LSAC Report: December 2003-January 2004

LSAC
DECEMBER 2003 – JANUARY 2004
No.2003-4
REPORT
Newsletter of the Law School Admission Council
National Applicant Trends
While most of us know that there
are more applicants to law schools,
there are also several lesser-known
but very important short- and longterm trends emerging from applicant data. Some of these trends
may have significant ramifications
for law schools and their recruitment efforts.
Applicants Are Applying to More Schools
(Short-term Trend)
The accompanying chart (Chart
A) shows that applications per
applicant ranged from 4.8 to 4.9
during the 5-year period from 1991
through 1995 and between 4.5 and
4.7 during the 6-year period from
1996 through 2001. For 2001 there
were 4.7 applications per applicant,
for 2002 there were 5.0 applications
per applicant, and for 2003 the ratio
jumped to 5.3.
Most likely this short-term trend
has been caused by applicants recognizing that applicant volumes are
high and, therefore, they are applying to more schools in order to
improve their likelihood of acceptance. A lesser factor may be that
the increased usage of LSAC’s
LSACD and LSACD on the Web
products is fostering additional
applications because it is easier to
apply. (There is only a little anecdotal evidence to support this idea,
but sales in these products have
increased by 80 percent in the last
two years.) It seems likely that this
ratio will remain high as long as
applicants perceive that volumes
are remaining high.
Applicants Are Applying Earlier in the
Admission-year Cycle (Short-term Trend)
By early December of the last
three years (2001, 2002, 2003), the
(see Applicant Trends, page 5)
Applications per Applicant 1991–2003
Chart A
Distribution of Applicants Over Time—Fall 2003
Chart B
Stepping Up
viewfrom the chair
“Opportunity is missed by most
people because it is dressed in overalls
and looks like work.”
—Thomas A. Edison
Imagine for a moment a very
busy fall semester completely
packed with your normal responsibilities. Then imagine that, on top of
these responsibilities, you learn that
you also need to organize and host
two major—and potentially controversial—conferences. For some that
might be par for the course, but I
dare say that for most of us, it
would be a daunting prospect at
best and, at worst, might cause us
to start looking for something new
to do. This was exactly the challenge LSAC faced this fall, and I’m
proud to say that the organization
not only stepped up, we turned it
into a resounding success.
As if it were not enough for our
Newtown colleagues to administer
a record number of tests, field hundreds of thousands of calls and
e-mails, implement new online
products for applicants and schools,
host an annual newcomer’s conference, organize and coordinate
recruitment forums in eight cities,
attend and work out logistics for
about 12 multiday committee and
workgroup meetings, oversee the
construction of a new headquarters
building, manage major research
and development efforts, not to
mention manage the day-to-day
operations of a significant business,
this fall LSAC also served as willing
organizer and host first of a conference on the meaning and consequences of the Michigan affirmative
action cases in Chicago, and then a
conference titled “Dreamkeeping:
Empowering Minority Faculty—A
Dialogue” in Seattle.
Despite their timing seven weeks
apart during the busiest part of the
year, it will not surprise anyone
familiar with LSAC’s Newtown
staff that they made these conferences happen without even appearing to break a sweat. I make this
point not because we expect less
than superhuman capabilities from
the LSAC staff, since superhuman
increasingly seems to be the norm
in Newtown. I make this point
because it is easy to forget that
LSAC is only able to take on opportunities like these because we are
supported by such a dedicated and
tireless group of professionals.
The two conferences this semester
were classic examples of the role that
LSAC can and should play in legal
education. We don’t usually think of
ourselves as an organization that
hosts conferences, but this time there
were very good reasons to do what
we did. With respect to the Michigan
cases conference, it became clear long
before the cases were decided that,
no matter what happened, law
schools would be clamoring for realworld guidance as soon in the fall
semester as possible. LSAC was positioned to perceive this need very,
very early. In fact, the conference was
first conceptualized in February 2003,
four months before the Supreme
Court ruled. LSAC also had the experience and logistical muscle to be able
to make arrangements that would
provide enough flexibility to adapt to
whatever the Court might do and
still provide timely guidance to member schools. The result of this foresight and logistical nimbleness was a
wonderfully useful conference and
something we should be very proud
of as an organization. Because of the
timing and logistics issues that were
involved, pulling this off simply
would not have been conceivable for
many organizations.
