[Note: I realize there has been a lot of rather serious, political postings as of late--for obvious reasons. Anyway, time again for some amusing academic trivialities.]
I'm not making this up:
"Students in the bottom quarter of this year's entering class are actually stronger than those who were in the middle only a few years ago."
Yes, this is a prominent feature on the Law School's "new developments" page. Translation: you average students of yesteryear aren't even as good as today's weak students.
Will this be mentioned in letters from the alumni office soliciting contributions?
"Dear Alumnus/Alumna:
"Even though the bottom of this year's class is far more qualified than you, the average graduate of just a few years ago, we still hope you'll support Northwestern. The faculty is much happier--well, those who didn't leave are happier anyway--now that their weakest students are better than the average student of recent vintage. And the employers are happier too, since they can scrape the bottom of the current barrel, and still do better than they could just a few years ago dipping in to the middle of your pool.
"So overall things are looking up for Northwestern. We've even conned US News in to ranking us 10th!
Please give us your money."
But all kidding aside, there really is something pathological with the obsession, including on the part of prospective law students, with the LSAT. Here's the simple, undisputed, and indisputable fact: the LSAT is a quite lousy measure of aptitude, intelligence, and even likely success in law school, except at the extremes. Even the people who make the LSAT will admit as much (it's one reason they report the LSAT scores in a range, so, e.g., a 165 might be in the 162-167 range, meaning there is no particular reason to obsess about differences in the range). Every school I've ever talked to about this reports that LSAT score is a quite weak predictor of performance in the first year of law school, while LSAT plus GPA does a bit better. But only when you take LSAT, GPA, and major in to account do you start to get a moderately good predictor of first-year law school performance.
At the extremities, there are, on average, differences in ability measured by the LSAT--but we're talking extremities. One of the best students I've had in recent years had an LSAT of 163, but he was far smarter than legions of high flyers with 168s and 169s I also knew. I know of another student with a 165 who is quite a bit more intellectually able and agile than most of the students I've taught here or at Yale, and as smart as any of them. Those are two anecdotes; but I've got about 20 more. My anecdotal evidence also supports the conclusion that, on average, students with a 159 aren't as able as students with a 168, but that's what I mean by saying at the extremities the LSAT conveys some information about intellectual ability.
But it is just ludicrous to claim that because the 25th percentile LSAT of the entering class is now higher than the median LSAT of a class five years ago that, therefore, the bottom part of the new class is better than the middle of the old class. Maybe it is. The change in LSAT alone doesn't prove it, indeed, only makes it slightly more likely to be true than otherwise. It's embarrassing that an educational institution would prey on prospective students' ignorance about the meaning of the statistical measures involved.
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