The American Bar Association’s House of Delegates on Monday rejected a proposal to end an admission testing requirement for law schools, an action that stalls the test-optional movement for legal education but does not necessarily kill it.
Admission test for MBBS in government and private medical colleges of the country is set to take place on March 10
The application process for admission to government and private medical colleges in Bangladesh began on Monday.
It would continue till February 23.
Online application fee can be submitted till 11:59pm on February 24.
Director of Health Education Department (Medical Education) Dr Mujtahid Muhammad Hossain said admission test for MBBS in government and private medical colleges of the country is set to take place on March 10.
The test will be held from 10am to 11am on that day.
Earlier it was informed in a circular that according to the policy-2023 formulated by Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council for medical admission, application can be made online at the scheduled time. Applicant must be a citizen of Bangladesh.
Students who have obtained GPA 9 collectively in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) can apply for admission online.
There are 4,350 seats in 37 government medical colleges and 6,489 seats in 72 private medical colleges.
In 2022, the medical admission test was held on April 1 where 143,000 students participated.
Under the bar association’s procedures, though, the final word on law school admission standards rests with the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which is the association’s accrediting arm. The council last year gave the proposal preliminary approval.
“The Council is disappointed in the House of Delegates’ vote,” Bill Adams, the bar association’s managing director of accreditation and legal education, said in a statement. The council will consider next steps at a Feb. 17 meeting, he said.
The LSAT is the most widely used admission test for law schools. It assesses skills in reading comprehension, analytical reasoning and logical reasoning, and has long been a prime metric for gatekeepers of law schools. The LSAT poses multiple-choice questions in one part, and in a second part it prompts test-takers to write a persuasive essay under proctored conditions. More than 100,000 people take it annually.
In accurate years, many colleges and universities have adopted test-optional policies for undergraduate admissions. Law schools, though, are required to use admission test scores to meet the bar association’s accrediting standards.
Critics of admission tests say they pose an unnecessary barrier to disadvantaged students who otherwise have strong potential. Proponents say tests provide useful information to admissions officers and help qualified applicants make their case. They also are often used, in combination with grade-point averages and other factors, to help decide whether admitted students will qualify for scholarships.
Even if the bar association drops the mandate for admission test scores, individual law schools still would be allowed to require them.
The debate over the LSAT comes at a moment of unusual flux and scrutiny for legal education, as many prominent law schools have declared opposition to cooperating with U.S. News & World Report’s influential annual rankings. LSAT and GRE scores have long been a part of the U.S. News ranking formula. In addition, many schools are bracing for the possibility that the Supreme Court later this year will reverse decades of precedent and end race-conscious affirmative action in college and university admissions.
Marc L. Miller, dean of the University of Arizona’s law school, said he was disappointed in the House of Delegates vote. The admissions testing requirement, he said, makes law schools “an outlier” in graduate-level professional education. And he said the mandate is “harmful for the widely shared goal of increasing diversity and access in our profession.”
It was back to the drawing board for the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar as it once again voted to make law school test-optional.
In a nearly unanimous vote—with one opposed—the Council, during its meeting in Phoenix on Friday, voted to send Standards 501 and 503 back to the ABA’s House of Delegates, who will meet next in Denver in August.
Exams for admission to government and private medical colleges will be held on Mar 10, the head of the Directorate General of Medical Education or DGME has said.
The tests will continue from 10am to 11am, said Dr Abul Bashar Md Jamal, director general of DGME.
“We’ll publish the notice for the exams by Friday or Saturday. The number of seats and admission process will be the same as last year,” he told bdnews24.com on Wednesday after the government published the results of the Higher Secondary Certificate or HSC tests.
Students with a combined GPA of 9 in the Secondary School Certificate or SSC and HSC exams will be eligible to take the entrance tests.
The admission will be made centrally, Dr Abul Bashar said.
Bangladesh has 37 government medical colleges with 4,350 seats. The 72 private medical colleges in the country have 6,489 seats.
As many as 139,742 students took the admission tests last year, meaning there were 13 candidates for each seat.
Let’s compare and contrast two Globe editorials on public school admissions — one from last week about the state’s voc-tech schools (“Mass. needs more voc-tech schools — and a fairer way for students to get into them,” Feb. 8) and one from 2021 about Boston Public Schools’ test school admissions debate. For almost every sentence of last week’s editorial, one could substitute “vocational schools” with “exam schools.” Both lament public schools that cherry-pick their students, resulting in admissions of greater proportions of white students and economically advantaged students than their applicants. Both call for expanding access to these public schools in high demand by creating more of them so that, as the test school editorial put it, “all have a chance to maximize their potential.” Both argue for reform to inequitable admissions policies.
