Wes McMichael, a philosopher at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, writes:

As has often been discussed on your blog and elsewhere, one of the primary selling points for majoring in philosophy is LSAT scores. We constantly tout our students' ability to do exceedingly well on the exam and use this to persuade students to consider our field.

The LSAT data indicates that our majors fall behind physics majors and are either tied with, or slightly besting, economics majors on the test. Of course, the higher up the list, the stronger our argument.

A peculiarity of the LSAT classification, though, is that we are grouped with theology/religion majors. I worry that this grouping disadvantages us against physics/math and economics majors (our two closest rivals).

The GRE lists scores by intended majors and separates philosophy from religion. I'm assuming that the majority of students pursuing graduate studies in philosophy were philosophy majors and the majority pursuing religion were religion majors (though, the latter could very well be mistaken and still not affect my point). According to the latest data, students intending to study philosophy (who are presumably philosophy undergraduates) score 1st in verbal reasoning and analytic writing and 14th in quantitative reasoning. Those intending to study religion (and, presumably, religion undergraduates) score 3rd in verbal reasoning and analytic writing and 20th in quantitative reasoning.

The tests are, obviously, very different, but I can't help but think the differences in GRE scores would predict differences in LSAT scores, especially in terms of the six point difference in the quantitative reasoning section. That section more closely parallels the LSAT rankings (physics/math majors lead the way, with economics and engineering close behind in the GRE, and these are part of the top five in the LSAT scores). I think there is a case to be made that, by separating the philosophy/theology group, philosophy could break the tie with economics and close the gap with physics/math majors.