Summary: BYU Law will accept the GRE, starting in the fall of 2018.
On November 20, Brigham Young University Law announced that they will accept the GRE test during the admissions process for the fall 2018 incoming class. The Utah-based law school said that the move was in order to increase the diversity of the applicant pool and ease the financial burden of students by not requiring them to take the LSAT and the GRE.
“By accepting the GRE as an admission test for BYU Law School, we hope to facilitate entry to law school by students who would otherwise be required to prepare and pay for two admissions tests,” BYU Law Dean Gordon Smith told The Universe.
In 2016, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law was the first ABA-accredited law school in the country to accept the GRE in admissions. Since then, high-tier law schools such as Harvard, Columbia, and Northwestern have also allowed potential students to submit GRE scores instead of LSAT scores.
So far, only 11 law schools have changed their admissions policies to allow GRE submissions, but Kaplan Test Prep stated that we can expect to see more schools following suit.
“Kaplan Test Prep’s 2017 law school admissions officers survey shows more law schools warming up to the idea of allowing applicants to submit GRE scores instead of LSAT scores. According to the responses of 128 law schools across the United States, 25 percent say it’s an admissions policy they plan to implement, up from just 14 percent in Kaplan’s 2016 survey; 45 percent say they have no plans to do so, a drop from 56 percent who ruled it out in last year’s survey; and 30 percent are not sure, the same as in 2016,” Kaplan Test Prep wrote.
BYU Law Assistant Dean of Admissions Gayla Sorenson said that she was “excited” that the school was making the change.
“We are excited about the prospect of expanding the scope of our qualified applicant pool,” Sorenson said to The Universe.
Sorenson said that BYU Law participated in a multi-school study conducted by the Educational Testing Service that found that the use of the GRE is a good indicator of first-year law school success. The school had previously allowed some applicants to attend BYU Law without submitting LSAT scores, but that was on a case-by-case basis.
BYU Law is located in Provo, Utah, and is a private institution that is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. It is consistently ranked as a best value school by organizations such as SoFi and U.S News and World Report.
According to Lawcrossing, “the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University is fully accredited by the American Bar Association. BYU offers students varied learning experiences—from the Socratic method of teaching and problem solving to seminars requiring individual research to hands-on clinical experiences—and the sum of these experiences helps prepare students to become adept in the range of professional experiences that make up the practice of law.”
- Wake Forest University School of Law Will Accept the GRE
- Washington University in St. Louis Accepting GRE
- Northwestern Announces GRE Acceptance
- GRE Trend May Be Catching on at Law Schools