Harvard Law c/o 2020 Applicants (2016-2017) Forum

[AJ1010]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

[goldenbear2020]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

[AJ1010]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

[dietcoke1]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

the GRE was way harder for me. the vocabulary section was brutal

[AllHailKingMao]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

the GRE was way harder for me. the vocabulary section was brutal

Who says that?? The GRE was a million times easier than the LSAT, anyone who has a college education should be able to do reasonably well with a bit of studying vocabulary.

[KateMcKitten]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

My personal experience: I studied for the GRE for two days before and sailed through. It's basically a higher-level SAT, so if you were good at that I feel like you'd be good at the GRE, too.

While I have very mixed feelings about the pros and cons of this approach, I feel like the biggest red flag is the non-representative sample on which they base the claim of GRE=LSAT. There were no people with only GRE scores (no LSAT) in the sample, which is the population they were evaluating whether or not to admit.

[dietcoke1]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

the GRE was way harder for me. the vocabulary section was brutal

Who says that?? The GRE was a million times easier than the LSAT, anyone who has a college education should be able to do reasonably well with a bit of studying vocabulary.

granted I studied like 1000 times more for the LSAT than the GRE, but idk I just thought the GRE was more difficult

[ashrice13]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

the GRE was way harder for me. the vocabulary section was brutal

Who says that?? The GRE was a million times easier than the LSAT, anyone who has a college education should be able to do reasonably well with a bit of studying vocabulary.

granted I studied like 1000 times more for the LSAT than the GRE, but idk I just thought the GRE was more difficult

Same here on both counts.

[Anonymous User]

Feel like this only matters if you're primarily applying to other grad programs and want to toss in HLS as a lark. Like if you're "applying to law school," you're...gonna have to take the LSAT. Because all the other schools want it.

Maybe I'm missing something here?

[Mikey]

Feel like this only matters if you're primarily applying to other grad programs and want to toss in HLS as a lark. Like if you're "applying to law school," you're...gonna have to take the LSAT. Because all the other schools want it. So who cares about the GRE?

Maybe I'm missing something here?

or you can be someone who just says fuck the LSAT, takes the GRE, applies only to Harvard and gets in

[LegalAAA]

The Law School’s decision to accept the GRE will alleviate the financial burden on applicants who would otherwise be required to prepare and pay for an additional test.

This is such bullshit. It's really so they can keep their application numbers high and acceptance rate low in a world of declining law school applicants. Come on, Harvard. Don't drape your ambition in sanctimony.

[dietcoke1]

Feel like this only matters if you're primarily applying to other grad programs and want to toss in HLS as a lark. Like if you're "applying to law school," you're...gonna have to take the LSAT. Because all the other schools want it.

Maybe I'm missing something here?

until five years from now when all the other law schools accept GREs

[Anonymous User]

Feel like this only matters if you're primarily applying to other grad programs and want to toss in HLS as a lark. Like if you're "applying to law school," you're...gonna have to take the LSAT. Because all the other schools want it. So who cares about the GRE?

Maybe I'm missing something here?

or you can be someone who just says fuck the LSAT, takes the GRE, applies only to Harvard and gets in

That did not occur to me... My advice: if you're that obsessed with the big H, take a year off, see a therapist. Or apply to the Kennedy School / Divinity School. You don't want to be a lawyer, you want to go to Harvard.

[batlaw]

Feel like this only matters if you're primarily applying to other grad programs and want to toss in HLS as a lark. Like if you're "applying to law school," you're...gonna have to take the LSAT. Because all the other schools want it.

Maybe I'm missing something here?

Yah, I remember some business schools that took GRE in place of GMAT (but I think for most it was if you were doing dual degree).

[curry1]

Glad I made the decision to apply this cycle. Definitely not reapplying regardless of how it ultimately ends. H's move sucks for future applicants if accepting the GRE becomes a trend.

[batlaw]

I took the GRE as well, although long ago. I studied for maybe a day and did decently enough for my goals at the time. From my memory it is just a very different type of test than the LSAT.

I think the real advantage of the GRE over LSAT is how accessible it is, not so much as for STEM but in terms of locations and frequency of test dates. Is it also cheaper?

