With May on the horizon, many law school admissions officers continue to be in a holding pattern. As we discussed last week, most schools’ deposit deadlines have passed. While this may provide clarity to some AdComms regarding whether or not to begin pursuing waitlist admission, other schools will hold tight on any waitlist activity until the T14s’ deposit deadline (April 30 / May 1) passes. So while the rest of their school community whips around with gale-force winds—Final exams on the horizon! Course registration is here! Will we need to rent more chairs for our graduation ceremony?—AdComms are largely sitting in the eye of the storm. With many offices holding in limbo, let’s take quick stock of a few matters of interest for both our grizzled veterans of the 2023–2024 cycle and the fresh-faced newbies looking ahead to applying in the 2024–2025 cycle.

Decisions Still Pending

We received a final update this past weekend from our favorite r/LSA series! While acknowledging the typical caveats regarding information from lawschooldata.org’s charts (i.e., the data is all self-reported, not every lsd.law user may update their information for all schools, etc.), the provided heat chart does provide a compelling suggestion that a few schools still have a number of decisions pending.

For context, this is fairly typical of Stanford, Columbia, and NYU. All three schools tend to move a little slower in evaluating applications and providing decisions. On the other hand, seeing so many pending decisions at schools like Southern Cal and Notre Dame is a little different, as is the fact that schools like Northwestern and Fordham still have a great deal of applicants from January who are awaiting decisions. It is reasonable to expect that schools will start issuing decisions much more quickly now that their deposit deadlines have passed.

Waitlist Season Afoot?

And tied in with any discussion of pending decisions is one regarding possible waitlist activity. The two often go hand in hand. For example, both Fordham and Notre Dame passed their initial deposit deadlines. They have hard numbers right now regarding their deposits, scholarship outlay, stats, and demographics. If either school has available seats, they know they can fill those seats with either students who still have pending apps or students who are on the waitlist—both pools are available to dip into. In the case of ND, let’s scroll down to the “School applicants” section of their lsd.law chart, sort by “Decision Date,” and take a look:

Notre Dame’s deposit deadline was April 15. Immediately afterwards, they admitted a few students with 3.86+ GPAs. They also denied admission to students with GPAs below that level and students who had LSATs below NDLS’s most recent median of a 169. This seems to indicate that:

  • Notre Dame still has to fill some seats, and
  • They currently feel okay about their LSAT median and are trying to stabilize their GPA.

So if you’re a Notre Dame applicant with a 3.86+ GPA and are currently awaiting a decision, there seems to be a fighting chance for you.

Fordham’s chart shows similar information but with a minor twist:

Similar to Notre Dame, Fordham has also admitted a few students after their April 15th deposit deadline. The twists are twofold:

  • Fordham has admitted students with high GPAs, high LSATs, or both, and
  • They have admitted one student who was previously on the waitlist (Congrats to lsd.law user UnkemptTellingCabbage!).

This seems to indicate that Fordham not only has seats available, they know that they need to stabilize both of their main counting stats, and they’re willing to start dipping into the waitlist in order to do so.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on other schools as April showers transition to May flowers (which is just a more polite way of saying, “Once the T14 deposit deadline passes!”).

June LSAT Registrations

And now let’s give a little something for the newbies out there! Last week, registrations for the June LSAT were at a little over 22,000. Two weeks prior, registrations were at a little over 15,000. Today—the deadline for registering for the June test—registrations are over 31,000 per LSAC’s LSAT Registrant and Test Taker Volumes report:

Oh, apologies, here are the actual numbers:

Goodness!

While acknowledging that a number of students will cancel their registration in the coming months, that’s still a huge number. To put matters into a little perspective, the LSAT Registrant and Test Taker Volumes also provides a table of information regarding test-taking numbers from the past eleven years:

The current June LSAT registration numbers are significantly higher than the test-taking numbers for:

  • The June 2021 LSAT in the midst of the “everyone is taking standardized tests because of COVID” era, and
  • The June tests from 2013 to 2018, which was when the LSAT was only offered four times per year (and only in person!).

So for the newbies—early signs are that it’s going to be a competitive year out there.

And for any 2023–2024 applicants considering retesting and reapplying (otherwise known as “R&R”) next year—heads up. It doesn’t look like things are going to be much easier next year. Be sure to take this into account when weighing your options!

7Sage Events

A reminder that the first episode of our new podcast—Next Stop: Law School—is available on our website and your favorite streaming platforms. Our next episode will drop on Monday the 29th and will discuss LOCIs as well as what to do in that period between taking the LSAT and—you know—actually getting your score back!