How One Law School is Making It Easier to Apply

Maybe I should suggest to my daughter that she might want to consider applying to law school, Harvard Law School in particular.

Why? Because starting this fall, Harvard Law will no longer require applicants to take the Law School Admissions Test (the LSAT). Don’t get too excited, those of you out there who are thinking of studying law. There’s a proviso. Harvard still requires scores but now it will accept scores on either the LSAT or the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). My daughter took the GRE for grad school and has a Masters Degree….but wait – it’s probably too old a score. So I guess she should keep her day job!

In any event, Harvard has become the second law school accredited by the American Bar Association to accept the GRE, following the lead of the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. Now that doesn’t happen very often – Harvard following a policy launched by the U of A! Still, does it foreshadow a growing movement among law schools in their search to fill their seats by accepting the GRE? According to the website, law.com, Harvard officials noted that accepting the GRE will indeed expand access to the law school – because it’s offered frequently (the LSAT is administered only four times per year) and is available internationally in a fair number of regions. So yes, adding the GRE does eliminate barriers for students, and as one Harvard dean noted, hopefully draws more students with science and technology backgrounds to the study of law, as well as people who already hold other graduate degrees. Whether the new policy fills seats or not, this move on the part of Harvard Law is a win/win for the legal profession.