Having introduced the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT, the ABA now proposes to stop requiring any sort of test for admission to law school. Its so-called Strategic Review Committee recommends that Standard 503, which currently requires the use of "a valid and reliable admission test" (with some exceptions), be changed to read as follows: "A law school may use admission tests as part of sound admission practices and policies. The law school shall identify in its admission policies any tests it accepts."
Cui bono? Above all, the lousiest of the scam-schools. Once the one objective, uniformly assessed element of applications is eliminated, every über-toilet will be able to cover up the fact that it draws its marks primarily if not exclusively from the bottom of the barrel.
Even the LSAC, which produces the LSAT, has been in on the act, with a new alternative scheme for admission that will not require any standardized test. As far as Old Guy can tell, the scheme involves taking a couple of candy-ass courses that somehow magically prove suitability for law school.
Just stay the hell away from the law-school scam. Old Guy doesn't know what else to say.
In several other programs, like pharmacy, this is happening defacto to put asses in seats--but an actual, official org doing this--shocking?
ReplyDeleteThe more this happens, the more pressure gets on these orgs.
Do not the LSAT people have an interest in this? I recall a scam blog going over a terse letter from the LSAT org, dissing the deans calling for the LSAT to be kaput.
Just a few years ago, the Department of Education considered suspending or revoking the ABA's status as the accrediting body for law schools. We may hope that the DOE will try that again, but Old Guy will not wait with bated breath.
DeleteI concede that the LSAT is not a great prediction tool. But since the Bar Exam is a standardized test, the ability to perform with minimal competence on the LSAT, (A Score of 150 and up) is very relevant information for predicting who will later pass the bar on their first try which is crucial for establishing one's self in the profession.
ReplyDeleteI have seen other selective institutions do away with such entrance exams. Some like Bates College in the 1980s waived the SAT but required an in-person interview, in addition to reviewing high school grades.
Law Schools do not interview applicants and I agree with Old Guy that the end of mandatory LSATs is just another way to bring academically challenged individuals into law school creating a very nasty financial surprise for them three years later.
One can make various arguments against having a bar exam. I won't repeat them here. But as long as there is such a gate keeping standardized test, institutions using federally subsidized loans need to select people who can pass the test. To do otherwise is just cruel.
Sadly, the LSAT is easy to prepare for, compared to the real bar exam.
Once again it looks like the highest calling of the ABA is feeding the law schools.
Standardized tests certainly have their problems, and a major one for both the LSAT and the SAT is the ability for people with enough time and money on their hands to improve their scores dramatically through courses. (Old Guy has helped people to bring their LSAT scores up by almost 30 points in a few months. That's a lot on a test that is only 61 points wide. It's the difference between Cooley and Yale.) Still, the LSAT does a reasonably good job of separating the sheep from the goats. And for that reason alone it should be maintained.
DeleteLaw schools certainly don't want the time-consuming task of interviewing applicants one by one; the good ones (13 at most, and probably a hell of a lot fewer) want to hide their practices from the public, and the toilety vast majority want to do as little as possible besides stamping "ADMITTED".
Unsurprisingly, the US does a bad job of legal education. Try to become a lawyer in Germany. There are multiple exams along the way, and they are DESIGNED to screen people out. Much of the class is gone after a year or two. The final exams, taken after a lot more than three years, include challenging oral examinations—no bullshit multiple choice. Something similar is true of France and lots of other countries. But not the US, where every nincompoop has to be allowed to become a lawyer.
In a perfect world, law school applicants might take both the LSAT and GRE. The LSAT would test whether they have the ability to reason and the GRE would test whether they learned anything in college.
DeleteApplications have cratered this cycle at the trash-can law schools. Law school is now Open Enrollment - just like the "general studies" program at your local community college, with a 5% graduation rate.
ReplyDeleteIt's all a scam now.
I'm afraid this may be an unintended consequence of the anti-law school scam blogs. You've frightened away those who are smart enough to heed your warnings but not smart enough to get into a good law school. That leaves the dumb-as-dirt dregs with no sense. The law schools need an excuse for admitting applicants who can barely enter their names on the LSAT and they found it: Just don't require the LSAT at all! Hopefully this is a transient thing which has the potential to further enrage the public when the unemployable "LSAT-free" kids start defaulting on student loans in droves.
