With the first wave of LSAC Forums hitting their schedules last week, law school admissions officers are spending this week … and next week … and the one after that …
in a loop of traveling to law fairs, attending law fairs, answering emails after they’re done with that day’s law fair, and then falling asleep to gear up for the next day. So as our road warrior friends figure out what day it is by the issue of USA Today hanging out in their hotel lobby, let’s take a quick lap around the world of law school admissions to catch up on our own headlines.
LSAT Registration Numbers
We just as easily could have framed our lede as “it’s LSAT season!” September LSAT results come back this week, the registration deadline for the November LSAT is right afterwards, and the October LSAT is next week—phew!
Our weekly check-in on the LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes gives us a peek at the various wheels that are in motion around the law school admissions world:
With the September LSAT, we’ll be most interested to see the percentage of first-time test takers. Our baseline is last September’s 53.7%. If we see a number at or above that figure, that would continue to indicate a likely uptick in applications this year. If that percentage goes down drastically, that could temper our predictions since the increased number of test takers would be driven by LSAT veterans.
With the October LSAT, we’ll be tracking the final number of test takers. Registrations had been steady for quite some time and even led us to wonder if the October LSAT would end up over 30,000 test takers. We’ve clearly dropped below that number! But it’s still possible that the October LSAT will have the largest number of test takers since the November 2020 test (27,201 students took that exam). That test happened in the teeth of the pandemic (when no one had anything better to do than study for the LSAT and work on the sourdough bread starter) and was a precursor to an app wave that hit during that cycle.
And speaking of November, the registration deadline for the November exam is on September 26. Registrations have increased by 37% in the past week, but the greatest surge typically occurs right before the deadline.
Admissions Decisions
Before we go too much deeper past this section’s headline, we just want to say clearly and loudly: “THERE’S NO NEWS HERE!” But we know that there are some students who are curious about decision timelines (and email us about it!), so we at least wanted to touch base here for our audience!
The news on admissions decisions is that there is no news! We noted in our post two weeks ago that a few schools tend to provide admissions decisions a bit earlier than others. That same cast of characters—UVA, Baylor, and Arizona State—are the only schools getting back in touch with admitted students at this stage in the process per lawschooldata.org. We’ll likely see a few more schools join this party as the calendar turns towards October, but the first big waves of admit packets really won’t start hitting everyone until November and December.
Additionally, we don’t have enough data yet from the decisions we’re seeing from this small sampling of schools to make any grander assumptions about the admissions outlook for the year.
Put another way, it’s still early out there! If you’re a student who has already submitted their applications, we’d advise finding a good use of your nervous energy instead of refreshing your status checkers every day to see if you have any news!
Recruitment Events
It will be another busy week for law fairs! Admissions officers will be making their way through the Deep South, the Upper South, and the Rust Belt!
- Events on Thursday the 26th include the Morehouse College Law Fair and Emory University Law Night.
- Friday the 27th has both the National HBCU Pre-Law Summit in Atlanta AND the Atlanta LSAC Forum. Fun fact—the Atlanta Forum is the only LSAC Forum held on a Friday. Why? Because of SEC football. Thank goodness that the Georgia-Alabama game is in Tuscaloosa on Friday instead of Athens!
But speaking of the Bulldogs
- Monday the 30th will see the University of Georgia Law School Fair, the Belmont University Law School Fair, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School Fair.
- Tuesday, October 1st has the University of Illinois Law Fair, the Vanderbilt University Law School Fair, and the Centre College Law School Fair.
- Wednesday the 2nd includes the Indiana University Law Day, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Law School Fair, the University of Kentucky Law School Fair, and the Transylvania University Law School Fair. Speaking of that last event, this is our annual plug to read about one of the craziest college stories ever involving a rare books library (which, we acknowledge, is an admittedly niche genre…).
- Thursday the 3rd is a far more quiet day! Just the University of Louisville Law School Fair.
- Friday the 4th has the Northern Kentucky University Law Fair, the Northern Illinois Grad and Professional School Fair, and the Claremont Colleges Law School Fair.
- And the week concludes with the LA Forum on Saturday the 5th.
7Sage Events
We’re continuing our series of weekly live classes on different components of the application process. With LSAT results coming back this week, we have two “What Does My Score Mean?” sessions on Wednesday and Friday. Next week will be our session on Financial Aid. Registration is free but required. You can check out our past sessions via our Class Library—just enter “Admissions” into the search bar.
You can also check out our admissions podcast on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts. We’ll have a new episode this coming Monday with a vibe check on the Duke Law experience from the student perspective.