That’s where the parallels end. Last week’s editorial, rightly so, has a tone of outrage and suggests a lottery as the obvious way of “doing the right thing.” The test school one gingerly suggests a more incremental approach, in which it’s OK for test schools to cherry-pick the top 20 percent and keep an test rather than to use a lottery, which “would make admission feel beyond the control of the individual student.”
Both types of schools should have equitable, lottery-based admissions for any students who desire the type of education they offer. Neither should use admissions tests. Research shows that how students perform on standardized tests better reflects their parents’ income and education levels than their academic aptitude. If some admitted students need support to tackle the curriculum, the school should provide resources such as summer boot camps, academic advisers, and affinity study groups.
Why does the Globe think students from historically marginalized groups deserve an equal shot at vocational schools but not at test schools?
Rosann Tung
Boston
After a lengthy debate, the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates voted down a resolution that would have eliminated the standardized admission test requirement for ABA-accredited law schools.
Resolution 300 failed by voice vote Monday at the policymaking body’s midyear meeting in New Orleans.
Board exams are a crucial part of every student's academic journey, but they can also be one of the most stressful and anxiety-inducing experiences. The pressure to perform well, coupled with the fear of failure, can leave students feeling overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. Popularly known as ‘brain fog’, this dreaded blank state of mind impacts many students making them feel confused, forgetful and dizzy during exams. Fortunately, there are simple and effective ways to overcome this mental fog and boost your focus and clarity during exams. By adopting some techniques, you can stay calm, centred, and focused during your exams, and increase your chances of achieving the success you deserve. (Also read: Yoga for students: 7 best exercises to tackle test stress)
Talking to HT Lifestyle, Manan Khurma, Founder and Chairman, Cuemath, shared some useful tips for the student to overcome brain fog and perform their best during board exams.
1. Prioritise between easy and weak concepts: While preparing for the exam, students should categorise their chapters into easy, moderate, and difficult groups to efficiently manage their study time. Similarly, while taking the examination, evaluate the question paper to mark or attempt familiar questions first, subsequently attempting moderate and difficult questions. This strategy will help in remembering key concepts and will maximise chances of covering a large part of the examination with ease.
2. Avoid rote memorization and try to understand the concepts: Students often learn formulas or question solutions before the test to Improve their scores. Hours are spent mugging up concepts and formulas right before the exam. This is not only confusing but can result in brain fog. Try to avoid rote memorization - instead dedicate time to understanding concepts and practise enough questions. Always try to focus on the ‘why’ behind the concepts and confidently apply the same to solve questions during practice and the actual examination.
3. Practise mock papers to Improve your performance: Here’s a key to ace your test - follow LPAR which is Learning, Practice, Assessment and Revision. Solve enough previous year’s question papers to become familiar with the test pattern, and avoid any surprises, especially for subjects like trigonometry, geometry, calculus, statistics and probability. It is important to revisit incorrect and difficult questions and revise concepts if required. In addition, you can create a formula sheet for a quick glance and a revision plan to keep you on track.
4. test mindset and time management: The aim is to attempt maximum questions correctly in three hours - how does one do that? I have observed students who time themselves while taking at least 2-3 mock tests, usually perform better on the examination day. Creating examination conditions allows us to understand the required test mindset to Improve efficiency, and manage time to navigate between tough and easier sections.
5. Treat rounding and units with caution: It is a good practice to go back to the question to make sure what you’ve put down matches what was asked. Whether you are calculating time, distance, speed, dollar amount, or anything else, tell the marker so. Keep your units in your calculations - time dedicated to writing “cm ” on every line will be worth the mark you avoid losing when it’s included in your answer.
6. Take breaks to boost and refresh your memory: Take short breaks in between long study hours to walk around, stretch, listen to music or take a nap. I used to play the guitar - I still enjoy the music, it helps me manage stress and lets my creativity take a walk. Also, avoid pulling an all-nighter before the exams as lack of sleep may result in brain fog.
A night before the exam, hit the bed on time - get at least 8 hours of sleep. Finally, on the examination day don’t forget to carry your pencil box, water bottle, and chocolate along with your admit card. Reach the examination centre well on time with a positive mindset to make the most of the 3 hours!
Feb 6 (Reuters) - A bid to end the American Bar Association's longstanding requirement that law schools use the LSAT or other standardized test in admissions has failed for a second time in six years.
The ABA's policy making body on Monday rejected a proposed change to its accreditation standards that would allow law schools to go "test optional" in 2025, following more than an hour of debate at the organization's midyear meeting in New Orleans.
The controversial proposal has divided the legal academy and the ABA itself, with law student diversity emerging as the primary point of contention.
Opponents warned that eliminating the LSAT requirement would make admissions offices more dependent on subjective measures such as the prestige of an applicant’s college, which they say could disadvantage minority applicants.
