Photo courtesy of the National Jurist.
Summary: John Marshall Law School in Chicago will accept the GRE.
The John Marshall Law School in Chicago is the latest school to announce that it will accept the GRE this year for its fall class. According to the press release, applicants can submit GRE scores in lieu of LSAT scores, but if they took both tests, then they must submit both results.
John Marshall joins fifteen other law schools such as Northwestern and Harvard that have opened their admissions process to allow the GRE in lieu of the LSAT. Chante Spann, Assistant Dean for Admissions at John Marshall, said that the change will allow a larger pool of applicants, such as people who pursued areas of study not related to pre-law.
“Diversity, opportunity, and innovation have been guiding ideals at The John Marshall Law School for more than 115 years,” Spann stated. “By accepting the GRE, we’re offering students who might not have otherwise considered law school access to a legal education and the opportunity to change lives.”
The acceptance of the GRE has been growing amongst law schools. James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona was the first school to allows its use in 2016, and in November, the school newspaper said that students who had entered with GRE scores were successful.
The Daily Wildcat said that twelve students were admitted in 2016 with GRE scores and 11 enrolled. The 11 have been doing well, and one student said that at first she wondered how people would react to the way she got in but now it is no issue.
“There was this idea that somehow it was going to diminish who they let in,” UA Law student Christina Rinnert said. “We’ve proven that it’s not. We are doing as much [and] as well as the other students. People have now forgotten we’ve gotten in that way.”
Rinnert said she was glad that the school opened the admission process to accept the GRE. As a single mother, she did not have the money or time to study for the LSAT, and she said that the GRE was a more affordable option.
Christopher Robertson, an associate dean for Research and Innovation and professor at the University of Arizona Law, said that when the school made the decision it was based on a study conducted with ETS. He said that the idea of a test was to use it as a predictor of a first-year law students’ grades, and they found that “not only was the GRE as predictive as the LSAT, but it’s quantitative section, which the LSAT doesn’t have, was one of the strongest subsections in predicting law school performance,” The Daily Wildcat wrote.
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