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Gender important?

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 1:02 am
by nedstarksbastard
Apologies if this has been discussed before, but does anyone know if gender impacts how applications are evaluated? It seems like women are underrepresented at a lot of the major law schools, so from that I might expect women to get a slight boost? On the other hand, law school (and law in general) seems like a bit of a boys' club. And what about trans* or non-binary individuals?

Re: Gender important?

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 1:25 am
by hcrimson2014
Some have suggested that AA males receive a greater urm boost. So the case might be reversed if you are an URM. Regardless, you should still get the boost according to you urm status which is far greater than any insignificant gender boost there might be.

Re: Gender important?

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 1:34 am
by Nova
Seems like for URMs, males get a slight gender bump because there are so few applying in general and URM females tend to have better numbers.

For non-URMs, men tend to score slightly higher but it doesn't seem like non-urm women get any gender bump. Rather, more men just get accepted.
hcrimson2014 wrote:Some have suggested that AA males receive a greater urm boost. So the case might be reversed if you are an URM. Regardless, you should still get the boost according to you urm status which is far greater than any insignificant gender boost there might be.
Agreed

Re: Gender important?

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:18 am
by Dr.Zer0
Nova wrote:Seems like for URMs, males get a slight gender bump because there are so few applying in general and URM females tend to have better numbers.

For non-URMs, men tend to score slightly higher but it doesn't seem like non-urm women get any gender bump. Rather, more men just get accepted.
hcrimson2014 wrote:Some have suggested that AA males receive a greater urm boost. So the case might be reversed if you are an URM. Regardless, you should still get the boost according to you urm status which is far greater than any insignificant gender boost there might be.
Agreed
I thought this only applied to AAs? So MA and PR males may get a small gender boost?

Re: Gender important?

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 3:13 am
by Nova
Sorry, after further review, I was mistaken w/r/t scores and ethnicity/gender. :oops:

Its not that AA males score lower than AA females, its only that there are significantly fewer of them taking the lsat. see Nik1's post (third to last on page 1) ITT:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 4&t=195443


Unfortunately the direct data source we need to look at is on a broken link :x http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/

I found another source here --LinkRemoved--

roughly 33% more female "Hispanics" take the lsat than male "Hispanics"

roughly 46% more female PRs take the lsat than male PRs

roughly 75% more female AAs take the lsat than male AAs

essentially NA is even between male and female test takers

So I think its fair to assume there would be a slight bump for MA/PR but not NA. However neither would be as significant as AA. On the other hand, Hispanic/PR males score on 2 points higher on average than Hispanic/PR females. But id still guess Hispanic/PR males have a really slight advantage over their female counterparts with equal LSAT scores because of the raw number them with a particular score. The slight advantage is probably insignificant enough to disregard.

This is where the LSAT statistics get very specific. The numbers below represent the number of female testers in each ethnicity. How do your LSAT scores seem to compare to those with a similar genetic and gender background?

•American Indian or Alaskan Native:
Number of Testers: 232
Mean: 144.32
Standard Deviation: 9.53

•Asian:
Number of Testers: 4,120
Mean: 152.33
Standard Deviation: 10.23

•Black or African American:
Number of Testers: 7,236
Mean: 141.43
Standard Deviation: 8.41

•Canadian Aboriginal:
Number of Testers: 9
Mean: 146.67
Standard Deviation: 10.45

•Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander:
Number of Testers: 93
Mean: 144.51
Standard Deviation:8.68

•Hispanic or Latino:
Number of Testers: 4,105
Mean: 145.37
Standard Deviation: 9.07

•Puerto Rican:
Number of Testers: 1,110
Mean: 137.41
Standard Deviation: 9.71

•White or Caucasian:
Number of Testers: 25,299
Mean: 151.98
Standard Deviation: 9.19

•Multiple Ethnicities:
Number of Testers: 3,549
Mean: 148.35
Standard Deviation: 9.85

•No Response:
Number of Testers: 530
Mean: 155.05
Standard Deviation: 9.81

Average LSAT Scores By Male Gender And Ethnicity

And here is the counterpart which represents the male testers in each ethnicity.

•American Indian or Alaskan Native:
Number of Testers: 242
Mean: 147.03
Standard Deviation: 8.67

•Asian:
Number of Testers: 3,388
Mean: 153.10
Standard Deviation: 10.85

•Black or African American:
Number of Testers: 4,217
Mean: 142.54
Standard Deviation: 9.09

•Canadian Aboriginal:
Number of Testers: 8
Mean: 151.75
Standard Deviation: 9.36

•Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander:
Number of Testers: 54
Mean: 149.32
Standard Deviation: 10.41

•Hispanic or Latino:
Number of Testers: 3,108
Mean: 147.57
Standard Deviation: 9.34

•Puerto Rican:
Number of Testers: 750
Mean: 138.99
Standard Deviation: 9.57

•White or Caucasian:
Number of Testers: 31,629
Mean: 153.44
Standard Deviation: 9.27

•Multiple Ethnicities:
Number of Testers: 2,929
Mean: 151.22
Standard Deviation: 9.67

•No Response:
Number of Testers: 854
Mean: 155.93
Standard Deviation: 9.34

Re: Gender important?

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:41 am
by Dr.Zer0
Thanks for the follow up Nova