ReplyDeleteWe've long known that the law-school scam would admit dead iguanas if they had access to federally guaranteed student loans. Now that some of their potential marks have been frightened away, they throw out every pretense of standards. Maybe dead iguanas will be the next to sign up.
DeleteOld Guy, Just curious about your opinion on something,
DeleteBoston University's undergraduate colleges just raised its tuition by 4.5% to about $60k plus $20k for R&B. Of course, with the lagging inflation, next year's increase will be 20%, but ceteris paribus, if 4 years of BU were $320,000 would that be worth an BA or BS degree from that institution?
Jesus! A third of a million for a pseudo-prestigious bachelor's degree? Forget it!
DeleteI shouldn't have to explain that, but obviously I do, so here goes:
Over twenty years at 9% per annum, a $320k student loan costs about $2900 per month. That's almost $35k per year, after taxes, just to make the payments on a goddamn bachelor's degree. For twenty years. Never mind the lost income from four years at pseudo-prestigious Boston mother-fucking University. Can you expect that bachelor's degree to yield so much extra in income as to make that venture worth while?
And if you can't perform this sort of calculation even with a computer (search for "amortization"), or even conceive of this sort of calculation, you have no business at a university.
To make a correction, I was told few students, maybe 50 percent get substantial discounts at these places. But yeah, not worth it.
DeleteI talked to a fellow Bates Grad, and he pointed out that in the 1980s, one could apply without doing an interview. However applicants were told that an interview was expected and practically speaking very few people got admitted if they didn't schedule an interview. So it was a de facto rather then a de jure requirement.
ReplyDeleteLSAC wasn't even the first. Arizona State offers a "masters in legal studies" program which is really just the 1L year. If you place at or above the median after first semester, you get auto-admitted to the law school. If not, you can finish out the rest of 1L year and get the MLS degree as a consolation prize.
ReplyDeleteThey took the position with the ABA that first-year performance IS a "valid and reliable" admission test and apparently they bought it.
https://law.asu.edu/admission/apply/mls/mlsh
https://news.asu.edu/20200422-pandemic-creates-admissions-barriers-asu-law-opens-its-doors-even-wider ("tryout serving as the ABA-required test.")
Master's degrees have become a mixed bag. There are some that are quite serious, with meaningful requirements. Master's programs in classics, for instance, typically require the reading of a long list of works in Latin and Greek, as demonstrated by careful sight translations of lengthy passages without the help of a dictionary. By contrast, new candy-ass "master's" programs such as this ridiculous "Master's in Legal Studies" reduce requirements to the vanishing point.
DeleteI was hoping that someone would mention Indiana Tech in this thread. Those clowns were hilarious!
ReplyDeleteComing soon: The Costco School of Law
ReplyDeleteReading past comments I would add that Campos does still have his poised : "inside the law school scam" blog and you are still very much connected with him in the margin. I moved away from law a long time ago since I could not pass the bar exam and my law school grades were so bad. There are a lot of stories all up and down Broadway in the naked city so whatever happens to me and everyone else perpetually struggling with the lifetime debt and all, I will always take it badly of Paul Campos for hypocritically meddling in the pain and suffering, then emerging like a rose and in fine style.
ReplyDeleteRemember, there is no such thing as "progressive" politics in the US. Progressives are bourgeois bohemians who adopt stances that are "anti-establishment" out of fashion, despite being part of the establishment themselves. Campos dabbled in the law school scam for his own reasons, not to actually fix anything.
DeleteIndeed, 9:28, "progressive" politics in the US is just the false "left" face of the same old right-wing shit.
DeleteOld Guy is the only person left warning young people on how destructive law school (and higher education in general) is to your finances and mental health. The fact that this scam is allowed to keep going is shameful. To fix this mess, the entire loan program needs to be shut down entirely.
ReplyDeleteThere is an article concerning the rot of the legal education system on the Conservative Blog American Thinker. The title of the article is Law School is a Tort. I am not going to include a link since American Thinker is a conservative blog, some would say right wing or far right. Also, The American Thinker website includes embedded videos which can be construed as offensive. Whether they are there for revenue generation or because of poor website security, I do not know. But the article may also be found on other blogs, but also probably construed as 'far right'. I think Wikipedia considers National Review to be far right and the GOP in general.
DeleteAnyway, as far as the article. I found it to be fundamentally flawed and actually almost useless. It is poorly written, despite the author apparently being somewhat successful. I have read the article three times and I am still unsure of what the author's point is. He repeats a few times about the 200 ABA accredited law schools and likens them to kind of a RICO organization. He uses metaphors like the 200 ABA law schools are like factories spewing noxious emissions. Yet, he never really explains why this is so.
