GRE or LSAT for top law schools (HYS+CCN)

[mattm]

Hello,

I don't plan on applying to law school for another two cycles and I had read your article on Harvard accepting the GRE, what is your take on which test is better for the top schools? (for the purposes of this question, assume that the entire T14 accepts the GRE two cycles down the road)

For the toughest schools to get into (HYS and to a lesser extent the GRE) does it make more sense to take the LSAT if you have a lower GPA (somewhere between 3.7 and 3.75)?.....Does the larger differentiation of the top 1% on the LSAT have anything meaningful on admissions at the very top? (as the LSAT the 8 scores between 173-180 separate the top 1% but on the GRE a perfect 170 is a top 1% score on the verbal). I could see because of the larger differentiation that a perfect 180 LSAT would be a better outcome than a perfect 170 GRE or even a 175 LSAT being better than a 170 GRE even though it is not a perfect LSAT.

I was limiting my question top the top schools because from my anecdotal research (myLSN, law school numbers), for the vast majority of schools, once you get past a 170 LSAT, you reach diminishing returns in an increase of admissions chances, but the 75% LSAT scores of some of the T6 are higher than a top !% score. (I would like to the get a 75% LSAT score for the schools I'm applying for, much easier said than done, but that is the goal)

Maybe to give me a reference point, could one of the experts here tell me how this is working in the business school world? I'm curious as a perfect score on the quant version of the GRE has even less differentiation (top 3%) compared to the GMAT where the top 1% is more differentiated?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Great question, mattm, and one that I expect a few of my colleagues will also weigh in on. There are a lot of moving parts to this issue, and many of them are cloaked in mystery so far, so any of us will, to some extent or another, be guessing.

First, even if we assume that all the t14 start taking the GRE in lieu of the LSAT that quickly, which could happen now that Harvard has opened the door, two cycles from now we will still have only very scant data on what that means. How many students with just the GRE will apply? How many of those will be accepted? What about students that take both tests - how does that skew things? We're used to traditional "splitters" (those with a high LSAT and low GPA) and "reverse splitters (high GPA, low LSAT), and we have a lot of data on what those do to your chances school-by-school. Now, though, we could be introducing all kinds of new "splitter" scenarios. High LSAT, low GRE, low GPA? High GRE, low LSAT, high GPA? The data geeks will be having a lot of fun (or going rapidly grey) trying to put all the pieces together, and that's assuming they can even get all the data they need from the schools. Perhaps some schools, when faced with a student who has taken both tests, will simply ignore the GRE and rely on old faithful? Or maybe they will have some sort of algorithm that weights the two and comes up with a new number, some kind of combined test score indicator?

In the short term (and two cycles from now is, imo, short term), I think it's reasonable to assume the LSAT will carry more weight, all other things being equal. A 175 LSAT, although less than perfect, could still look better than a perfect GRE when you consider the differentiation issue you raised, and especially since the USNWR ship probably won't turn all that quickly to change the way they do the rankings. Rankings matter to the top schools, so any shift away from the LSAT to the GRE will likely be gradual. And btw, you mentioned the verbal score, but who's to say the math score won't be just as important? Math may be the closest analogue to LG on the LSAT that the GRE has to offer, and they certainly won't ignore it, even if the verbal side gets weighted more heavily.

The big picture, then, is that we should still be in an LSAT-dominant world when you are ready to apply. But that's big picture, and before we can answer your question about which test is better for you, we need to drill down into your strengths and weaknesses. The GRE is much more knowledge-based than the LSAT, although there is still a lot of logical reasoning to be done throughout. Are you good with memorizing formulas? Pythagorean theorem, how to stretch a quadratic function, calculate the volume of a prism? The GRE also does a lot more to test your vocabulary. Feel confident about the meanings of "mercurial" and "quixotic"? The LSAT doesn't test this kind of thing, but instead tests your grasp of the technical meaning of more commonplace words like "only", "some", and "or" and your ability to reason rather than to memorize. You can cram for the GRE - you cannot cram for the LSAT.

One way to find out is to try your hand at both. You're a year away from needing to start putting an application together, so take a practice LSAT and a practice GRE and see which appeals to you more. Myself, I'm an LSAT guy all the way - it appeals to the way I just naturally think, and besides, in high school I pretty much ghosted on all my math classes. If you're like me, the LSAT will probably still be the way to go for you in two cycles. If not - if the LSAT remains shrouded in mystery and causes nothing but frustration, while the GRE clicks for you like an old friend, you might be one of those folks that would be better off just knocking out the GRE and calling it a day. Again, we have no way to be sure of anything at this point, not until a lot more data comes in the door. It could be that a GRE-only applicant with a perfect score is still disadvantaged over one with a near-perfect GRE and a 170+ LSAT.

TL;DR: The LSAT will likely still be preferred, so unless you are going to bomb the LSAT and crush the GRE, take the LSAT. If you can crush both, take both, because that can't hurt.

I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey Matt,

Thanks for the question! I'm going to answer in response to some of your specific points:

Hello,

I don't plan on applying to law school for another two cycles and I had read your article on Harvard accepting the GRE, what is your take on which test is better for the top schools? (for the purposes of this question, assume that the entire T14 accepts the GRE two cycles down the road)

Just fyi, given the very recent ABA Council action and guidance on Standard 503 (about two weeks ago, in fact), it may be that the widespread use of the GRE is a more than a few years off. Right now, it's up in the air, so don't assume that the GRE will be a viable option at that point. It might, or might not That said, I very strongly believe that at some point within the next 4-5 years at the most, the use of the GRE will become widespread, and commonplace at every law school in the US and Canada.