The Dreamkeeping conference
was in the works for roughly two
Richard D. Geiger
Chair, LSAC Board of Trustees
Associate Dean/Dean of Admissions
Cornell Law School
years before finally emerging, and it
too was aimed at getting an important but potentially uncomfortable
topic out on the table in a constructive way. Its particular focus was the
LSAT, how misuse of the test hurts
minority prospects, and what to do
about it. This is a subject of extreme
importance to our organization and
to legal education. Because of the
skill and commitment of LSAC, a
broad and rich conversation ensued.
Over the course of two substancefilled days, about 100 participants,
most of them minority faculty
involved in or concerned about
admissions, heard a full range of
voices and opinions on the test. The
likely result of this “work in
progress” will be a fuller understanding of what the test is and is
not intended to do, and how best to
accomplish the goal of attracting and
enrolling diverse and capable law
students. Although work clearly
(see Stepping Up, page 5)
Editor-in-Chief
Wendy Margolis
Production Coordinator
Deborah Velsor
®
© 2003 by Law School Admission Council, Inc.
Address all correspondence to LSAC Report, Box 40,
Newtown, PA 18940. www.LSAC.org.
[email protected]
copyright©
2
LSAC Introduces Non-SSN
Account Numbers
News Update
UT Plans for Affirmative Action
A proposed admission policy announced last week
would allow the University of Texas to consider race
and ethnicity in awarding spots to first-time applicants.
If approved, it would be implemented in fall 2005.
UT-Austin dropped its affirmative action practices in
1996 after a federal appeals court ruled against race
preferences in the Hopwood case. Eventually, all Texas
public and private universities, fearing lawsuits,
dropped affirmative action policies. (December 2, 2003,
San Antonio Express-News)
In response to increasing reservations by candidates
about providing their U.S. Social Security and Canadian
Social Insurance numbers as the primary identifier for
many transactions, LSAC is introducing unique account
numbers that will be used to identify candidates in all
of their interactions with LSAC. These account numbers
will be used on all registration forms, files, letter of
recommendation (LOR) forms, transcript request forms,
and LSAT materials. The number will also be added
to candidate data in ACES and Admit-M. The Social
Security or Social Insurance number will continue to
be included on all of these forms if it is provided, but
will be used more for matching purposes than as the
primary identifier.
The Services and Programs Committee has reviewed
the use of these new account numbers. Though not
required, LSAC encourages law schools eventually to
incorporate them on admission applications as well, to
ensure efficient and accurate matching of candidate documents throughout the admission process. LSAC is
preparing a series of communications with the law
schools to help prepare for the next application cycle.
The new account number will be added to the common
information form in the next edition of the LSACD so
that it will easily flow to any law school applications
that include a place for this number.
The number will contain nine characters, always
starting with the letter “L” followed by eight digits. It
will be assigned to candidate files starting in March
2004. LSDAS registrants using LSAC’s online services
will be able to print LOR and transcript request forms
customized with the number and prepopulated with
other candidate-specific information, as will online
LSAT registrants who print their own test-admission
tickets. Beginning with the June 2004 LSAT administration, the account number will also be used on most test
materials. The number will be added to ACES, Admit-M,
and the LSDAS electronic file layout in the summer of
2004. Documentation reflecting the amended LSDAS
electronic file layout will be made available to law
schools in March 2004.
Michigan Admission Process Slowed
newnumbers
The Supreme Court ruling that forced the University
of Michigan to change the way it judges student applicants has slowed down the admission process.
As of mid-November, the school had admitted only
500 students for its 2004-2005 freshman class, compared
to 1,500 at this point last year.
In June, the Supreme Court said the school’s point
system that gave minority applicants a better chance
of acceptance was unconstitutional.
As a result of the decision, Michigan has changed
its system, increasing its admission staff from 40 to 73.
The school is spending $1.8 million to implement
court-mandated changes. (November 29, 2003, The
Associated Press)
ETS Report: Achievement Gap Will Not Close Without
Understanding Both School and Societal Factors
A new report from the Educational Testing Service
(ETS) titled Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for
Tracking Progress, identifies the factors before, during,
and after school that create and perpetuate the welldocumented gaps in achievement among students from
different racial and ethnic backgrounds and different
family-income levels.
The ETS report specifies 14 factors related to student
achievement, ranging from birth weight and hunger to
lead poisoning, parental involvement, and teacher quality. More importantly, the report looks at the negative
impact for different racial/ethnic and income groups
experiencing these factors that impact learning. The
report warns that efforts to close the achievement gap
will fail unless policymakers, educators, and parents
recognize and address the variety of factors both in
school and society causing the gap. (November 20, 2003,
Educational Testing Service)
3
A New World in LSAT Development: ITEMS
In the past two years, the test
development process at LSAC
has undergone a transformation.
