EDMUND BURKEI have served on our law school’s admissions committee on and off for years, and chaired that committee this past year. One thing that worries me is our – and every other law school’s – use of undergraduate grade point averages for admissions purposes. Yes, of course, an applicant’s college performance should be an important factor in the admissions process. It’s one of two critical considerations, the other being performance on the Law School Admissions Test. But the sad truth is that GPA no longer tells us much about a student’s performance.
Let’s say a student had a 3.2 GPA at a well-regarded college or university. I don’t have the data but I believe that not very long ago a 3.2 generally placed students within the top fifth of their college classes. What about today? I don’t know.
Let me repeat that: When I, the member of a law school’s admissions committee, am looking at the college transcript of an applicant for the purpose of voting to admit or deny that applicant, I don’t know where that student placed in her class. Neither does our dean of admissions. College transcripts don’t contain that information.
We do know something important: where that student’s GPA places him among all students at that college or university who took the LSAT within the past three years. This is probably a more selective group than all undergraduates because it’s composed of students considering graduate training. Arguably, it’s also more relevant because it is the group within which the student is now competing, that is, law school applicants. Okay, where does a 3.2 place students among this group today? I’ve picked four schools at random: two Big Ten universities, the flagship public university in another state, and a well-known liberal arts college. Today a 3.2 places a student – not in the top 20% – but within the top 58% to 66% of students taking the LSAT at these colleges. Thus, most students applying to law schools in these colleges had higher GPA’s. In fact, even 3.6 places students just within the top quarter, but still outside the top fifth, among their peers.
This means that B’s at the undergraduate level are pretty much meaningless, and A’s may not that meaningful either.
There may well be exceptions to that last statement, but people involved in law school admissions don’t know what they are. Let’s say that a particular liberal arts college is exceptionally rigorous, and the philosophy department especially so. Every grade in philosophy courses must be truly earned, B’s signify genuinely strong performance, and A’s are only given for truly outstanding performance. A 3.2 places one in the top fifth among students majoring in philosophy at this college, a 3.5 places students within the top five percent. Should those of us evaluating these students’ law school applications know that? Of course we should. Do we? Except for rumors and impressions, we do not.
Moreover, we have strong incentives not to know.
In significant part, our own institution is measured by our published admissions credentials. Let’s say we have two applicants before us – one majored in philosophy at the hypothetical college described above and the other majored in marketing at a management school at a university. Both have identical LSAT scores. The philosophy major has a 3.2 GPA and the marketing major has a 3.4 GPA, but while the first student ranks within the top fifth of his program the second ranks right in the middle – at the 50th percentile – within his program. We only have room for one student. Who will it be? Even if we were to know all of this information, we would have an incentive to take the marketing student because his 3.4 is better for our own numbers – which are so important to our school’s reputation. That’s not the case just at my law school. That’s the case at every law school.
We should dispense with GPA’s as the yardstick for law school admissions. We should be using class rank instead. Even better would be a student’s rank within a major at her college. Even better than that would be a measure that combines class rank and the competitiveness of colleges and universities. Ranking in the top third at a highly selective college should be worth more than ranking in the top third at a less selective college. The service that provides law schools with admissions data should be charged with developing such a measure.
Such a system would have profound benefits that extend well beyond evaluating applicants for admission. It would end some of pressures for laxity and grade inflation at colleges and universities. For example, based on the performance of their alumni who have found their way into my classroom, my impression is that Franklin & Marshall happens to be an exceptionally rigorous college with comparatively low grades, and a place of high intellectual stimulation. More than once, I have asked our dean of admissions to please do all he can to recruit more students from Franklin & Marshall. Yet we live under a system that penalizes Franklin & Marshall and rewards less worthy colleges. We need to reverse that.
While we’re on it, a word for those who employ law school graduates: For similar reasons, in comparing graduates of different law schools, you too should focus on class rank rather than GPA.