A variance is permission that the American Bar Association (ABA) gives to an ABA-accredited law school to use the JD-Next final exam to make admissions decisions for applicants who have not submitted either an LSAT or GRE score to the law school.

The ABA Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar commissioned a report that determined that the JD-Next exam is a valid and reliable admissions test as required by Standard 503. The ABA Council is now gathering comments on that report. This is the process they followed for evaluating the GRE.

The American Bar Association’s Section on Legal Education recently voted to stay the course, asking law schools to request a simple variance to use the JD-Next entrance examination in lieu of the LSAT or GRE for use in admissions decisions.

While the report conducted by their expert concluded that JD-Next is a valid and reliable predictor of law school success, that report also suggests additional research, including data collection, should continue. We agree and are looking forward to collecting even more robust validity and reliability research findings as thousands of new students go through our program this year.