With Thanksgiving in the past and the holidays quickly approaching, law school admissions officers continue one of their busiest work periods of the year. While there will still be applications to read in January (and it will seem at some moments like the applications will never end!), the period just before Christmas is a common time for schools to send out their first big wave of admit decisions. And even for those schools that have been making admit decisions, this is usually the moment when they need to start making some tough decisions regarding their broader strategy—given the big increase in national applications, do they want to reset their admissions goals? If they wait any longer, they may have admitted too many students to change tactics.

But while admissions officers are scrambling to review applications, let’s check in on what applicants have been up to in the past week, like, oh….

The November LSAT

When we checked in on matters last week, we were wondering if we were about to get hit by a wave of applications.

And the results thus far have been less….

and more

As we check in via LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report this week, we definitely have seen some action that resulted from the combined forces of “the November LSAT scores coming back” and “a holiday weekend to focus on submitting applications.”

Last week, applicants were up 23.5% and applications were up 33.4%. So—hey!—we were right … kinda, sorta!

What’s interesting is that adjusting the dates on the Current Volume Summaries report to last week lets us identify the wave in action. Here’s the info for November 26 (last Tuesday):

And then Wednesday the 27th when the November LSAT results were posted:

And then on the 28th, Thanksgiving Day:

And, finally, Friday the 29th:

There was the wave! Right there! And we lived to tell the tale!

But back to this week and the upcoming forecast for applications: it’s still looking robust even if the wave wasn’t as tsunami-riffic as we were fearing. Another 5,000 applicants threw their hats into the law school admissions ring this week. They’ve just submitted their first application or two, but more will be coming over the next few weeks. And on the horizon, we’re looking at the….

January LSAT

And that’s how life goes—once you’re done with one trend, you move on to the next one!

In last week’s check of LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report, we theorized that the January 2025 LSAT could break our yearlong hot streak of increased LSAT registrations. But checking on the numbers one day before the registration deadline, we may end up being wrong.

January registrations have increased by over 50% from last week, and the busiest registration day—i.e., the actual deadline—is about to happen. It looks like our streak is going to continue.

Admissions officers are also likely to track this information. What this is telling them is that:

  • There could be a big shift in the applicant pool on February 5th when the January LSATs come back. There’s the possibility of a late surge of applications and there are likely a number of applicants already in the pool who may change their statistical profile radically.
  • As such, it would be prudent for admissions officers to be cautious in making admissions decisions. The last thing an AdComm would want to do is admit so many students now that they’re locked in and can’t adjust things later if and when those January LSATs arrive.

The best way to see if this comes to pass is by continuing to track national decisions via websites like lawschooldata.org. That will give us the best insight on what path AdComms have decided to tread.

7Sage Events

After taking the week off for Thanksgiving, we’re back in action with our weekly Zoom classes on different components of a law school application. This Wednesday’s session will focus on “Why School X” statements while next week’s dives into Addenda. Registration is free but required. You can check out our past sessions via our Class Library—just enter “Admissions” into the search bar.

Our most recent episode of the admissions podcast focuses on one of the great mysteries of the law school admissions process—what happens to your application between the time you click “Submit” and the time your status checker says, “Decision Made”? Be sure to tune in on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts! Meanwhile, we’ll post a new episode on Monday featuring an edited version of our most recent law school dean’s roundtable.