Welcome Duke to Team GRE! (Probably)
Law school admissions policies have undergone some pretty radical changes over the last three years. Once upon a time, if you wanted to be a lawyer, you had to be ready to take the LSAT. But slowly over time, that requirement has been chipped away as more and more law schools allow students to submit their GRE score in lieu of the traditional admissions test, the LSAT.
Above the Law readers are always quick to point out when a law school starts accepting the GRE — particularly when it’s a prestigious one. So it was no surprise when ATL got tips about the latest update to the Duke Law admissions page, which pretty clearly indicates the law school has joined the GRE party:
However, when I reached out to the law school for a comment, I found someone in the web design department at Duke had jumped the gun. A spokesperson at the law school said their final decision on the GRE was still being made. But, don’t throw out that GRE application just yet. According to William Hoye, associate dean of admissions and student affairs at Duke Law, the language on the website will be changed to:
Application information will be revised in late August for the 2021 entering class. We will accept the LSAT and the LSAT-Flex; we expect to be able to accept the GRE as well.
So there is a pretty good chance prospective Dukies can avoid the LSAT after all. And assuming Duke does make the change for the next admissions cycle, the only T14 law schools still holding onto the LSAT as the exclusive method for admission are Stanford and Michigan. We’ll see how long that lasts…
The list of law schools that currently accept the GRE for admissions:
And remember that survey by Kaplan Test Prep from 2017 that said a full 25 percent of law schools have plans to accept the GRE? Yeah, we’ve hit that threshold. And it’s a popular move. Another Kaplan study determined 49 percent of students surveyed support the move to the GRE.
Even though more and more law schools are on board with the GRE, the body responsible for law school accreditation, the American Bar Association, hasn’t officially weighed in on using anything other than the LSAT in admissions. What they’re waiting for, I just don’t know. But ABA accreditation Standard 503 currently mandates that law schools require admissions testing and that the test used be “valid and reliable.” Whether the GRE meets that standard, the ABA hasn’t officially said. But now that so many law schools have moved on the GRE, it might be impossible to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).