CHAPTER 8.5 
FOR LAW SCHOOL ADMISSION COMMITTEES 


COMPETING INDEX FUNCTIONS

  

The  CREDENTIAL ASSEMBLY SERVICE (CAS) implicitly recommends the index function 
          INDX = A*LSATScore  +  B*UGPA + C,
where A, B, and C  are chosen by the law school. 

Knowing the value of  A  and only  A  is worthless; the same applies to B; knowing the value of  C  is less than worthless. What is important? The value of the quotient  B/A  (See Section XX). For convenience, we shall let  M=B/A.

We explicitly recommend the index function  
          INDEX = LSATScore  + M*UGPA,
Where  M  is chosen by the law school.  

The two index functions are denoted by INDX and INDEX respectively. .

INDEX is simply a special case of  INDX; namely the special case  A=1, B=M, and  C=0. 

With the restriction that  M=B/A, INDEX and INDX both give the same ordering of the applicants to a given law school. 

Some law schools do appreciate the advantages of the INDEX function; namely the law schools that choose   A=1; these schools are listed below. Even more so, we appreciate the law schools that choose  A=1  and  C=0.   

LAW SCHOOL

LAW SCHOOL'S CHOICE OF

CHOICE

 

A

 B

C

OF M = B/A

Arkansas at Fayetteville, U of

1

13.4

0

13.4

Baylor University 

1

10

0

10

Boston University

1

10

0

10

Brigham Young University 

1

19

0

19

Campbell University 

1

14

0

14

Capital University Law School 

1

10

0

10

Drake University 

1

10

0

10

Kansas, University of 

1

11.066

0

11.066

Louisiana State University 

1

10

0

10

Mercer U

1

10

-100

10

North Carolina Central U

1

20

0

20

Oklahoma, University of 

1

15

16

15



ORGANIZING THE INDEX NUMBERS
OF THE APPLICANTS
 

  

We shall now give a three-step proceddure that a law school admission committees can use to convert each of their applicant's index numbers into a percent inclusively between 0 and 100. The first step is to find the highgest index number. The second step is to divide each index number by the largest index number. The third step is to multiply each of the quotients obtained ln the preceding step by 100. For each index number, the number obtained by our three step procedure is called the Score of this index number. This score plays a mojor role in law school admission.
     Deternining the highest score can pose a problem; namely, you do not know the highest index number until the last application  is received. To avoid this problem, you can pick an index number near last year's highest index number or near the index number generated by LSATScore =180  and UGPA = 4.00.

EXAMPLE. Suppose that a law school has twelve applicants with index scores of
          300, 289, 284, 267, 256, 243,   234, 220, 200, 173, 150, 144.
Dividing each of these twelve index numbers by the largest index number, namely 300, and rounding, as needed, to two siignfcant digits gives us:
          1,   0.96,  0.95,  0.89,  0,85,  0.81,   0.78,  0.73,  0.67,  0.58,   0.50,  0.48.   
Multiplying by 100 gives us the following scores:
          100,  96,  95,  89,  85, 81,    78,  73,  67,  58,  50,  48.  
The procedure just done guarantees that the score of the applicant with the largest index number is 100. Also an  applicant's score of  P  indicates that the applicants index number is  P  perdent of largest index number.

When ranking the law schools, USNews determines the score of each law school (third column of their law school ranking page.



 
 
 


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