He does appear to claim that the 200 or so ABA law schools exists to serve big law. He also seems to claim that law students at the 200 make a Faustian bargain with the devil, plus $250,000 and three years in exchange to serve at the behest of big law. Nowhere does the article address the employment crisis for law graduates. That for the vast number of graduates there will not be big law, medium law, little law or government work. The only thing guaranteed is to take a stab at solo practice, maybe.
But I would excuse that omission if the article made its central point clear. Which I think it failed to do.
Legal education is a complete scam. The 3L year is a total money grab and realistically around 100 of the bottom law schools should simply be defunded but there are a ton of people who benefit from the scam so it won't be shut down anytime soon. Graduate school is a bloated joke and a total waste of tax dollars. I have a worthless master's and a worthless law degree. At this point it's just letters after person's name to give a sense of actual prestige.
DeleteIndeed, 5:31, it's a poor article. It starts off by pointing out the cost but then degenerates into a rant about left-wing ideology that supposedly has taken control of the law schools. I too went away wondering just exactly what the author was trying to prove. Those who have not read it need not bother.
DeleteLeft-wing ideology does run rampant in law schools, but calling them indoctrination is actually getting the cause-effect backwards. After the Great Recession, when it became apparent that instead of a house in the suburbs with a wife and a family, law school got you a room at your parents' house and a job stocking shelves, applications collapsed. Law school is a road to personal ruin, so the applicant pool became much more dominated by "activists," who want to "change the world and save the [insert cause here] and fight the power" and all the rest of it. Fanatics, not Yuppies. That's who goes to law school now, and the law schools are all too happy to give them all the lies about Social Justice, while picking their pockets for student loans that they will never repay.
DeleteHey 10:05 --
Delete"...while picking their pockets for student loans that they will never repay"
would be more accurately be stated:
"while picking THE TAXPAYERS' pockets for student loans that the students will never repay."
Basically, they are just kicking the can further down the road to the law licensing/Bar exam authorities to enforce any kind of quality control and standards for competency to practice law. First high schools decided to just pass everyone, leaving it to colleges to signal who can read and write and add and subtract. Then colleges decided to do the same (while skimming of tuition), leaving it to graduate and professional schools and HR departments to figure out who can read and write and add and subtract and perhaps think and problem solve. Now, graduate and professional schools are doing the same, leaving it to professional bodies to figure out who can read and write and add and subtract and perhaps think and problem solve. And what happens next? Well, its already happening: professional bodies will be pressured to loosen their standards and just let everyone practice. God help us all.
ReplyDeletePoint taken: we have so many TTTTs it is almost literally possible for anyone to get into some law school somewhere, and the current trend is for everyone who enrolls to graduate. So it's left to bar examiners to weed out the unqualified. That said, there is reason to suspect their collective resolve, so be prepared for a veritable tsunami of newly admitted attorneys who should never have been admitted to the bar.
DeleteAlready the bar is chock full of horrible people. Old Guy would disbar 80% of lawyers.
DeleteEssentially, if you can finish a BA (in anything, from anywhere, at any GPA that's high enough to actually be given a diploma) then you can go to law school (provided you're eligible for student loans, at least).
DeleteThe crazy thing is that this actually is somewhat selective. According to pew research, about 60% of high school grads go to college and about 60% of them finish within 6 years. 60% of 60% is just shy of 40%. Sure some people go back later and/or take longer, but overall this mirrors the other national statistic which is that about 40% of workers over age 25 have a BA or higher. In other words, most people who don't go straight to college or who take longer than 6 years to finish, never do finish.
Now granted, not everyone who could finish college even wants to. Some could be smart enough but just see the wisdom in going into the trades. So the real number percentage of people who couldn't handle college might be a bit lower. But not much. High schools push college pretty hard for everyone because a high school is heavily evaluated based on percentage of grads who go to college, and community colleges are an option for everyone and they are now heavily focused on preparing you for transfer to 4 year, instead of their old focus on trades. So the bottom line is that 60% don't finish a BA, and certainly something over half would simply not be capable of doing so.
So it's fair to say that even by finishing today's watered-down BA, you've already done something that most people can't manage. So as low as the TTTTs have sunk, they really are still admitting above-average people. It's just really sad how low average actually is.
