Testing 1-2-3

Somebody at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) doesn't want anyone to apply to law school this year.

In October, ETS failed to send out admissions tickets to its popular Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). And as of last week, the service had yet to send out those grade and LSAT score summaries it usually starts mailing in October to American law schools that depend on the reports for evaluating applicants. The delays have slowed admissions work throughout the country.

Molly Geraghty, assistant dean for admissions at the Law School, said last week the delay will prevent the Law School from sending out admissions decisions to the 10 per cent of the applicant pool whose files are otherwise complete. She said she expects to start sending out decisions in January, a month after the usual date.

At Yale, which, unlike Harvard, doesn't use rolling admissions, James A. Thomas, assistant dean for admissions and student affairs, said the delay has not created any serious problems yet.

Robert Hendon, program director at ETS, said both the problems with the LSAT tickets and the grade and score summaries arose because ETS is switching computer systems.

He added that ETS hopes to start sending out the summaries next week.

"No matter how you look at it, it's going to be a mess and everybody is going to be late," Thomas said.

"Apparently the company that purported to be able to handle the transfer hasn't," he added.

Harvey Dubner, president of Dubner Computer Systems, the company ETS hired to switch computers, said his company expected to finish by July, but encountered "more bugs than we expected. Dubner's company also designed New Jersey's "Pick-Three" lottery.