LSAC and ABA Announce Development of Adversity Metric for Law School Admissions

LSAC and ABA officials, in collaboration with The College Board, recently announced an ongoing effort to develop an adversity metric for law schools. The metric will be available for use in admissions, and will “contextualize” applicants’ experiences. A similar metric, created by The College Board for college-level admissions, provides insight into the quality of an applicant’s neighborhood and high school. 

During the announcement, Council Research Director, Elizabeth Bodamer described the project’s purpose. “There are thousands of law school applicants each year who have journeyed through barriers, and in spite of it all, have made it through,” Bodamer said. “The big question is: How do we capture this context?” 

While the metric will capture environmental factors impacting an applicant, such as the quality of schools attended, Bodamer explains that it is not able, or intended, to capture the totality of an individual’s experiences. However, in the wake of the 2023 Supreme Court decision disallowing the use of race in admissions, many law schools updated their essay prompts to provide applicants the opportunity to share these formative, individual experiences. 

LSAC officials are already using the metric alongside 2023 admissions decisions to analyze its potential impact. One early insight compares admissions into law school from “high-challenge colleges” versus “low-challenge colleges.” Among low-challenge schools, which are those with higher graduation rates and higher per-student spending, almost all applicants gain admission to law school. Meanwhile, significantly fewer applicants, less than two-thirds, from high-challenge schools receive acceptances. 

Survey Shows Law School Admissions Officers Concerned About Impact of Recent Supreme Court Decision

A recent Kaplan survey found that a vast majority of law school admissions officers worry about the impact of last year’s Supreme Court affirmative action ban. In the survey, which included 85 law schools, admissions officers from 74 schools expressed concern. Forty-six of those schools’ administrators reported that they were “very concerned.” 

When asked about the impact of the ban on their own school, admissions officers were slightly more optimistic. Fifty of the schools expressed concern, with just 18 saying they were “very concerned.” 

The survey found that diversity is valued “almost universally” at law schools by both students and administrators. 

Amit Schlesinger, Executive Director of Legal and Government Programs at Kaplan, summarized the findings, while also alluding to the news that the applicant pool has increased in diversity this year. 

"In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, Kaplan’s survey reveals that law schools are grappling with concerns about maintaining diverse student bodies, which is something many of them have long prioritized. However, the silver lining lies in the promising trend of an increasingly diverse applicant pool, which presents an opportunity to mitigate any challenges they may face in achieving a representative student body. It’s also important to note that while law schools can no longer explicitly use race as a factor, we know that some law schools have broadened their personal statement criteria, which may give admissions officers a deeper understanding of prospective students’ backgrounds, while also remaining within the bounds of the Court’s ruling,” Schlesinger said.