Those who wanted the rule removed argued that the LSAT is a barrier for minority would-be lawyers because on average they score below white test takers, and because law schools rely too heavily on those scores. A 2019 study found the average score for Black LSAT takers was 142, compared to 153 for white and Asian test takers.
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The Law School Admission Council, which produces and administers the LSAT, lobbied against eliminating the testing requirement, arguing it helps aspiring lawyers assess their ability to succeed in law school before they pursue a costly degree. Most of the nonprofit Council's annual revenue comes from fees associated with the LSAT and law school applications.
"The [House of Delegates] vote will ensure that we have additional time for research into the actual impact of test-optional policies on students and diversity," LSAC president Kellye Testy said in a statement Monday.
The ABA’s Council of Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which handles law school accreditation, has been pushing to eliminate its LSAT requirement since 2017. In November it approved dropping the LSAT requirement, noting that no other professional school accreditor requires an admissions test. That left approval by the House of Delegates as the final step.
A similar proposal fell apart minutes before it was to be considered by the house in 2018, amid opposition from the Law School Admission Council and diversity advocates.
Monday's vote may not represent the end of the road for the test optional camp, however. ABA rules allow the House of Delegates to reject changes to the accreditation standards twice. After that, the legal education council may push the changes through without the house's approval.
Read more:
ABA votes to end law schools' LSAT requirement, but not until 2025
Proposal to axe LSAT requirement spurs debate over test’s effects on diversity
Reporting by Karen Sloan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The overwhelming majority of colleges and universities in the United States are still not requiring students to submit SAT or ACT scores, continuing a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to FairTest, an anti-standardized test advocacy group that tracks the number of colleges requiring test scores for admission, 1,075, or 47%, of the nation's 2,278 bachelor's degree-granting institutions had moved to a so-called test-optional admissions application prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number that has now ballooned to 1,839, or nearly 81% of all colleges and universities.
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION HOUSE OF DELEGATES REJECTS BID TO ELIMINATE LSAT
Following the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, the College Board, which administers the SAT, canceled a number of testing dates. As a result, an additional 625 schools did not require fall 2020 applicants to submit test scores. However, most schools with competitive admissions were no longer accepting applications by the time the pandemic lockdowns hit in March 2020, FairTest told the Washington Examiner.
For the fall of 2021, 1,775 colleges moved to test-optional admissions, a number that jumped to 1,835 in 2022 and 1,839 for the fall of 2023, even as the pandemic began to recede and SAT testing schedules resumed as normal. Currently, FairTest says 1,460 institutions have moved permanently to test-optional admissions.
"The College Board and the SAT were founded to increase access to college and that remains our core mission," the College Board told the Washington Examiner in a statement. "During the pandemic, colleges introduced more flexibility and choice into the admissions process. Some students may decide their application is stronger without test scores, while others will benefit from sending them. In fact, in the class of 2022, nearly 1.3 million U.S. students had SAT scores that affirmed or exceeded their high school GPA. That means that their SAT scores were a point of strength on their college applications."
Jeremy Tate, the founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test, an alternative college entrance exam, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that while 80% of colleges are still operating on test-optional admissions, he expects a number of colleges to return to the old format of requiring standardized test scores.
"It has gone as far as it's going to go," Tate said of the move toward test-optional admissions. "Now, there is a very slow moving back, but it will never go back to what it was."
Part of why Tate doesn't expect to see a dash to return to standardized test evaluations is that the SAT and the ACT have been hit with accusations that the tests perpetuate systemic racism because certain racial minorities and students from lower income backgrounds tend to have lower test scores.
"There's a war on merit," Tate said. "Mainstream K-12 schools, instead of doing serious reading, writing, and arithmetic, have been doing a lot of political activism, and that's being reflected in test scores. ... And so what do you do? You blame the test as racist."
FairTest describes its mission as "eliminating the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests, and preventing their damage to the quality of education."
But the College Board says the SAT helps schools achieve their diversity goals.
"To consider every student fairly, colleges look at much more than grades," the College Board said. "The SAT is widely available to millions of students to help them stand out on their application — and more students are taking it for free in their school during the school day. Evidence shows that when colleges consider SAT scores in the context of where students live and go to school ... the SAT helps increase diversity."
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Tate theorized that the movement away from standardized testing in higher education could also be a reaction to previous overemphasis on test scores.
"When I graduated high school in 2000, it was almost like your SAT score was branded on your forehead," he said. "Now, we went to an opposite extreme of 'The test doesn't matter at all.' The logical, sane position is, 'OK, a test is a helpful snapshot into where a student is at in some key academic areas at a given moment in time.' To make it anything more than that is not only unhelpful, but to just totally throw it out as well is not really helpful either."
