There were just so many posts on the other thread. The discussion was going nowhere, so I've created a new thread on this topic. This is still an important issue for me because if I can't persuade at least some of you, then it wouldn't be worth writing an addendum for the LSAT score. And, I still firmly believe, from my first-hand experience, that ESL students' LSAT score might not accurately reflect the person's true ability.

I've compared ESL students' situation with those of AA minorities and people with learning disabilities. The case for AA minorities might not be suitable to discuss here because there's another dimension to take into consideration: the diversity factor, which is subjective and might not be extended to ESL students who are mostly international students. (To refer to ESL students, I'm talking about those who have begun speaking English since like 19 or 20, well past the critical period of learning a foreign language.)

Then, now we have the case for people with learning disabilities. The LSAC currently provides a measure of accomodation to people with learning disabilities. (longer testing time) This is the same as an indirect score boost. The underlying assumption behind this accomodation is their LSAT scores retrieved under the "normal" condition might underrepresent their actual future performance in law school and in the profession.

Now, the assumption that justifies an "adjustment" for ESL applicants, is the same as that for giving an indirect boost to people with learning disabilities: ESL students' LSAT score might underrepresent their actual future performances as a law student and as a lawyer. If you agree with this assumption and still disagree with giving an "adjustment" for ESL students in the app cycle, then there is a double standard.

I'm not here to get people to sympathize with me. I'm here trying to collectively find a correct answer. Before I get convinced by someone's argument, I would still believe what I believe to be true. It might be extremely rare for an average student in the states to have an ESL student who seems to be "unfairly" punished on a standardized test, but let's put aside ego or any distracting issues to focus on the argument itself.

As someone on the other thread pointed out, Stanford Law School seems to give a very slight advantage to ESL applicants. (The statistics demonstrates this.) I don't mean to argue for a universal measure of such. I mean to examine whether Stanford's policy is theoretically right or not.

There were just so many posts on the other thread. The discussion was going nowhere, so I've created a new thread on this topic. This is still an important issue for me because if I can't persuade at least some of you, then it wouldn't be worth writing an addendum for the LSAT score. And, I still firmly believe, from my first-hand experience, that ESL students' LSAT score might not accurately reflect the person's true ability.

I've compared ESL students' situation with those of AA minorities and people with learning disabilities. The case for AA minorities might not be suitable to discuss here because there's another dimension to take into consideration: the diversity factor, which is subjective and might not be extended to ESL students who are mostly international students. (To refer to ESL students, I'm talking about those who have begun speaking English since like 19 or 20, well past the critical period of learning a foreign language.)

Then, now we have the case for people with learning disabilities. The LSAC currently provides a measure of accomodation to people with learning disabilities. (longer testing time) This is the same as an indirect score boost. The underlying assumption behind this accomodation is their LSAT scores retrieved under the "normal" condition might underrepresent their actual future performance in law school and in the profession.

Now, the assumption that justifies an "adjustment" for ESL applicants, is the same as that for giving an indirect boost to people with learning disabilities: ESL students' LSAT score might underrepresent their actual future performances as a law student and as a lawyer. If you agree with this assumption and still disagree with giving an "adjustment" for ESL students in the app cycle, then there is a double standard.

There were just so many posts on the other thread. The discussion was going nowhere, so I've created a new thread on this topic. This is still an important issue for me because if I can't persuade at least some of you, then it wouldn't be worth writing an addendum for the LSAT score. And, I still firmly believe, from my first-hand experience, that ESL students' LSAT score might not accurately reflect the person's true ability.

I've compared ESL students' situation with those of AA minorities and people with learning disabilities. The case for AA minorities might not be suitable to discuss here because there's another dimension to take into consideration: the diversity factor, which is subjective and might not be extended to ESL students who are mostly international students. (To refer to ESL students, I'm talking about those who have begun speaking English since like 19 or 20, well past the critical period of learning a foreign language.)

Then, now we have the case for people with learning disabilities. The LSAC currently provides a measure of accomodation to people with learning disabilities. (longer testing time) This is the same as an indirect score boost. The underlying assumption behind this accomodation is their LSAT scores retrieved under the "normal" condition might underrepresent their actual future performance in law school and in the profession.

Now, the assumption that justifies an "adjustment" for ESL applicants, is the same as that for giving an indirect boost to people with learning disabilities: ESL students' LSAT score might underrepresent their actual future performances as a law student and as a lawyer. If you agree with this assumption and still disagree with giving an "adjustment" for ESL students in the app cycle, then there is a double standard.

I'm not here to get people to sympathize with me. I'm here trying to collectively find a correct answer. Before I get convinced by someone's argument, I would still believe what I believe to be true. It might be rare for an average student in the states to have a friend with ESL who seems to be "unfairly" punished on a standardized test, but let's put aside ego or any other distracting issues to focus on the argument itself.

As someone on the other thread pointed out, Stanford Law School seems to give a very slight advantage to ESL applicants. (The statistics demonstrates this.) I don't mean to argue for a universal measure of such. I mean to examine whether Stanford's policy is theoretically right or not.

A non-native speaker who didn't seriously begin learning English until late teens who score a 17x has done something more impressive than a native speaker who scores a 17x has. I can't imagine the adcomms aren't impressed by someone who does that in a way that they are not from someone who has spoken English their whole life. That could lead to some slight preference for some ESL applicants, I'm fine with that.

But what are you proposing really? To just assume that an ESL applicant would score 2-3 higher if the test had been given in their native language? That's just not always true. For some students it's probably a 20 point difference, for some it might be only 1 or 2. When a disabled student gets accommodated testing, their LSAT score is not compared to anyone else's score, that's why they get a scaled score (165 or whatever) but not a percentile on their report. Also, if a law school chooses to accept him, his score does not count toward that school's medians. Basically, he's not being measured against anyone else. LSAC only does this because they legally have to, they've fought against it as hard as they can. So what would be done about ESL students? I can't see it being anything other than a soft factor, like "wow, he grew up in xyzistan but he was able to score a 170. He must be really sharp."

I don't agree with any adjustment that has no realistic purpose other than sympathy. Underrepresented means exactly that, minorities that need representation and otherwise would be severely lacking. If you are coming from overseas, you are choosing to come to this country and you are expected to be proficient at English if you want to go into a language intensive field, they didn't have a choice. I'm not really decided on the disabilities thing. I think it is too broad a term, you'd have to look at a case by case basis.

I agree with that. No adjustment should be made purely out of sympathy. From what I understand, the deans I quoted make the adjustment not out of sympathy, but because the LSAT likely does not predict an international student's performance as reliably as is the case for a native speaker. It seems the slight boost is based on experience w/ international student performance, rather than sympathy.

Just my two cents.
But yes, I agree, once you go to a foreign country you have to speak the language perfectly. And it makes me proud to say that English is my 3rd language out of 6, 3 of which I'm fluent in
i'd give 2 points on the LSAT in exchange for proficiency multiple languages, any time
but hey that's just because i wanna be an international baller

HAHA no im not chinese, but i've taken up Chinese recently, as a senior in college ... we'll see how THAT goes hahaha

nope, im from a small country in southeastern Europe

Duly noted. Impressive enough that you understood the question, I'll assume your claims about language proficiency were true.