|"You've gotta know the rules if you wanna play the game." Part I.| In an increased effort to not waste time on LSD and instead do my school work, I've found myself reading more and more things on blogs and in papers such as the Wall Street Journal about law schools "gaming" the admissions process. Admittedly, I am getting into the fray a bit after the fact given that most of this dust was kicked up last April with US News and World Report (USNWR) came out with its rankings and a brand spanking new criterion to be added to the mix. Formerly, one of the criteria was using the median of law schools' admitted students' LSAT scores. The result of such a system was that law schools could fill half of their classes with scores to keep them in a good place in the rankings and then fill the rest of the class with lower scoring students who were perhaps qualified in other ways (the "soft factors" that I am personally depending on: race, age, origins, work experience, etc.). For instance, of Yale's class of 205, 103 could have a score of 180 and the remaining 102 could have 140 and the median would still be 180 and Yale's #1 position would remain intact. Of course, no school stacks its student body like that (for one reason, GPA and LSAT score show some correlation and a class full of 140 scorers is likely to be a class full of low GPAs which one could argue is a class full of kids who do not work hard/well), but the point is that schools could give more spots to applicants with lesser "hard factors." The change last year went to taking an average from the school's 75th and 25th percentiles to stand as the median. Suddenly that 140 is being thrust into the equation, plummeting Yale's "median" to 160, a far cry from 180 (Yale's median, btw, is not anywhere near 180, just using it as an easy example). The change took place because there was some talk that schools, who were self-reporting their medians, weren't being above board about it. The 25th/75th numbers are reported to the ABA and law schools cannot fudge that data unless they are looking for a smack down. And with this change there was an outcry. Because schools who expected to rise (or at least not fall) in the rankings were sorely surprised when USNWR hit the stands last April. Now, the interesting thing, is that from sea to shining sea, you would be hard-pressed to find a school dean who defends ranking schools or USNWR's methodology. From Yale to Southern Methodist (Oh, poor Ms. Miers) to Drake, every law school categorically denounces the practice of ranking, saying that every school has its own faults and charms and these things can hardly be quantified (incidentally, they say the same sort of thing about law school applicants, yet strangely LSAT score is more often than not a strong indicator of where a student will end up) into a single numerical standing, especially when it almost implies a relationship that's more than ordinal. The cries also came from the minority camp. Blacks and Hispanics score, on average, 6-12 points lower on the LSAT than Whites (154 for the ave. white examinee, 143 for the ave. black examinee). Law schools have worked for some time to ensure "diversity" in their classes (this is not a discussion of what defines diversity, so let's not go that way) and the former USNWR methodology allowed them to do that without too much risk to their standings, but the new representation makes that much harder. And so it becomes a choice, Ranking or Diversity? Speculators are hopeful that Diversity will win out, but I'm not so sure. I do not know what is the case for law schools, but according to an article in the September 2001 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, undergraduate schools are bound to the rankings not just by students and parents responding to the rankings, but outside parties such as donation-happy alumni and banks. Schools will go to banks to ask for loans, and while for you or me the bank might pull out a credit report, for them the banks will pull out a copy of USNWR and say, "You fell two spots in the rankings. Come to us next year when Washington and Lee is back to eating your dust." So it comes down to this: take this black female applicant who has a 2.99 GPA and a 152 LSAT but worked 50hrs a week to put herself through school and take care of her little sister OR decide to be "shocked" by yet another former white Teach for America Fellow who graduated from Princeton with a 3.86 and has a 172 LSAT and also be able to finance the building of a new library next year? You think that one person, one data point cannot make that much difference, but how big do you think law school classes are? Harvard is large by most standards with about 500. Many are below 300 and it's almost avant garde to be below 200 (Cornell is about 180). I do not admire the admissions dean having to make that call. But, maybe he won't have to. I have heard rumors (and a shallow and cursory googling did not reveal anything to substantiate the claims) that the uproar was enough to make USNWR turn and run scared back to its former methdology. What does all of this up and down and back and forth mean for us applying now? It means I still have no idea where I'm going to get in. It also means there may be some very upset upstarts come April, but that's nothing new.
I went to an Ivy League undergrad.
I go to a top NYC law school.
I date men (well...).
I live in Bed-Stuy.
I don't need more to say,
just more room to say it.
Etc.