Xander deVries

Starting with this admissions cycle, Yale Law School will also accept Graduate Record Examinations as part of an application in place of the Law School Admission Test.

Yale follows in the footsteps of law schools at Harvard University, Columbia University and New York University, among others. Law schools have traditionally only accepted the LSAT. But over the past three years, there has been a national trend of law schools adopting the GRE as a substitute, with University of Arizona being the first institution to break the tradition in 2016.

“We want the broadest possible range of applicants to apply to Yale Law School,” said Miriam Ingber, the associate dean for admissions at YLS. “Accepting the GRE will provide our applicants with increased flexibility as they consider their educational options.”

Despite the difference in test format, YLS admissions office “will have no preference for either the LSAT or the GRE,” so students should not worry that taking the GRE will put them at a disadvantage, YLS spokesperson Janet Conroy said.

Since the GRE is widely accepted as the standardized test for graduate schools and LSAT has been geared towards law schools, adopting the GRE will likely enlarge the pool of applicants to law school. The GRE is offered almost daily at more than 1000 test centers across the country, while the LSAT is only offered four times a year. 105,883 students took the LSAT between 2015 and 2016, whereas 585,677 students took the GRE during the same time period, according to official data.

Despite the change, the role of standardized tests in Yale Law School admissions will not play a more important role than other components in the application, Conroy said. She also added that the review is holistic and no particular part of the application is given more weight than any other, echoing Todd Rothman, YLS director of JD admissions.

“Admissions process is a holistic review of all the information that an applicant provides to us,” Rothman said. “An applicant’s LSAT or GRE scores are just another point of information, and they are considered along with all the other parts of an application, including essays, letters of recommendation, awards and honors, and other components.”

The median LSAT score for the Yale Law School’s Class of 2022 was 173.

Ziyang Guo | ziyang.guo@yale.edu