Closing the LSAT gender gap

Is the LSAT biased toward the way that men think?  According to this article from the Daily Pennsylvanian, that may very well be the case.

From the article:

LSAT scores are often the most important aspect of a law school application, but people seem oblivious to the fact that men receive significantly higher LSAT scores than women.

Numerous news articles have bemoaned the decline of the number of women enrolling in law school over the past five years, blaming the dwindling number of female attendees on a slew of factors. Most blame a corporate legal culture that restricts family and personal time.

Yet these articles discount one critical fact: the percentage of women taking the LSAT during this same period has remained roughly static, and is higher than the percentage of women in law school. In 2005-2006, 49.08 percent of people taking the LSAT were female, while this year, law school is only 46.9 percent female...

Upon analyzing the data from the Law School Admissions Council for 2001-2006, I found the percentage of women who score in the top percentile of test takers - the select students scoring 175 or above - is roughly a third of a percent. Around three-fourths of a percent of males scored in the same category.

Using this measure, women finally outpace men in scores below 150 - a score lower than at least 75 percent of those admitted to each Tier 1 and 2 school...While I couldn't obtain law school GPAs, I could find undergraduate ones.

When comparing test-takers' LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs, I found that women had higher GPAs for each of the past five years. Interestingly, while male and female GPAs both increased over the past five years, LSAT scores did not. The mean male LSAT score increased from 152.7 to 154, while the mean female LSAT score only increased from 151.1 to 151.5, making the differences greater in recent years.

I don't believe the correlation between greater gender differences and decreasing female enrollment is pure coincidence. I recently took the LSAT, and if my score hadn't met my expectations, I wouldn't have applied to law school. And I don't think I'm unusual.

With the media ignoring gender differences in the LSAT, women assume their individual performance - and not the system - is the problem...

Gender differences alone may not account for the decline of women enrolling in law school, but it is a factor that needs studying.

Based on my limited knowledge of neurological differences between men and women, my guess is that the LSAT emphasizes skills where men tend to have a natural advantage, such as certain spatial tasks, and deemphasizes skills where women tend to have stronger ability, such as short-term memory.

Comments

[fab09]

Why emphasize a biological neurological difference between men and women? There may be a difference in skills such as spatial reasoning and short-term memory, but how do you know this is a result of genetics and not a result of the socialization process? Questions to consider. Studies have shown that in some cultures besides ours, differences in spatial reasoning between men and women do not exist.

[fab09]

Why emphasize a biological neurological difference between men and women? There may be a difference in skills such as spatial reasoning and short-term memory, but how do you know this is a result of genetics and not a result of the socialization process? Questions to consider. Studies have shown that in some cultures besides ours, differences in spatial reasoning between men and women do not exist.

[Niki Black]

I think that ignoring the biological/neurological differences between men and women is a mistake. Quite frankly, I'm convinced that some do exist.

(And, as an aside, I think that understanding the biological differences, at the very least, would result in better health care for women. Using the male form/systemic reactions as the norm in med schools is a bad thing for women.)

That there are differences, whatever they may be,doesn't make one gender superior to the other--just different in some ways. And, if those differences result in women performing more poorly on a standardized test such as the LSAT, then the LSAT needs to be tweaked until it is no longer stacked in favor of one gender over the other.

[Richard]

Why do you assume the test is at fault and not the takers ??? Maybe males tend to study longer, or use more effective study techniques ?????

[anu]

richard: seeing as the women tended to have higher gpas, most likely they have better study habits, etc and might have done better if the test had not been at least a little biased.

[Support Person]

We agree with your article, but we believe that more women should apply for more scholarships to close that gender gap. Search freetoapply.com for more information.

[GreySwan]

Men simply have greater variation then women, so there are more brilliant men then brilliant women, and more retarded men and retarded women -- its a fact of life. Men also have a slightly higher average IQ then women (1-3 points).

Anything that tries to hide this fact is sexist and discriminates against men.