For the toughest schools to get into (HYS and to a lesser extent the GRE) does it make more sense to take the LSAT if you have a lower GPA (somewhere between 3.7 and 3.75)?.....Does the larger differentiation of the top 1% on the LSAT have anything meaningful on admissions at the very top? (as the LSAT the 8 scores between 173-180 separate the top 1% but on the GRE a perfect 170 is a top 1% score on the verbal). I could see because of the larger differentiation that a perfect 180 LSAT would be a better outcome than a perfect 170 GRE or even a 175 LSAT being better than a 170 GRE even though it is not a perfect LSAT.

Assuming that GRE Verbal will be prioritized and GRE Quant will be largely ignored, then yes, due to the scoring scale gradation difference (120-180 = 61 possible scores vs 130-170 = 41 possible scores) one would assume that a perfect score on both exams will result in favor being given to the LSAT result. And, as a consequence of those 20 extra scores and the resulting find differentiation at the top, you'd expect that the top section of LSAT scores would still hold more weight than a perfect GRE score. that said, keep in mind that LSAC guidance quite clearly states that small score differences are not meaningful to to standard deviation, and that is why they release score bands. It will be interesting to see if they keep that practice in place once usage of the GRE rises.

I was limiting my question top the top schools because from my anecdotal research (myLSN, law school numbers), for the vast majority of schools, once you get past a 170 LSAT, you reach diminishing returns in an increase of admissions chances, but the 75% LSAT scores of some of the T6 are higher than a top !% score. (I would like to the get a 75% LSAT score for the schools I'm applying for, much easier said than done, but that is the goal)

Maybe to give me a reference point, could one of the experts here tell me how this is working in the business school world? I'm curious as a perfect score on the quant version of the GRE has even less differentiation (top 3%) compared to the GMAT where the top 1% is more differentiated?

In the Bschool sphere, the basic similarity between the GMAT and GRE (two tests that are so similar that I've been arguing for years that they should be combined) has resulted in them being wholly interchangeable. There was some initial hesitation to treat GRE scores the same as GMAT, but these days the use of both is standard, and for example, in the US News rankings the scores results of the two tests are given equal weight. While your very reasonable focus is on which one is a better predictor and which one differentiates in a more definable sense, that's not the main concern of Bschools and ultimately law schools. What they want is to have as many qualified applicants as possible, and once they are convinced that the GRE was/is a viable predictor of school performance, the small differences become less concerning, to the point that they don't care. So, eventually, it won't matter to them whether you have a 174 LSAT and a 166 Verbal GRE, or a 170 LSAT and a 169 Verbal GRE. What will matter is where those numbers fall along the relative positioning they have with other schools, which is another way of saying that as long as they can keep their current ranking (or raise it), they are test-blind.

That last point is the hidden aspect of this whole discussion. While the stated reason for accepting the GRE is to open the door to applicants who might not otherwise apply to law school, the reason that is so attractive is that it allows for more qualified applicants, which could ease some of the enrollment pressure on schools these days. It's a money game, and using the GRE creates more warm bodies. Once they pass a certain threshold of scores, the schools don't and won't care which test it is. I realize that presents a very crass and commercialistic view of law school and Bschool, but that's also the way it is :/

I also realize that doesn't specifically answer your question, but it points out the way the schools will treat scores (as they relate to their established medians, not relative to each other). and any specific numbers are, as Adam points out, way off into the future before we know what those medians will be for each school, and how they compare.

The good news here (and there is good news!), is that using the GRE is a student-friendly choice by law schools. some students just aren't well-suited for the LSAT but can do well on the GRE, and this will help them. That's one reason I strongly support this decision. And so it may be that the law schools are motivated by dollars, but that doesn't preclude the outcome being beneficial to students. who loses? LSAC. they are about to endure a rocky 5 years as their monopoly is challenged. But, like the GMAT, they'll come through ok and let's hope that at the end of it they are more student friendly, a development which has been a long time coming.

Please let me know if that helps at all Thanks!

[mattm]

I have an important update:

It looks as if the methodology in the UNSWR has already included the GRE scores.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... ethodology

Additionally, I called Arizona Law prior to the release of the 2018 rankings and the big Harvard release (as I have already taken the GRE with a very high verbal and a poor math score), and at the time the admissions rep over the phone told me that Arizona only cared about the math score.(which makes me wonder if Harvard/other T14s will follow suit and only care about the verbal score or because they can afford to be more selective, if they will take the math portion into account)

Hope this helps!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the reply! A few thoughts:

USNews: This is in line with how USNWR treated GRE scores in the bschool world (see my comment in my prior post), so the nice thing is that they are just following their prior handling of GRE scores.

GRE Verbal: This was a matter of some discussion after Harvard made their announcement, and the near-universal conclusion was that Math scores would be given little if any weight in the process. That's already standard practice in certain graduate schools, where, for example, a History program will ignore the GRE Math score and focus instead on the GRE Verbal score. We all expect law schools to do the same thing, which is good news for math-phobes!

Last, I want to reiterate that given the ABA's recent advisement on standard 503, which carries through "the current 2016-2017 admissions cycle and the following year (2017-2018 cycle for the 1L class that will begin in the Fall of 2018)," we don't see use of the GRE becoming widespread until the 2018-2019 cycle for the class that starts in Fall 2019. So, everyone likely has a little bit of breathing room on this, thankfully!