In some states, admission to law school does not require a bachelor's degree. Michigan is one such state, and of course Cooley eagerly seeks those with no degree as applicants.
DeleteLawyers are widely regarded—undeservedly—as being particularly intelligent and knowledgeable. The public has never perceived law as something that most people can manage. Today, however, that's how the law schools are treating it in their cynical, selfish quest for money. In 2009 or so, the odious scam-dean Frank Wu published an article saying that "law school is for everyone".
Does anyone know how the tactic of transferring to a four-year program after two years at a community college works in practice? Undergraduates typically start taking courses in their major from the first year. A community college offers only a range of basic courses; it doesn't cover a variety of majors. So how do people do this? Can they even be confident that the four-year institution will accept all of the credits from the community college?
By the way, bachelor's degrees too have become ridiculous. All sorts of non-academic majors, such as golf-course management, have been created in order to appeal to those who would otherwise get an associate's degree or none at all. And since no particular major or set of courses is required for admission to law school, many lemmings do go in with a bachelor's degree in "criminology" (whatever that is) or some other such dipshit field.
I don't know about other states but both NJ and PA have programs in which if you have a minimum GPA at community college, you get automatic admission to certain 4 year state schools. No more worrying about credits being accepted.
DeleteA partial explanation, as each state probably has different rules.
ReplyDeleteMost community colleges offer a limited number of academic majors, and all the courses are considered to be either entry-level or just above that. For example, it's possible to declare a major in chemistry, and take the usual courses to support that-Chem 101 & Lab; calculus, etc etc. But all the major specific/prerequisite required classes(eg 300 level and above) have to be taken at a four year college.
And not all four year colleges accept CC credits; in our state the state universities are required to accept the credits from a state CC. The private colleges? Well, it's up to them.
So even for more challenging majors-such as chemistry-starting at your local CC isn't a bad idea(assuming they offer such a major). You'll get your intro courses out of the way for less money, and if you can do the work and get a passing grade(usually a "C" or above is required), it transfers to State U where you'll take the upper-level courses-but again, if you do the work, you'll graduate with a degree from State U.
The key phrase: if you can do the work.
And for many majors-e.g. education, social work, etc-which are job-training majors, it's a good idea to start at CC, as it can save a ton of money, the credits transfer, and you'll get your State U degree.
Our local CC has a bizarre mix of two year degrees in things like "education" which aren't worth much unless you get the four year degree, regular academic majors like history/English(but again the four year degree issue), and trades with certificates for trainees wanting to be plumbers/electricians/HVAC tech as well as nurse aides, etc...and being an undertaker, er funeral director(not making that up).
So it's not the Ivy League, but many CCs can offer the opportunity to learn a skilled trade or get a start on a challenging field like chemistry.
Thanks for the explanation. So if you wanted to major in, say, anthropology or German, a community college wouldn't work: you would land in the third year of university with no preparation at the lower levels of your chosen field.
DeleteI didn't know that community colleges offered academic majors. It seems kind of funny to do that in a two-year program. As you said, they used to be for hairdressers, welders, dental hygienists, and the like.
Nowadays I would recommend thinking twice before signing up for a bachelor's degree unless one has one's heart set on medical school (or some other advanced course of study that requires a bachelor's degree) AND has a practical plan for getting there AND for getting a job afterwards. A trade may make a lot more sense. Actually, a better plan still is to master a language such as French or German to a high level and get a degree in a country where fees are only a few hundred dollars a year. Then leave the Benighted States for good.
Wow OG, you must be old. Just kidding OG, love your site. Anyway, in my experience community colleges have all but abandoned their old trade schools missions and are almost entirely focused on transfer prep. They are basically a cheaper way to get gen eds/prerequisites done, and in many cases actually finishing an associates degree serves little purpose other than to entitle you to the benefits of "articulation agreements" with public 4 year schools in the state.
DeleteIn my state, for example, it is state law that anyone who finishes an associates at an in-state CC is guaranteed admission to any state school they choose, including the flagship which is much more selective if you're trying to get in right out of high school. And once admitted, they are required by law to give you credit for all your credits and to consider any and all general education requirements satisfied. So not only does it save cost, if your state has a well-regarded public school it can be a significant back door in.
