American Bar Association Scrapping LSAT Requirement in Admissions Process

People walk outside Harvard Law School's Langdell Hall at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on May 10, 2010. Darren McCollest er/Getty Images

The American Bar Association (ABA), the organization that accredits law schools, will cease requiring applicants to submit Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores in 2025.

The move will affect some of the most prestigious law schools in the United States, including Yale, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, New York University School of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and Cornell Law School.

Gaining acceptance to any of these institutions has long required candidates to submit an application that includes their scores on the LSAT, while also accepting for consideration performance on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) and Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) exams.

But admissions policies are changing—fast.

All of those law schools—as have many others—recently discontinued their requirement that applicants submit their scores on the LSAT. They’re making it optional while requiring applicants to submit scores from either the GRE or GMAT.

The movement to scrap the LSAT is growing.

On Nov. 25, an arm of the ABA decided that in 2025, it will no longer require law schools to consider scores on the LSAT—or any standardized test—when making admissions decisions.

In the case of the LSAT, what’s being dismantled is a fundamental and keystone legacy of applying for and gaining acceptance to law school in the United States since 1947.

Change Seeks to Increase Diversity

A primary reason that law schools are ceasing to require the LSAT and other standardized tests is a belief that they inhibit the ability of the institutions to create more diverse and inclusive student populations. Proponents of doing away with the LSAT say the test feeds and bolsters promoting the white and moneyed over people of color.

Administrators of law schools removing the LSAT mandate argue that wide-ranging inequalities between white, black, and Latino students’ previous education and socio-economic background discriminate against minorities.

They say minorities are less likely than whites to be able to afford LSAT test prep classes, materials, and test fees—which can amount to $1,000—and that the content and questions on the test reflect and are representative of a cultural bias that favors whites.

There’s little doubt about the opportunities that await those who attend an upper-echelon law school. The average first-year law firm salaries of graduates from top-tier law schools range in the neighborhood of $150,000 to $200,000.

Meanwhile, a stalwart segment of opposition contends that the change will actually have a negative effect on efforts to expand and diversify and yield a more inclusive law school student body.

Opposition to allowing applicants to bypass the test has also taken the form of claims that making it optional represents yet another example of “wokeness” run amok, and that the quality of the legal profession will suffer as a result.

The Law School Admission Council, the organization that administers the LSAT, released a response to the ABA decision in which it didn’t offer support but commended the ABA for holding off on its implementation.