Both of you are largely correct. Let's keep two things separate. The first is Rutgers-Newark Law's practice of not counting minority admits as admits for USNR rankings. USNR caught up with that scheme after the first year that R-LNewark did it. So it hasn't been in force for a long time. The second is the program of counting racial diversity as a plus in the admissions process. Rutgers-Camden Law had that policy too -- every law school (and indeed virtually every institution of higher learning) does the same -- and it continues in operation along with a Minority Students Program that gives academic and other assistance. The latter program is not confined to students of color; there are white students in it too who were admitted as poor or as diverse for other reasons. I think it is fair to say that the merged school puts less emphasis on racial minority status than Rutgers-Newark did when it was on its own.
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- Thread starter Panthergrowl13
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think the program basically offered counting any kind of unique experience (not sure if it explicitly said race, but definitely overcoming disadvantages) over using GPA and LSAT as the primary method of admission. To my knowledge RU-N was the only law school that offered such a track and it was felt, I think accurately, that this lowered the LSAT and GPA averages which hurt in the rankings.
Does the merged law school still use this program?
The over arching issue here, IMO, is that a lot of other local peer schools (Temple, SHU, Brooklyn, Cardozo, SJU) were throwing money at students to get highly qualified students which raised their numbers while RU was going in the opposite direction. Of course, we all know RU doesn't have money to throw around but this alternative track kind of highlighted the issue. When I applied, it would have been much cheaper for me to attend any of the above than either RU.
Your first paragraph is a very kind description of what Newark Law was doing. It is more like what is being now than being done then. Every law school does this sort of thing, and so all law school GPA/LSAT numbers are affected -- although not all equally, because a 2nd tier law school will end up admitting weaker students than a 1st tier law school.
It has never been suggested to me that the minority admit program affects the amount of money available for merit scholarships. The latter is an issue having to do with the extent of alumni and university support. Scholarship money from these sources is going up at Rutgers, but still remains inadequate. If you are a South Jersey student with good LSATs, Temple will cut your tuition below Rutgers Law levels. As an admissions officer once said to me, "we just can't compete." I think this remains the case now.
Right- I was referring to the program not denting money, but rather the mentality- RU was going to help the disadvantaged, which is admirable, but not realistic in the rat race of law school rankings- because other schools used money to attract higher LSAT and GPA.
It looks like based on the rankings that this transition is helping. Of course, money would help even more.
To the best of my knowledge, we are doing what virtually every other law school is doing by using most scholarship money for merit candidates and some for disadvantaged students. So we weren't and aren't taking a hit there. The hit we're taking is that our pot of scholarship money is small. The law school is not one of Rutgers' higher priorities -- you'd hardly read a word about it in the last strategic plan. This may be in part because Barchi is from the medical profession, which has little use for lawyers. In addition, neither Newark's or Camden's law programs have a very high number of alums who grow misty-eyed when thinking about their alma mater.
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