Virtually all of the regular test
development procedures have
been revised and streamlined to
capitalize on the strengths of a
new data management system
dubbed: “ITEMS: Integrated Test
Evaluation and Management
System.” The massive redesign
project has included
• Development of a new, fully relational database to store all test
question data and information
• Conversion of most test development procedures—from writing
test questions through evaluating
and approving tests (all of which
had been largely paper-driven)—to
a set of online processes in ITEMS
• Development of a cutting-edge
automated program for assembling tests that is fully integrated
in an online test review process
• Automating the import of testquestion statistics to the ITEMS
database, thereby greatly expediting the item development/
item assembly cycle
• Realization of huge cost savings
by the automation of processes
that took weeks or months and
which now take minutes
Developed totally in-house by
LSAC staff, ITEMS was designed
both to satisfy current demands on
the test development database and
to facilitate any future alterations in
the internal procedures of test
development or the design of the
test itself.
ITEMS debuted in June 2001. That
initial system was intended to run
parallel to the former sets of
processes for a six-month period.
ITEMS proved so successful, how-
ever, that the old processes were
discontinued after just three
months. One of the significant
advantages of the new system was
that it eliminated many, many days
of manual processing. In addition to
improved efficiency, the ITEMS
processes eliminates the risk of most
errors, thus reducing the need for
time-consuming quality control.
Many enhancements have been
incorporated into ITEMS since June.
Today, ITEMS consists of an Access
database storing more than 20,000
test questions and affiliated data
and text. The database is accessed
via five separate interfaces, each
used for a distinct set of test development or psychometric processes.
For example, one interface is used to
write, edit, and review test questions. This “Item Review” interface
allows a team to collaborate on the
review and revision of test questions
while storing the complete editorial
history of the question. The source
of each edit to a question is instantly
recognized if the user chooses to see
the “marked up” version of the
question. This novel tool enables the
test development staff to electronically document all question-development work and resolve questions
that might arise in later stages of the
test process.
Another ITEMS interface is used
to load statistical data after a test
administration. This interface has
eliminated months from the period
between an administration and the
analysis of data from that administration. One of the most novel
ITEMS interfaces is the “Item Bank
Monitoring” interface, which provides test developers and psychometricians with a rich set of tools
for data analysis. This interface
facilitates both small and large
4
research projects on the performance
of various kinds of test questions,
sections, and tests. Many of these
projects could not have been tackled
under the old system without the
cumbersome intervention of a data
associate, and many others could
not have been attempted even with
such intervention. The data was just
not accessible. This one interface has
enabled LSAC test developers to
acquire an expertise of which few
other (if any) testing organizations
can boast.
What’s next on the horizon for
ITEMS? In January 2004, the Access
database will be migrated to a SQL
Server database. An interface to
manage electronically all Test
Development’s communications
with candidates will be rolled out
early in 2004. The ITEMS team has
developed a sophisticated tool for
“pool analysis” that will be fully
operational in 2004. This tool allows
LSAC to estimate quite accurately
how robust the item bank is and
how many tests it can support,
given a specific test design. Thus,
proposed changes in the design of
the LSAT can be evaluated in terms
of how they would affect test forms.
The innovative and powerful
automated tools of ITEMS promise
to keep the LSAT at the forefront
of the standardized testing state
of the art for years to come. If you
have any questions about test
development at LSAC, contact
Richard Adams, Director of Test
Development, at [email protected]
or Lily Knezevich, Senior Test
Specialist, at [email protected]
for ITEMS-related inquiries.
Applicant Trends
continued
(continued from page 1)
number of applicants had already reached 26 percent,
28 percent, and 31 percent of the final counts for those
years. A similar pattern exists later in the application
cycle as well. Most likely, the reasons for this are similar
to those discussed above. This trend makes year-to-year
comparisons in application counts problematic,
particularly early in the application cycle.
Non-Asian minority applicants, especially black applicants, apply later in the admission-year cycle than white
applicants and Asian applicants (long-term trend).
This has been a persistent trend for a number of years.
In order to illustrate this trend, data from the 2003
application cycle are discussed and graphed at right.
