Science says the egg. Boalt cares more about GPA on all its applicants, not just women. If women, as you suggest, get higher GPAs, then this would explain at least some of the differential. I wouldn’t be surprised if Boalt were one of the schools that practices gender AA, but I would like to be sure the position is evidence-based before I tell it to prospective law students.
As for a 2 point difference in LSAT causing a gender difference at UVa, the answer may actually be [url=<a href=“http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/research/all/tr/tr-12-03%5Dyes%5B/url”>http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/research/all/tr/tr-12-03]yes[/url]. Just as women tend to do better in terms of GPA, men tend to do better on the LSAT, by about 2 points. 2 points at the top end is worth quite a lot, and probably is enough to skew the gender numbers.
@HappyAlumnus:
“It’s odd to me that a law school would focus on a criterion that counts for 0.1 part of a ranking but disregard a criterion that counts for double, especially in a tough job market.”
It’s not that odd when you recognize a couple factors. First, employment happens 4 years from today but intake happens now. Especially in a tight economy with decreased applicants, schools cannot afford to sacrifice the certainties of today for the uncertainty of four years from now. Definitely not for the relatively low stakes of 0.1 vs. 0.2.
Second, employment is largely based on school name and 1L grades, with special recruiting for IP eligible students and no real attention to undergrad otherwise. You’re always going to get the same grade distribution (because that’s how a curve works), so there’s no reason to worry about placement. Placement is simply a function of the economy. Lots of demand means that firms will dip lower into the applicant pools, less demand means they won’t.
As for the IP people, there simply aren’t [url=<a href=“http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/02/the-curious-case-of-patent-jobs.html%5Denough%5B/url”>http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/02/the-curious-case-of-patent-jobs.html]enough[/url] to go around. Only 600 patent bar eligible students took the LSAT. Of those, some won’t go to law school, and many won’t score well enough to get into a decent school. IP firms will dip lower than most due to student rarity, but even they only dip so far.