Copyright

FAQ:
Choosing a Law School
US News Rankings
The Admissions Process
Application Trends
Diversity
Academic Factors
Sample Essays of All Sorts
Recs, Resumes,Essays and Addenda
How & When to Apply
Hearing from the
     Law Schools
Recent News

Other Departments:
LSAT and Admissions
     Services
Success Stories

Contact Us

With help from
Netscape Web Tutorial
by Charlton D. Rose
and David Chang

How Diversity is Measured

Diversity

I believe that a discussion of race, ethnicity, and other diversity factors in the application process is essential to helping an applicant decide whether he or she will be admitted. So before I begin the substance of this section, I'm going to say a few words about my philosophy on speaking the unspeakable.

Every law school I know of uses the “party” model of admissions in some form. The result is that people with diversity to offer can be accepted with a lower gpa and LSAT than people without diversity -- “mainstream” applicants.  But virtually none of the law schools will discuss it. This lack of information hurts both mainstream and diversity applicants.

• Mainstream applicants often waste their money, and more importantly, their hopes, applying to schools at which they have no chance of admission.
• Diversity applicants limit themselves to schools at which they seem to have a good chance according to the published numbers, not realizing that they actually have a reasonable chance of admission at some more competitive schools.

So, in an effort to correct this problem, I shall now boldly go where no person has gone before.

The Ethnic Advantage

I've heard a lot of people saying, "I know my numbers are weak, but since I'm Asian..."  Or, conversely, "No fair!  If I were black..."  So let's try this again.  

The Price of Admission:  How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, by Daniel Golden, Crown Publishers, (Random House), New York 2006, shows that far more mainstream students are admitted for reasons other than numerical merit.  For specific examples, look here.  

Conversely, race is not a magic wand -- abracadabra, you're in!  Not anyplace, not ever. On the other hand, race is an easy place to look for disadvantage.  

I could give dozens of anecdotes here.  Or I could cite studies and statistics.  Either way, I would lead you to the following conclusions:

• People who are not white have a hard time in the good ol' US of A.
• So do people who don't speak English as their first language.
• People who grew up outside the mainstream often have interesting perspectives to share.
• Poor people have a hard time completing college.

The question is rarely "What race are you?"  The question admissions officers ask is, "Which of those factors do you express in your app?"

If you show the admissions officers the disadvantages you've overcome and the insight you've gained, you'll have a chance of being admitted with lower numbers.  If you don't, you won't.  

Over the years, I've helped as many white people from extraordinary backgrounds gain admission to top schools as I have minorities.  It's the background that matters, not the color.

A Note On Quotas

Amidst all the debate on race and quotas that surrounded the Michigan case, I had what I consider to be a meaningful insight:  when discussing limited numbers, it is impossible to look like anything but a quota.

A school has 250 seats, on average.  A certain number will go to its own undergrads.  How many?  Is that a quota?  We have to make sure some, but not all, of those undergrads are legacies (kids whose parents graduated and often gave money).  How do we divide them up?  If we're a state school, we want a predominance of residents.  How many?  If we're a national school, we want distribution from around the country.  If we're a nationally-ranked state school, we walk a tightrope between the two.  Every decision is based on numbers. Yale once went to its wait list for "more women."  Harvard went looking for graduates of public schools.  Rumor has it that one lucky kid from Lexington, KY gets admitted so that Professor Whoever who teaches whatever will have a student to pick on when a case from that city is discussed.  

It all starts with the same problem; we're not accepting "anyone who's qualified."  We're accepting 250 students, who collectively meet all our educational goals.  Divide them among 50 states (or counties, if you're a state school), 500 colleges, a hundred majors, and everything looks like a quota.  

So what makes a number not a quota?  Flexibility.  We'd like 75% residents, but we'll live with 70%, or 80%.  Women don't have to be half the class, but if they're less than 40%, we have a problem.  

"Critical Mass"

While we're on the subject, let's tackle the tricky issue of critical mass.  The key here, I think, is that critical mass is by definition not a number.  How much snow makes an avalanche?  No one knows.  They can tell you how much (or, more precisely, little) is safe and how much is dangerous.  But no one can say "the next snowfall will be the one."  The very concept was invented for nuclear reactors (I think), in which the amount of plutonium that's "certainly enough" to cause a chain reaction can be calculated, and some other lower number is probably safe, but in between is just a mess.  I think that "critical mass," like pornography, falls into the area of "I can't precisely define it, but I know it when I see it."

Unequal Playing Field

Responses to minority applicants at the 2004 Law Forums were frustrating, to say the least.  Answers like "I'm not authorized to answer" questions about minority admissions, low LSAT scores, etc, are what drove me to give a marked preference to minorities in my clientele in the first place!   

There is nothing equal about telling a minority applicant your 25th percentile LSAT score -- especially if your school has fewer than 25% minorities, as most do.  I saw the looks on my client's faces as they heard "164."  It wasn't pleasant.  When I could, I pushed for a more honest answer.  When I couldn't, I left the Forum so I wouldn't disrupt the event with my loud angry cursing and fist-banging.  

Until there is equal access to information, there is no hope for a level playing field.  As long as the discussion of competitive numbers focuses on a higher percentile than the number of traditionally disadvantaged minorities, there is no hope of equal access to information.  

Please feel free to quote me on this.

Caveat

This section is made up entirely of “Loretta’s best guesses.”  It is based on my experience in getting clients into law school, my research from secondary sources, and my intuition.  No law school has officially endorsed this information.  So if you need to argue with someone about it, argue with me.  

A Second Opinion

For a look at diversity from the law school's point of view, there is no better person to explain just what "diversity" means than Sarah Zearfoss, the University of Michigan's Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions.  In particular, she put to rest the idea that diversity is measured in points.  For an enlightening (and entertaining) look at the admissions process, go to

http://www.law.umich.edu/prospectivestudents/admissions/Pages/director.aspx