Harvard Law School has said it will accept results from the graduate record examination, or GRE, for students hoping to enter its fall 2018 class, as part of a new pilot scheme.
School administrators have said that the move away from sole reliance on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is intended to diversify the range of applicants they receive, the New York Times reports.
While the GRE is offered frequently in many locations worldwide, the LSAT is held only four times annually. Critics have argued that the test often involves prohibitively expensive training that effectively bars many less privileged candidates. Around 150 law school deans have backed the change.
Harvard is the second accredited law school in the United States to allow applicants to submit GRE scores rather than LSAT scores, after the University of Arizona College of Law first made the move last year.
As one of America’s most prestigious law schools, Harvard’s decision may open the way for more widespread reform.
[NYT]
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