Interesting Debate - Should Law Admissions Just Look at GPA/LSAT?
Interesting talk today with some higherups at the Law School. I'll keep their names out of it, but the general idea was whether Stanford's policy of placing significant weight on recommendations and personal statement at the expense of LSAT/GPA in fact generates the desired more interesting student body. It is easy to see the logic of the policy - more interesting students should tend to have more interesting recs/statements. As Stanford wants a more "interesting" student body than a school like NYU or Harvard, it should look more closely at those elements of the application.

But are those elements of the application a valid proxy for interesting students? Or are they just a proxy for students who brown nose their professors and game the admissions system? If its the former, the policy is defensible, if its the later, Stanford would be better off just admitting students on the basis of GPA/LSAT.