What's Going On in the Admissions Cycle Right Now?
As we approach second commitment deadlines at many law schools, AOs continue to assess how their classes are filling up and what more is needed to reach their goals. Several are already beginning outreach to their waitlists, and that “summer melt” will continue to trickle through to August at many institutions.
FAQs from Law School Applicants
Have you been called for an interview as a waitlisted candidate? While you can anticipate questions about your level of commitment in attending, this module can give you a sense of what a particular school may also ask/prioritize.
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Discussion
Are you currently waitlisted and did you receive a communication that a law school’s entering class is full? Let’s talk about summer melt.
Now through August is the time for “summer melt,” where waitlisted candidates are offered admission to higher-ranked schools and subsequently withdraw from a school they’ve already committed to attend. When T14 schools admit candidates from their waitlists, it causes a ripple effect that dominoes its way through the waitlists of schools across the country. If one school needs to pull from their waitlist, other schools within that school’s periphery are likely to experience losses that will then move them to pull from their waitlists. Committed students melt away as they accept offers elsewhere.
The gaps created in the incoming class are typically filled by waitlisted candidates (unless that school has not completed review of their applicant pool), and this can happen anytime throughout the late spring and summer months. If you’re on the waitlist, it’s a good practice to continue to check your email and your spam folder. Continue to keep space available for voicemail messages. Continue to keep admissions offices updated should your contact information change. Should you receive the call and be unavailable, you want to make sure that AOs are able to adequately reach you.
Several schools have made communications recently that their incoming class is currently full or close to full. Penn sent a communication that they don’t anticipate extending many more offers. Michigan anticipates making a small handful of offers. Others are interviewing folks on their waitlist. It’s important to remember that these schools are providing a snapshot of where they currently stand, and all of this is subject to change.
Stanford appears to still be communicating decisions to their initial applicant pool, and Harvard often pulls from their waitlist around this time of year, which creates more melt—this could cause schools in the T14 to make a few additional decisions and schools further out from the T14 will brace for the melt to reach them as well.
So what do these full communications really mean? There are several possibilities:
- The school may not just be full—they could be overenrolled to the point of having a capacity issue. This happens from time to time—a higher number of candidates commit during deposit deadlines than anticipated, and now the admissions team has to wait for a number of candidates to withdraw before they can even consider anyone on the waitlist. Sometimes, schools in this situation will encourage deferment to the subsequent year, which may be accompanied with an offer to allow scholarships to defer as well.
- The school’s goals have changed and they are aiming for a smaller incoming class than they originally planned. Throughout the admissions cycle, goals set forth by the law school dean and larger university are subject to change. Admissions provides periodic reports to the dean so that they have a sense of how the incoming class is taking shape, and having a smaller incoming class is sometimes a strategic decision that can positively affect rankings over time. I’d say this isn’t as frequent a reason to abstain from the waitlist, but it does happen.
- The school sends the communication to incentivize candidates who aren’t considering the school as their top choice to withdraw. The most committed will often hang on to the very end, when the waitlist is officially released. Schools find different ways to try to gain this information. For instance, at Georgetown, the school outright asks for a statement from the waitlisted candidate describing their level of interest in attending their institution.
- The school is being completely transparent with you and doesn’t want you to hold out and miss other great opportunities—they are full and (barring some substantial movement) they anticipate making very few waitlist decisions. Often, admissions teams are simply trying to help you anticipate what they believe is likely to happen and are trying to provide a current snapshot of their reality to anxious candidates.
Whatever the reason, continue to check for communications, send your periodic nudges reminding them of your continued interest and commitment to attend (periodic meaning maybe once per month), keep your voicemail and inbox clear, and don’t forget to check your spam folder!
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