Also, even if the public university isn't obligated to admit all in-state CC applicants, it is encouraged to do so. University of Michigan Ann Arbor, for example, has a 40% acceptance rate for community college transfer applicants, versus a roughly 25% acceptance rate for kids applying out of high school, and they explicitly say that a bad high school record can pretty much be erased by a good CC one: https://admissions.umich.edu/apply/transfer-applicants/community-college-students.
So yeah, the new role of community college is as a transfer program, and not just a cheaper one but also as a back door into schools you couldn't normally have gotten into, at least in states with well-regarded public flagship universities.
Most CC's have succumbed to the "water-it-down-for-retention" temptation. And, CC's are ruled over by greedy, corrupt administrators who are there to enrich themselves. It all sounds like a deal, until you try to enroll at a private college, or a university in another state, and you discover that most of your credits don't transfer.
DeletePS: The Dept of Education defines "College-ready" as requiring no more than 2 remedial classes. Education is a joke.
Interesting comments on community colleges. Apparently there's a lot of variation across states, especially since some states (Michigan, for instance) have more attractive state universities than others. Presumably not many élite academies would take anyone from a community college, at least with significant recognition of credits. But maybe it's a practical option for those who can use it to get a degree from the likes of the U of Michigan at a lower price.
DeleteAn important drawback is that a lot of people who go into a community college are never going to be admissible to a decent university. The ejookayshunal scam includes community colleges as much as law schools.
Maybe I am indeed old, but I don't remember remedial classes in university. I don't see how being below the minimum can make one "college-ready".
My highly "selective" private alma mater (acceptance rate under 5%) recently started a transfer program focusing on community college students (veterans preference). Depending on what you studied and where you studied it, the university will determine whether or not you enter as a freshman, sophomore or junior. (I think sophomore is most common). It's part of an initiative to become more "diverse" without using affirmative action programs.
DeleteI don't know what state is being referred to, but where most states have a flagship university, sometimes system, a system of state colleges, now sometimes called state universities, formerly teachers colleges, and then community colleges, it seems bizarre that the community colleges get an automatic entry to the flagship with an Associates degree. So someone enrolled in a state college with three years's credits would not be able to automatically transfer to the flagship?
DeleteCooley is down to 500 students spread out among their campuses: https://www.fox47news.com/neighborhoods/downtown-old-town-reo-town/cooley-law-school-enrollment-down-to-about-500-students
ReplyDeleteYou mean spread out between its campuses: only two are left.
DeleteThe higher education scam will go on an on until Americans: a. give up their fetish with the four-year degree, and b. are cured of their addiction to unrestricted student loans.
ReplyDeleteThe fetish with the four-year degree reflects the ongoing malign influence of the baby boomers, a truly terrible generation that has served itself at others' expense. At a time when attending university was relatively uncommon, they got dirt-cheap tuition—or, if they didn't pursue university, they got lavishly paid jobs. A decade or so later, Generation X was being herded into universities because blue-collar jobs had dried up. As a result, white-collar jobs also dried up, there being too many candidates with new diplomas. Of course, by then the cheap tuition was a distant memory. Yet the idea of a college degree as an essential rite of passage lingers on.
DeleteStudent loans certainly are not the only way to fund tertiary schools. In many countries, attending university is cheap; the state pays for most of the cost. All levels of schooling were free in the Soviet Union; tertiary students even got a stipend that covered living expenses. Of course, countries that so heavily fund universities tend not to let in just every jackanapes, offer remedial courses, or give commercialized male athletic teams pride of place. The US manages to get the worst of everything: sky-high costs, rock-bottom standards, and de facto</
… de facto public funding (think of the defaults on federally guaranteed student loans). Will it end? Obama backed down from single-payer health care because of the difficulty of ousting commercial interests such as insurance companies, and the academic scam seems to be at least as deeply entrenched…
DeleteSame as the fetish with owning houses, cars, etc. Part of the "American dream." The housing fetish blew up a few years ago. Plenty more fun to come, though.
ReplyDelete"The housing fetish blew up a few years ago."
DeleteHuh?
Let's keep things in perspective: if you took the $$$ to be wasted on a college degree and instead bought a house four years ago, you'd have made a great investment. The same can't be said of the essentially worthless BA.
Why have any standard? Or why not just see plummeting entrance scores?
ReplyDeleteAlso, aren't the LSAT people worried their gravy train will collapse? I recall eight years ago, the LSAT people mocked deans when they said the test was too hard.
Woman serving life in prison admitted to law school:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H69X_CX92k