The American Bar Association may throw out law schools' requirements that students take LSAT and other standardized admissions tests.
An ABA panel will make its final decision on Friday after a committee recommended the testing requirements be scrapped because they hurt diversity in admissions.
The LSAT, or Law School Admission Test, estimates a prospective students reasoning and reading comprehension, and it serves as a predictor on how they will fair in classes.
The ABA's move comes as Yale and Harvard withdrew from US News & World Report's law school ranking system, criticizing its heavily reliance on LSAT and GRE testing scores that they argued hurts low-income applicants.
The woke law schools argued that many lower scorers on the LSAT can't afford exam prep courses and guides, and schools that admit the poor test takers are penalized by ranking lower on the prestigious US News list.
However, proponents of the tests fear that dropping the exams altogether may not actually help promote diversity but instead benefit wealthy applicants.
Regardless of how the ABA panel votes, half of 82 law schools in the US recently polled by Kaplan Testing, said they would keep the tests, with only four saying they would scrap them.
The American Bar Association will decide on Friday whether to scrap law schools' requirements that students take LSAT and other standardized admissions tests. Regardless of how the ABA panel votes, 41 of 82 law schools in the US recently polled by Kaplan Testing, said they would keep the tests
Kaplan, which has a financial interest in school requiring the tests as they offer prep courses and guides, said 37 of the 82 schools polled did not know what they would do if the ABA drops the testing requirements.
The respondent pool included 12 of the top 25 law schools as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, according to Kaplan, which did not identify respondents' answers by school name.
Jeff Thomas, Kaplan's executive director of legal programs, said that with half the schools keeping the requirement no matter what and nearly half unsure of what to do, the ABA's decision could amount to little.
'Irrespective of how this vote goes on Friday, it doesn't necessarily mean that anything in admissions is actually going to change,' he said.
The Law School Admissions Council, which administers the LSAT, warned the ABA that dropping the test admission may not tackle diversity problems, and could ultimately create even more advantages for wealthy applicants.
Kristen Theis-Alvarez, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid at University of California, Berkeley School of Law, echoed these concerns.
'We believe that removal of the testing requirement could actually increase the very disparities proponents seek to reduce by increasing the influence of bias in the review process,' she wrote in a submission along with dozens of university officials.
The Berkley School of Law's opposition to getting rid of the test is notable as it joined Harvard and Yale in withdrawing for the US News ranking list.
Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken (above) said the school would pull out of the US News & World Report's law-school ranking list. Gerken said the 'flawed' system devalues programs aimed at providing aid for low-income students and programs that encourage low-paying public interest jobs
Yale has remained at the top of the prestigious list for 32 years, but officials have longed complained about the lists prioritizing test scores and graduate employment
The highly influential list ranks the best law schools in the nation, and is often used by prospective students and parents when determining which colleges to apply to.
The list can also influence students' chances when applying for jobs, graduate school and PHD programs, as those who come from the best schools appear as the most desired candidates.
Yale, which has dominated the list at first place since 1990, called it 'flawed' because it allegedly puts the most weight on scholarships for high test scores.
Woke school dean Heather Gerken argued that the system incentivizes schools to supply aid to those who get high scores rather than for the low-income applicants who need it more.
Gerken said the current list devalues programs aimed at providing aid for low-income students and programs that encourage low-paying public interest jobs.
'The U.S. News rankings are profoundly flawed,' Gerken said in a statement. 'They disincentivize programs that support public interest careers, champion need-based aid, and welcome working-class students into the profession.
'Its approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the way of progress.'
With about 20 percent of the overall ranking score based on median LSAT or GRE test scores and grad-point averages, Gerken said the ranking hurts school that admit students who couldn't afford the test-prep courses and scored lower points.
Harvard Law School (above) which ranked fourth also withdrew from the US News list
The Berkley School of Law became the third prestigious school to drop from the ranking, however, it opposed the scrapping of standardized admissions tests
Conversations over the testing requirement became heated over the spring, when the lack of diversity in women and people of color in law became widely reported upon.
In written comments submitted to the ABA in May, a prospective law student named Fariha Amin, said the LSAT remains the primary hurdle for her dream job.
Amin, a full-time worker and mother of a 6-year-old boy, noted that despite taking tutoring courses, her scores were still not enough for law schools to admit her.
'I would hate to supply up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle this test,' she wrote.
