Measuring “Up”: The Promise of Growth in Undergraduate Grade Point Average in Law School Admissions

• In Event: Reconsidering Diversity in Admissions: Strength-Based Approaches in a Post-Affirmative Action World

Abstract

In the wake of the Students for Fair Admissions cases, institutions of higher education must devise race-neutral admissions tools to promote diversity. Although standardized tests are efficient tools for culling an applicant pool, they yield notoriously inequitable scoring outcomes by race. This paper thus examines one alternative to LSAT score and final UGPA in law school admissions: Undergraduate GPA Growth. We use data from an institutional partnership with nine law schools to construct three regression models, employing fixed effects and interaction terms where appropriate. Our findings suggest that, in our sample, UGPA Growth can predict first-year (1L) LGPA, 1L Attrition, and First-time Bar Passage comparably to LSAT score and final UGPA while producing fewer racially disparate outcomes.

Authors

• Jason Scott, AccessLex institute

• Paige Matthews Wilson, AccessLex Institute