I am wondering though if this means that HLS wouldn't have to report an LSAT for those "STEM GRE" kids. Since other schools aren't yet on that wavelength would those accepted with GRE just be removed from any impact on their rankings in that area?

[FYI, I'm all for making things more accessible for STEM kids. In fact, I would be totally in favor of Harvard making itself more accessible to me and looking past my ancient STEM undergrad GPA .]

[hellohalo]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

the GRE was way harder for me. the vocabulary section was brutal

+1

[Sarastro]

As a STEM kid, I don't really get how accepting GRE's will alleviate the financial burden for anyone. Like, "Oh, cool, I save the $500 I spent on taking the LSAT. Now tell me again where I sign for my $250,000 in loans?"

[lsa16]

https://today.law.harvard.edu/gre/

what?!?!

Gives a whole new meaning to retake/reapply.

Some people claim the GRE is harder than the LSAT. I know absolutely nothing about the GRE.

the GRE was way harder for me. the vocabulary section was brutal

+1

I found the GRE to be a relative breeze except that as a social science major with credits from high school I hadn't taken a math class my entire time in college....they were throwing that math section back to things I hadn't seen since middle school. But I assume if you actually prep for it appropriately it can't be that difficult to re-learn those things.

[R. Jeeves]

what do ppl mean by the gre is easier/harder than the lsat? like its easier/harder to get a X percentile on the gre than it is to get X percentile on the LSAT?

[goldenbear2020]

what do ppl mean by the gre is easier/harder than the lsat? like its easier/harder to get a X percentile on the gre than it is to get X percentile on the LSAT?

It's much less time pressure (less of the "training for a marathon" aspect of LSAT prep), so anyone with a good grasp of reading comprehension and test taking skills (e.g., SAT) can brush up on vocab and math and get top 1-2%.

[KateMcKitten]

what do ppl mean by the gre is easier/harder than the lsat? like its easier/harder to get a X percentile on the gre than it is to get X percentile on the LSAT?

It's much less time pressure (less of the "training for a marathon" aspect of LSAT prep), so anyone with a good grasp of reading comprehension and test taking skills (e.g., SAT) can brush up on vocab and math and get top 1-2%.

+170 (the GRE max)

[ytrewq321]

.

[R. Jeeves]

As a STEM kid, I don't really get how accepting GRE's will alleviate the financial burden for anyone. Like, "Oh, cool, I save the $500 I spent on taking the LSAT. Now tell me again where I sign for my $250,000 in loans?"

well the point in time at which youre getting financially shafted matters. I could see a situation in which in which someone cant come up with the money to prep for and take the LSAT (not like you can get a loan for it) but is ok taking a 6 fig loan at hls knowing that theyll be financially secure on the other side. that being said my cynical suspicion is that this isnt really about financial burden, but at least it works as an ostensible reason.

although I was a STEMer who was on the fence between going to LS and STEM grad school and was going to take both the GRE and the LSAT so i can kind of see the "we want to recruit more stem kids" argument being a legit thing here maybe.

[R. Jeeves]

what do ppl mean by the gre is easier/harder than the lsat? like its easier/harder to get a X percentile on the gre than it is to get X percentile on the LSAT?

It's much less time pressure (less of the "training for a marathon" aspect of LSAT prep), so anyone with a good grasp of reading comprehension and test taking skills (e.g., SAT) can brush up on vocab and math and get top 1-2%.

but the actual content and format of the tests shouldnt mean anything here if we're talking about "easy" and "hard" in terms of percentiles right? you can only compare the pools of test takers to say anything about one being easier or harder. if a much greater proportion of GRE takers are dumbs as compared to LSAT takers, then yeah you could say the LSAT is harder because it would be more difficult for you to get X percentile score when the pool of test takers is smarter.

now if someone is going to point out that they test different skills and therefore you cant really compare the two in terms of difficulty, then ok thats valid. but also a different debate.

eta: you could also compare the percentile scores of people who take both tests. so the question i would have for people who say that the GRE is easier than the LSAT: was it easier to score X percentile on the GRE than it was to score X percentile on the LSAT?