As some tulips and daffodils begin to appear in everyone’s gardens, law school admissions officers continue to sprint through their busiest and most crucial time of year. Since this is the week when many colleges and universities have their spring break, it also reminds us that the cruelest words spoken by any law student to any admissions officer are, “So, where are you going for break?”
While AdComms do their best to read files, round up emergency subs for admissions committees (since there’s always that one faculty member who forgot to inform the rest of the committee about their plans to travel abroad for a conference), finalize the lunch menu for their upcoming admitted student visit day, and—maybe if they’re feeling decadently sinful—sleep, let’s take a look at various news and updates from around the world of law school admissions.
National App Figures and LSAT Registrations
Mid-March is a key time for app figures because March 15th is among the most common deadlines. As such, this is the last B-I-G week for applications as students realize that March 15th arrived on their calendars much earlier than they were expecting. Per LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report, numbers remain relatively on track. Last week, applicants were up 5.0% and applications were up 1.4%. This week’s numbers haven’t shifted all that much.
The report also indicates that 80% of the final applicant count and 85% of the final application count had been received by this date last year. We weren’t kidding when we said that there should be a final rush of applications this coming week!
Meanwhile, the LSAT distribution of applicants has also remained steady both in accumulated test bands:
as well as at individual scores:
Meanwhile, the most important information we can glean from LSAC’s Test Registrants and Test Takers report is less about this year and more about next year. February LSAT results continue to roll in and the percentage of repeat test takers is still higher than in past cycles:
But that should start to flip with the April exam, for which registration is currently up 81% versus last year.
For this year’s applicants, the April LSAT is largely irrelevant. The results of that test may be useful for some candidates on waitlists and for other candidates applying to schools with application deadlines in May and beyond.
On the other hand, this could be a big deal for students applying next year. The April LSAT is usually the first test when we see the percentage of first-time test takers flip back over 50%. While acknowledging that a healthy percentage of April registrants will reschedule before test day (i.e., the percentage increase of registrants won’t be 81% on test day!), this seems to indicate that next year’s applicant pool could be a bit more competitive than this year’s.
US News Update
In last week’s blog, we mentioned that we had been dutifully haranguing our AdComm friends for any updates of when this year’s US News & World Report (USNWR) rankings would drop. As the saying goes: ask, and ask, and ask, and—at some point—you shall receive!
USNWR has told law schools that they will receive information regarding their ranking during the week of March 18. USNWR provides this information to schools before publication partly as a professional courtesy, partly as a way to double-check any mistakes.
Given this timeline and as long as everything goes smoothly (unlike last year…), this could mean that we see the rankings just before deposit deadlines hit in early April.
Decision Updates
As some of our friends on Reddit continue to track, there are still a lot of applications floating around admissions offices awaiting decisions. We’ll still see some admit waves, like what Columbia, Boston University, and Ohio State produced in the past few days. But we’re also going to see schools—like Berkeley—doing their best impression of Queen’s “Hammer to Fall” music video:
Once the smoke cleared, here are the decisions that Berkeley rendered on March 8th per lawschooldata.org:
7Sage Events and Blogs
Our next marquee admissions event will be on March 14 at 8 PM Eastern. Our Tajira McCoy and Sam Riley will be chatting with David Kirschner, who is the Associate Dean of Admissions at USC Gould Law. The topic du jour will be the importance of campus visits and how to get ready for admitted student events. You can register here. And also be sure to check out their latest “Dear AO” column!
And for our audience who read the section about the April LSAT, are applying next year, and thought “Dang, that’s me!” you definitely want to check out the blog posts written by our Ethan Madore and Lulu Dewey that go through a lot of introductory matters related to the law school admissions process. Lulu’s most recent post covers medians and rankings—a timely subject given the imminent arrival of updates from USNWR.