For purposes of this article, the applicant pool is divided into three groups based on when the applicant first
applied to a school. The groups are: the first 40 percent
of all applicants, who first applied by late December;
the second 40 percent, who first applied between late
December and late February; and the final 20 percent,
who first applied after late February. These groups are
referred to as the “first group,” “middle group,” and
“last group,” respectively. (See Chart B)
The first group of applicants applied to at least one
school by December 27, 2002. The composition of this
group of applicants was 83.6 percent white and Asian
and 16.4 percent all other ethnic groups. Black applicants comprised 8.5 percent of the total. The middle
group of applicants applied to at least one school
between December 28, 2002 and February 21, 2003. The
composition of this group of applicants was 78.5 percent
white and Asian and 21.5 percent all others. Black applicants represented 10.3 percent of the total. The last
group of applicants applied between February 22, 2003
and August 8, 2003. This group was 70.9 percent white
and Asian and 29.1 percent other. Black applicants
made up 15.3 percent of the total. These results are
shown on the next two charts (Charts C and D).
Older Applicants Apply Later in the Admission-year Cycle
(Long-term Trend)
We used the same breakdown described above to
look at variations in applicant habits according to age.
Of the first (early) group, 67.2 percent of applicants
were age 25 and under and 32.8 percent were age 26
and over. Of the middle group, 62.4 percent were age 25
and under and 37.6 percent were age 26 and over. Of
the last group, 47.8 percent were age 25 and under and
52.2 percent were age 26 and over. A more detailed
breakdown by age group is shown in Chart E on page 8.
(see Applicant Trends, page 8)
Composition of Applicant Pool
by Summarized Ethnic Group & Date of Application—Fall 2003 Applicants
Chart C
Composition of Applicant Pool
by Ethnic Group & Date of Application—Fall 2003 Applicants
Chart D
Stepping Up
continued
(continued from page 2)
remains on this topic, the success of this conference in
moving beyond rhetoric and into meaningful conversation
was a tribute not only to a wonderful organizing committee
of volunteers, but once again to the hard work of LSAC staff.
I hope you’ll join me in congratulating everyone involved
in organizing these conferences. LSAC’s leadership role in
both serves as an excellent example of how, despite the
day-to-day demands of an ever increasing workload, our
organization can and should step up when issues of importance to legal education need to be addressed.
5
The Impact of the Michigan Cases on . . .
LSAC sponsored a national conference
for law school admission policymakers
on September 13, 2003 examining the
impact of Grutter v. Bolinger and
Gratz v. Bollinger on the admission
process. Dean Alex Johnson of
Minnesota, Professor Pam Karlen of
Stanford, and Dean Kent Syverud of
Vanderbilt moderated the major panels,
and Professor Walter Dellinger delivered the keynote address. What follows
is a summary of the program presented
by Dean Syverud and the closing
remarks of Dean Philip Shelton.
Summary by Kent Syverud
Learning Theory teaches us that
we should spend five minutes
repeating what we have heard
today. So I’m going to spend five
minutes summarizing the main
points of today’s panelists and then
have our President, Phil Shelton,
give a benediction on the conference.
First Session
Pam Karlan said that a compelling
interest in diversity in higher education is now on a solid footing, with
rationales for diversity both internal
and external to law schools: the
internal rationale relates to the educational quality that flows from
diversity, and the external to the
need for diverse leadership in the
United States. She also noted that
the narrow-tailoring prong of equal
protection analysis has changed
quite a bit. One unexpected implication of the change in this analysis
is that academic excellence itself
may be a compelling interest in
some contexts. The emphasis
from Professor Karlan is that you
should exercise holistic rather than
mechanical admission policies
and practices.
Susan Palmer, in her “Let’s
Pretend” session, proceeded to
give us a very realistic picture of
what it is like actually to run an
admission program. She reviewed
a wide range of processes and
programs—financial aid, academic
support, preorientation programs,
and differential outreach efforts,
among many others—identifying
many of the issues not explicitly
addressed by Grutter but relevant to
our compliance with that decision.
Jonathan Alger, responding to the
issues raised by Dean Palmer,
emphasized that Grutter left a lot of
legal issues unresolved and noted
that more litigation surrounding
those issues is likely. To assist law
schools in future suits, he emphasized the importance of having a
written policy based on a very clear
rationale, so that law schools can
show that they have an educational
judgment that is entitled to judicial
deference. In the absence of a written
policy, it is a lot harder for judges to
defer to your academic judgment in
admissions. He emphasized that
this written policy should be a living document that is reviewed
annually and that is consistent with
what you say elsewhere on your
website and in your literature. He
also stressed that, if challenged, you
will have to prove that you follow
your written policy and that your
soft variables other than race actually
get serious attention. Finally, he
noted that sharp cut-offs are a bad
idea, and that different sharp cutoffs by race are a very bad idea.
