A Long-Overdue Shakeup in Higher Education

New schools, accreditors, and tests—plus new rankings—mean much-needed competition. - Michael Torres

Admissions officers from two of the nation’s elite law schools joined the Advisory Opinions podcast in early August for a conversation about how students earn a coveted spot in their institutions. 

Surprisingly, both lamented the dearth of high objective standards at many of the prestigious colleges and universities from which their applicants came.

• “It’s actually absurd, the level of grade inflation,” said Kristi Jobson, dean of admissions at Harvard Law School. “When you have tons of people with high LSAT scores and everyone is coming with a 3.9 and up, how do you distinguish between people in a way that feels objective?”
• “At one of our top national state schools, just over a 4.0 is at the 75th percentile . . . At one of our Ivy League Institutions, a 3.95 is at the bottom half of the class,” said Miriam Ingber, associate dean of admissions and financial aid at Yale Law School. As a result, she said, “we’ve stopped looking at GPA as a number.”...