angle to the law where you simply best represent whichever side of a dispute you agreed to represent – as an individual serving the justice system. More neutral. Less policy. Clearly they seem to have taken a side on issues.