Luncheon Address
Walter Dellinger emphasized
three fascinating points to me. He
said that, for 10 years after Brown,
virtually nothing happened, and
invited us to think about whether
anything is likely to happen differently for 10 years after Grutter. He
said that one of the most important
6
things that came out of the Grutter
opinion was an acknowledgement
that context matters when reviewing
race-based classifications; especially,
to Professor Dellinger, the particular
context of the history of race in the
United States. Finally, he emphasized
one important distinction between
Gratz and Grutter not directly
expressed in the texts of the opinions.
The undergraduate admission
program at issue in Gratz, unlike the
law school program in Grutter,
required the state to identify the
race of the applicant in order to
administer the system. The program
at issue in Grutter was more flexible,
acknowledging that people are complicated, not identical, when you
talk about race. That may be the
kind of significant difference
between the two opinions that
eludes, for example, conservative
commentators on the opinions.
Second Session
Ted Shaw said “Don’t muck this
up!” By that, he meant to warn us
that, even though we won Grutter,
we must still pay attention to what it
actually says, including the details of
the two opinions. So we all ought to,
at the very least, engage in a process
similar to the one described in the
document included in the materials.
We all should review what we are
doing and actually read the opinion
to make sure that we aren’t setting
up great cases for future litigation
on affirmative action. Mr. Shaw also
said that the storm isn’t over, and
it’s important for schools not to cut
and run because of one complaint
from OCR.
Evan Caminker emphasized that
it is important to have a story to tell
about why race-neutral alternatives
are not good enough. That story
may differ from one institution to
(see Summary, page 9)
. . . Law School Admission
Benediction by Philip Shelton
First, on behalf of LSAC, I want to
thank all of you for coming, and I
especially want to thank all our participants and presenters for giving
us a tremendous program today.
We thank all of you. I could go
through every one of the excellent
presentations and comment, but, as
someone who used to be a dean, I
do think Evan Caminker deserves
special mention. He is a brand new
dean. Those of us who appreciate
what new deans do will understand
what it meant for him to be here
rather than, at the special invitation
of his President, to be in the box at
the Michigan-Notre Dame game
with the big donors he needed to
meet. So Evan, we appreciate your
sacrifice and your commitment.
As Kent summarized what has
occurred today, I made a couple of
notes of unrelated things that came
to my mind during this conference.
As I get older, history becomes
more and more important to me.
There are some historical perspectives that I think are useful. It was
the GI bill and the enormous, sudden
increase in applications following
World War II that prompted a
group of legal educators from
selective schools to get together in
1947 and say, “We’ve got a problem.
We’ve got these people coming
from all over the place; from
colleges we’ve never heard of; we
don’t know any of their teachers,
and we have no way of evaluating
whether these grades mean anything. There must be a better and
fairer way to make these admission
decisions. We can’t continue what
we’ve been doing in the past, which
is to admit people from a small circle of schools, people who’ve gone
to the same prep schools, and people
who had relatives who went to
our school.”
So they came up with the LSAT.
There is little doubt that this decision changed the face of the legal
profession in America during the
last half of the 20th century. Our
organization was conceived in the
notion of equal opportunity, open
doors, and access. It has remained a
fundamental component of our
mission to ensure equal and fair
opportunity for legal education in
this country, and to find ways to
open doors to persons who come
from underrepresented backgrounds. This remains our mission
and continuing challenge.
As someone who lived through
most of the last 25 years of affirmative action under Bakke, I believe
there were two factors critical to
achieving the level of success that
we achieved: (1) the ability to take
race into account, and (2) the existence of the LSAT. None of us in
legal education were satisfied with
the progress we had made until two
events occurred. Hopwood was
decided, and the University of
California Board of Regents prohibited the use of race as a factor in
admissions. All of a sudden we
decided that we had done a pretty
good job since the 1970s. The question we began to ask ourselves was,
“How do we protect the advances
that we have made?” rather than,
“How can we do better?”
It is absolutely clear that legal
education and the LSAC have been
in a defensive posture since those
events occurred. We have been trying to figure out what we should
do if consideration of race was eliminated, because the keys to our
success until then were the ability
to take race into account and the
existence of the LSAT. The latter
point is often misunderstood and
overlooked. To the extent that
schools were engaged in what they
thought was risk-taking with some
7
applicants, knowing the level of that
risk, as indicated by the LSAT, was
critically important to making
admission decisions.
