Allowing the GRE exam as an alternative admissions test is not likely to affect law school applications dramatically, Dean Daniel Filler said in an article in the Boston Globe on March 21.

The article noted that Harvard Law School has announced a pilot program that will allow 2017 applicants to submit either the Graduate Record Exam or the Law School Admissions Test, the latter being a longstanding universal requirement for entry into law schools.

In so doing, Harvard joins the University of Arizona in permitting at least some applicants to gain admission by submitting scores from the GRE in place of the LSAT, a move designed to expand and diversify the pool of law school candidates in a challenging market.

“Ultimately, the fundamentals of what makes law school appealing are far more important than what the required test is,” Filler said. “So if we see an uptick in jobs in the field, that’s going to have a much more dramatic effect than adding a new test at the entry point.”

The article noted that the move towards permitting the GRE for law school admissions has sparked controversy.  The Law School Admissions Council last year threatened to expel Arizona from its ranks, but relented after more than 100 law school deans, including former Kline School of Law Dean Roger Dennis, urged the council to permit experimentation with admissions requirements.