American Bar Association votes to keep LSAT for law school applicants
After months of debate, the American Bar Association (ABA) officially decided to keep the LSAT for law school applicants across the country. Photo by RENEE ELEFANTE, managing editor
Over the last few years, there has been speculation that the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) would be removed and no longer required for law school admission. However, the American Bar Association (ABA) has since rejected the test as optional for schools across the country.
The change was supposed to have gone into effect for the fall term of 2025.
In the last six years, there have been two failed attempts to end the requirement of the LSAT. According to the ABA Journal, the hope for the scrapping of this test derived from the ABA’s desire to provide admission opportunities to a more diverse body of students.
“Many spoke in favor and against the resolution, but for the most part, all agreed on one thing, their position would help diversity in legal education,” the ABA Journal wrote, regarding the meeting which discussed the future of the LSAT.
The argument against this exam is similar to arguments made against other standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT.
According to Rethinking Schools, these kinds of tests can often show a bias through the scores and the overall application of a student because they do not fully show what an applicant is capable of.
Furthermore, according to The Atlantic, students that can afford tutoring and extra help often succeed more than students that cannot. The idea of removing the LSAT is to open the option of law school to more students who would have been hesitant to apply previously due to the LSAT.
Amit Schlesinger, the executive director of Kaplan Test Prep in Pasadena, California, found through a survey that fewer than 10% of applicants would drop the requirement of the usage of the LSAT.
“The reality is that regardless of what the ABA may ultimately decide in the future, major changes to admissions policies do not happen overnight,” Schlesinger said in a Feb 6 statement from a National Jurist article. “It’s an issue we’ll continue to track. And as always, we’ll provide students with accurate information to help them make smart decisions about their educational and career paths.”
Marisa Cianciarulo is the interim dean of the Fowler School of Law at Chapman University, and she has been there since 2006. She said the LSAT requirement has some important aspects.
“I think it’s preferable to keep the LSAT requirement,” Cianciarulo stated in an email. “Reliable data shows that it is a good indicator of law school performance and ability to pass the bar exam on the first attempt.”
Cianciarulo argues that in removing the requirement, other areas of the application will be heightened.
“What this argument tends to overlook, however, is that replacing the LSAT with other indicators such as undergraduate GPA also advantages better-resourced students,” Cianciarulo stated. “Fowler School of Law has managed to bring in high-LSAT, diverse classes; 74% of our students, including all of our Black law students, passed the bar on the first try this past July.”
Bahar Babagoli, a sophomore psychology major, is interested in possibly attending graduate law school in her future.
“I think that it would be very beneficial to keep the LSAT for prospective law students because unlike those who want to pursue a career in healthcare, law students do not have to take prerequisites to apply,” Babagoli stated in an interview. “Therefore, the LSAT would be the only way for a prospective law student to gauge the barriers that they would have to overcome in law school.”