When I went to law school and sat
in the orientation session, my dean
said to me and my 125 classmates,
“look to your right and look to your
left”—he actually said this—”one of
the three of you will not be here at
graduation.” I graduated with a
class of 67 out of that 125, so he was
somewhat conservative in his prediction. Yet I recognized that this
process, the first year of law school,
was the fairest way to determine
who should become a lawyer. In the
years since then, with the increased
demand for legal education, we
have moved far away from that
kind of selection process. We would
not find that process acceptable
today. In fact, we would be investigating a school where only 67 of 125
entering students graduated, as
though it had committed a fraud on
its applicants. We have a different
culture today that poses some real
challenges for the future.
The challenge that legal education
and LSAC face together is finding a
better way to define what we mean
by “merit” in admissions. We have
allowed both courts and external
forces, including rankings, to define
“merit” for us, and we have accepted
their definition. We have responded
to these external forces as though
they are something that we cannot
do anything about. Our challenge
for the next several years is to do
something about this problem,
recognizing that what we mean by
“merit” will not be the same thing at
every school. It is also important, as
it has been since Bakke, that race be
a factor, but not the factor, in the
admission process. I can tell you
that it is equally important to the
LSAC and to all of legal education
(see Benediction, page 9)
Applicant Trends
Composition of Applicant Pool
by Age Group & Date of Application—Fall 2003 Applicants
Chart E
continued
(continued from page 5)
Credentials Generally Decline Later in the Admission-year Cycle
(Long-term Trend)
An examination of applicant credentials (GPAs and
LSAT scores) reveals that, on average, candidates who
apply early in the cycle have better credentials than
those who apply later in the cycle. This trend is true
across every ethnic and gender group. There are, of
course, some candidates with excellent credentials who
apply late in the cycle. Charts F and G show the changes
in average GPA and LSAT across a portion of the
admission-year cycle for various ethnic groups. Data for
these charts were derived from the Monthly Applicant
Summary reports; therefore, these charts are based on
different time periods than the preceding charts.
Caveats
Average GPA of Applicant Pool
by Ethnic Group & Date of Application—Fall 2003 Applicants
Chart F
Because this article deals with national trends, it is
not possible to draw conclusions about how these
trends impact individual schools. Schools may want
to examine whether similar application patterns exist in
their environment.
The chronological data used for this article was derived
from the time schools identify applicants to LSAC via
ACES. This differs somewhat from when each school
actually receives its applications. However, this should
not have any significant impact on the trends discussed,
as long as most schools identify their applicants to
LSAC in a relatively consistent and timely manner.
Due to the batch processing of many applications by
the Ontario Law School Application Service (OLSAS,)
it was not possible to do a similar analysis regarding
applicants to LSAC’s Canadian-member schools.
Average LSAT of Applicant Pool
by Ethnic Group & Date of Application—Fall 2003 Applicants
Chart G
LSAC Directory Distributed
The 2003-2004 Law School Admission Directory, a Law
School Admission Council publication produced for
LSAC-member schools and prelaw advisors, was mailed
to law school deans, admission officers, career placement
contacts, financial aid officers, minority contacts, LSAC
committee members, and prelaw advisors in November
2003. If your school has any subsequent updates of staff,
addresses, phone numbers, or other information, please
forward them to Dottie Simons via fax on your school’s
letterhead (215.968.1169) or e-mail ([email protected]).
LSAC attempts to keep these listings as current as possible to ensure the accuracy of our various mailing lists.
8
Michigan Cases Summary
continued
(Summary by Kent Syverud continued from page 6)
Third Session
Douglas Laycock said that there
aren’t many “legs” for the Grutter
opinion outside of higher education;
that is, the opinion does not have
much relevance to legal issues in
other contexts. There are certainly
arguments that it has legs when it
comes to faculty hiring issues, but
probably not in other areas of
employment. But Professor Laycock
does not expect a lot of litigation or
a lot of need to play defense in the
area of affirmative action in faculty
hiring, for practical reasons related
to the ways in which such lawsuits
come about. In making what I suspect is a new point for most of us
here, he also emphasized that raceneutral alternatives have huge costs
for institutions that care about the
academic quality of the institution,
because they substitute nonacademic
factors for academic factors and
therefore have a consequence for
academic quality. He said that raceneutral alternatives can actually
increase the gap between minority
and nonminority students.
Phoebe Haddon emphasized that
Grutter gives us an opportunity to
talk about race in a new way, allowing us to debate when it is good and
not good to use race, rather than
focusing on whether we can use it at
all. She emphasized and ended with
a chilling point: that one postGrutter possibility is that whites will
benefit from the decision more than
blacks. She stated that she is not
race-neutral in terms of where
greater benefit is needed in the
future. I think that’s a fair statement.
