As summer continues accordingly and admissions officers keep refreshing their browsers to see the updates from the Supreme Court (a topic that we will likely discuss in this space next week), they also turn their eyes towards the upcoming recruitment cycle. Planning for the year requires the coordination of many moving parts. Some are based on more local considerations unique to each law school. For example, a school with a big football program may wish to avoid scheduling a prospective student open house on the Friday before a big rivalry game—visiting students would simply have nowhere to park! Other considerations are far more national. To that end, let’s take a few minutes today to discuss how law school AdComms use data from LSAC to create enrollment targets for the coming year.
We discussed a few weeks ago how LSAC publishes a great wealth of data and research. Some of this information—like the Overlap Report—is available only to law schools. The majority, however, is accessible to everyone via the Data Library. Of particular note for today’s discussion are LSAT Registrant and Test Taker Volumes (aka LSAT Volumes) and Current Volume Summaries reports.
Logic—as well as the Historical Test Taker, Applicant, and Matriculant Report—dictates that the most accurate predictor of next year’s applicants is this year’s LSAT takers. To that end, the LSAT Volumes report gives AdComms a fairly comprehensive sense of what to expect. We can see not only how many students took the exam but how many reportable scores were produced (since not everyone keeps their score) and the percentage of test takers who were “first timers.” That last note is important to consider because it points to a general pattern—the spring and summer LSATs generally skew towards first timers (i.e., students who are most likely taking the exam in order to apply during the upcoming cycle) while the fall and winter administrations shift towards repeat test takers (i.e., students who may have already applied and are trying to boost their score).
Running this report on June 27 produced the following table:
A few things would stand out from the AdComm perspective:
- At a macro level, LSAT registrations were stable during the past year when compared to 2021–2022.
- While we still await information from the June 2023 test date, it seems reasonable to assume that test takers and reportable scores will also stay reasonably stable from June 2022.
- When looking at the total numbers in the bottom row, we see a little dip in the percentage of first timers. Perhaps that means that more students re-took the LSAT this year in order to boost their scores and be more competitive for the 2022–2023 admissions cycle … but we also know that the June LSAT tends to skew heavily towards first timers, so it’s likely that this is all going to even out once the data for June is included.
This is all a fancy way of saying it’s static. It’s reasonable to look at this data and conclude that application totals for the coming year will probably be in line with this past cycle.
But just because applications are likely to remain at the same level doesn’t inherently mean it will be as competitive of an admissions cycle. Just how good are those apps actually going to be? This is where the Current Volume Summaries reports can come into play. The Current Volume Summaries reports are data-rich and dynamic tools that can give insights into lots of different questions for the present admissions cycle—where are applicants coming from, where are they applying, what are the race/gender breakdowns of the applicants, etc. There are also two versions of the report—the original and new formats. While the information is largely the same, there are some differences in format and functionality. For example, the original format shows the breakdown of applicants and applications by LSAT score; the new format only shows this information by bands of five points. The original format also allows users to adjust the date range of the report and see how application trends shifted over various months. Meanwhile, the new format allows for more dynamic interactions (users can click on a US state or Canadian province for specific information about applicants or applications from that particular location) and also gives five-year composite information. Both have utility for planning purposes. For instance, here’s the original format’s breakdown of applicant LSATs from this past cycle.
Interestingly, applicants with reportable LSAT scores were down 3.6% … but 170+ scores actually went up a little bit. Let’s file that away and now turn to the five-year composite data from the new format:
Right away, we can see that applicant numbers in 2023 actually went back down to pre-pandemic levels … but there are far more applicants with 160+ scores and students are submitting more applications than four years ago.
Combining this with the LSAT Volumes report, a law school AdComm could reasonably tell their dean:
- LSAT test takers appear to be in line with last year. That would seem to indicate that applications for this coming year will be on par with last year.
- Looking at the longer trends, students are applying to more schools now than they did a few years ago.
- Further, a greater percentage of those students are scoring in the highest LSAT bands.
Putting this all in a different way, schools who are targeting an LSAT median of a 160 can feel confident in that goal. Schools with target medians in the upper 160s and 170s are still living in a Golden Age of high scores. Nothing in this data would seem to indicate to an AdComm that they should start warning law school leadership that they may need to lower their statistical sights for the coming year (unless a school wanted to increase their enrollment numbers … which is a discussion for another time!).
So, as a student looking to apply to law schools this coming year, how can you utilize this information? Just as an AdComm can look at the data and develop an admissions strategy that makes sense for their school, you can do the same for your application process. Based on the data above, it seems reasonable to conclude that this upcoming cycle is going to be as competitive as the last one. Although we won’t have any LSAT/GPA stats on this year’s enrolling groups until schools publish class profiles in August and September, everyone’s info on lawschooldata makes it appear that schools were largely attempting to hold steady at last year’s medians. You can then use those assumptions—“as competitive as last year” and “schools likely holding their stats”—as the statistical foundation for creating your school list for this coming cycle. Maybe you add a few more target and safety schools to your app list just to be on the safe side. If you feel like you could bump your LSAT score another point or two, maybe you consider retaking the August or September test. If you’ve honed in on your priority school and they offer an Early Decision path, give it a look and consider scheduling a consultation to talk it over with one of our admissions consultants. Work hard on your application documents so that you can target submitting apps before October. Although the summer is young, it’s never too early to start strategizing for the upcoming cycle!