Reuters, Law School Applicants' Socioeconomic Hurdles Measured by New Metric:

Law schools may soon have more information about the educational and economic challenges applicants have faced on their path to a law degree.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) is developing a new “environmental context” metric pertaining to colleges and universities based on factors such as institutional student spending, graduation rates, and the percentage of undergraduates who received federal need-based Pell Grants.

Officials at the LSAC, which administers the Law School Admission Test and maintains the central application system used by law schools, unveiled the project on Friday during a meeting of the American Bar Association’s legal education body. It is a collaboration with The College Board, which develops the SAT and now offers colleges a similar tool, contextualizing applicants’ neighborhoods and high schools.

The aim of the new college metric—along with the existing neighborhood and high school ratings—is to help law schools better understand the advantages or hurdles their applicants have encountered and to offer a fuller picture of their potential beyond undergraduate grades and standardized test scores, council research director Elizabeth Bodamer said during the presentation.