If we become entirely defensive after
Grutter, we really face the risk, as
several of today’s commentators
have noted, that 25 years from now,
things will not be much different.
Michigan Cases Benediction
continued
(Benediction by Philip Shelton continued from page 7)
that the LSAT not be the factor in
admissions, but one factor among
many. Defining what we mean by
“merit” for each of our institutions
is a political challenge for all of us.
Grutter gives us an opportunity to
do that.
Michigan heard what the test
maker said. A 165 mean score in
your class is not that much different
than a score of 156 for your minority
candidates. But it is important to
remember that all of legal education
is not in the same position as
Michigan or the other extremely
selective schools. Some schools are
dealing with the issue of whether to
admit an applicant with a score of
137 into a class with a median score
of 146 in order to achieve their
diversity goals. It is important to
remember that the spaces for
additional minority law students
are going to occur at those schools
that will take real risks in order to
achieve their goals. They need to
understand those risks as best
they can, and the LSAT helps them
do that.
As we explore how we can
expand the minority applicant
pool, add more admission factors
that we seriously take into account,
and determine which of those
factors are truly important, it will
be the challenge of the LSAC to
lead, assist, and support you in
that effort.
Conference Videos Available
specialnotes
the next—something that I hadn’t
appreciated previously. He emphasized, as did other speakers, that
school-sponsored minority-only
programs are problematic, and the
need to pay particular attention to
the need and justifications for such
programs. He concluded by emphasizing that the political opposition
to affirmative action is still out
there—something that is very true
in Tennessee; I don’t know about
your states—and that the political
debate is really about to start afresh.
We need new themes to defend
affirmative action, and that is
another way to respond to today’s
recurring question about how we
can go on the offense in further
support of affirmative action.
Videotapes of the Michigan cases conference are available in VHS format
at no charge from LSAC. Please contact Joan Van Tol at [email protected]
to obtain the tapes.
Save This Date
The Prelaw Advisors National Council (PLANC) has scheduled its annual
conference on June 9–12, 2004 in Boston, Massachusetts. Lani Guinier is the
keynote speaker. Prelaw advisors from throughout the U.S. will attend.
For additional information about this conference, please go to the PLANC
website: www.planc.org.
9
New—Early LSAT Registration
Future test takers are now able to register on LSAC’s website for the February, June, October, and December 2004 and
February 2005 LSAT administrations. This new advance-registration service should help candidates in planning ahead
for the law school admission process.
Traditionally, registrations for each new testing year began in March of each year, when the new registration books
were distributed, and it was not possible to register for any test beyond the testing year covered by the book. Now that
around 90 percent of test registrations are done online, it is no longer necessary to wait for the new registration book in
order to process the majority of test registrations for the upcoming year.
Shortly after the LSAC Board of Trustees sets the test fees each December, we will offer online the new test dates,
deadlines, and fees for the next testing year. Please keep in mind, and let your advisees know, that the fees and policies
in effect for the current testing year will remain in effect for the upcoming February administration. Any new fees or
policies will apply starting with the June test each year. The registration book language in effect for both testing years
will be posted on the website: www.LSAC.org.
Test Dates
Regular Registration Ends
Late Registration Ends
Foreign Published Test
Centers Deadline
Monday, June 14, 2004
May 12, 2004
May 24, 2004
May 7, 2004
Saturday, October 2, 2004
September 1, 2004
September 13, 2004
August 27, 2004
Saturday, December 4, 2004
November 3, 2004
November 15, 2004
October 29, 2004
Saturday, February 12, 2005
January 12, 2005
January 24, 2005
January 7, 2005
Monday, October 4, 2004
September 1, 2004
September 13, 2004
August 27, 2004
Monday, December 6, 2004
November 3, 2004
November 15, 2004
October 29, 2004
Monday, February 14, 2005
January 12, 2005
January 24, 2005
January 7, 2005
Introducing LSACnet
Many of you recently received an
announcement about LSACnet,
LSAC’s expanded website for
member law school admission
offices. Until recently, this site was
envisioned as a password-protected,
private site for designated staff
members of LSAC-member law
schools. At the same time we were
planning the content of the site, we
were pondering how we could
make available to a broader audience law school admission–related
research, data, publications, and
news. Rather than create another
new website, we decided to open
up part of LSACnet to the public.
Starting in mid-February, anyone
interested in LSAT and other
admission-related research, admission and applicant data, back issues
of this newsletter and other important news, and a schedule of
upcoming events will have easy
access through www.LSACnet.org.
Those of you who have already
received passwords for LSACnet
will still need them to complete
interactive tasks such as registering
for forums and meetings, selecting
electronic application preferences,
accessing governance information,
finding people in our directories,
and chatting privately with your
colleagues. You will no longer need
your password to view much of the
information that we will be posting
to the site. It is our hope that by
making documents such as the
LSAC research reports more readily accessible through search
engines and this public site, we will
10
encourage more scholars to engage
in research that will be beneficial to
legal education. We are also eager
to provide expanded and up-todate information to prelaw advisors, who have not had access to
many of our online documents in
the past.
Please watch this newsletter for
further information about
LSACnet, or go to the website in
late February to see it for yourself.
LSACnet
Dreamkeeping Conference Spurs Lively Discussion
An important and timely LSAC
conference titled “Dreamkeeping:
Empowering Minority Faculty—A
Dialogue,” which took place
October 30–November 1, 2003, in
Seattle, Washington, provided the
opportunity for an animated
exchange of sometimes deeply
divergent points of view on issues
affecting law schools in the wake of
the U.S. Supreme Court decision
permitting some forms of affirmative action. Discussions included
proper use of the LSAT, admission
policy, and the role of minority
faculty at U.S. law schools.
The conference was initiated
by Dean Alex Johnson, LSAC’s
immediate past chair, and endorsed
by LSAC’s Minority Affairs
Committee. The conference served
as an opportunity for about 100
minority law school faculty members from across the nation to gather
and discuss their concerns with
each other and with LSAC staff and
volunteer policy makers.
The three-day conference permitted an intense examination of the
LSAT. During several panel discussions, test development experts and
faculty familiar with the design and
proper use of the test focused on
issues relating to proper test use,
fairness, and problems with the test.
Panelists and audience members
engaged in a candid discussion
of the role of the test and its implications for minority applicants,
with special emphasis on the score
gap between white and minority
test-takers.
Other sessions looked at issues of
minority admission and retention,
the roles that faculty of color can
play in the admission process,
potential issues for research, and
ways to effectively increase law
school diversity. A stirring keynote
address by Professor Okianer
Christian Dark of Howard
University School of Law focused
on the special role of the dreamkeeper in our lives and in history.
The members of the planning
committee, whose hard work made
this conference a success, were:
Linda R. Crane, co-chair, John
Marshall; Charles E. Daye, co-chair,
North Carolina; Phoebe A. Haddon,
Temple; Margaret M. Russell, Santa
Clara; and Reynaldo Anaya
Valencia, St. Mary’s.
New Commitment Language in Admission
Practices Statement
As the admission cycle for the fall of 2004 begins, the Services and
Programs Committee has asked us to remind law schools of a change the
committee made to the Statement of Good Admission and Financial Aid Practices
at its March 2003 meeting. The change relates to the common deadline of
April 1 for admission and scholarship offers.
The following language is now part of the Statement: “Except under early
decision plans, no law school should require an enrollment commitment of
any kind, binding or nonbinding, to an offer of admission or scholarship
prior to April 1.”
This language was added to clarify the meaning of the common deadline.
The revised Statement is now available on LSACnet and at www.LSAC.org.
An Early Snowstorm Covered LSAC’s Future Home in Newtown, PA
Photo by Jeanne Imbrigiotta of LSAC’s Communications Group
11
LSAC
REPORT
P.O. Box 40 Newtown, PA 18940
calendar
26
Reception for Current and Former Members
of the Board of Trustees
Atlanta, GA
Test Development and Research
Committee Meeting
Dallas, TX
27
Finance and Legal Affairs Committee Meeting
Dallas, TX
Past Presidents
New Orleans, LA
April 2004
January 2004
5
16-17
February 2004
6
30-May 1
Board of Trustees
TBA
Deans Breakfast
San Antonio, TX
June 2004
7
LSAT Administration
2-5
Annual Meeting and Educational Conference
Fort Lauderdale, FL
9
LSAT Administration
14
LSAT Administration
March 2004
July 2004
5
7-8
Investment Policy Oversight Group
TBA
31
LSAC/PLANC
Philadelphia, PA
August 2004
Law School Recruitment Forum
Washington, DC
11-12
Services and Programs Committee
Nashville, TN
12-14
12-13
Minority Affairs Committee
Nashville, TN
September 2004
25
Grants Subcommittee
Dallas, TX
25
Skills Readiness Inventory Subcommittee
Dallas, TX
Board of Trustees Orientation Retreat
TBA
11-15
Newcomers Workshop
Philadelphia, PA
11-12
Law School Recruitment Forum
New York, NY
17-18
Law School Recruitment Forum
Chicago, IL