What’s Going On in the Admissions Cycle Right Now?
As everyone’s enjoyment of blossoming trees and flowers is balanced by a hurricane of pollen, admissions officers are spending this week caring greatly about a different kind of fine particle matter—the dust that is continuing to settle from the deposit deadlines that just passed. Students who are on the waitlist or who received a “hold tight” email are eagerly waiting for any updates on possible offers of admission and can often be surprised at how long it can take for AdComms to start making moves. So let’s spend a little time this week discussing the variety of situations that admissions officers are juggling at the moment that can make it challenging for them to definitively answer the seemingly simple question “… um, so are you going to admit anyone else…?”
As AdComms look at their roster of deposited students after the deposit deadline, they know that there’s a core of students in that roster who will be at the first day of orientation in the fall. But AdComms also understand that there’s going to be some shifting around the margins of that group. The problem is that no one knows who exactly those students will be. Will it be your high-LSAT students? Maybe a chunk of your out-of-state students who are bringing in higher tuition? To borrow a phrase, AdComms have known unknowns and unknown unknowns at this stage.
The Known Knowns – Your solid deposits.
Let’s start with the easiest group! These are the students that you feel completely certain are going to be there at orientation short of a significant issue arising. This could include your:
Early decision admits. A typical condition of an early decision admit offer is to ask the student to withdraw all pending apps to other law schools.
Deferrals from last year. Ditto the above note. Asking deferred students not to apply to other law schools is a normal request.
Your fish in a barrel. These students represent your school’s core demographic—they make sense for you and you make sense for them. It’s a beautifully-mutually-beneficially symbiotic relationship! Examples would include in-state students, students whose stats are right around your usual medians, students who are alums of your university (since alums usually have warm, fuzzy feelings for their alma maters), and students who share some other demographic trait that makes sense for you (e.g., the student who is of the same faith as a religiously affiliated school). As an AdComm, you can point to this roster and say, “These are our people.” You may lose a few of them to waitlist activity at other schools or to some sort of emergency situation down the road, but it won’t be more than a handful.
The Known Unknowns – The students who have identified themselves as wildcards.
Either through email or conversation, these are the students who you know would like to deposit at your school … there’s just something preventing them from depositing right now. But the key is that you can easily identify them as a group. This can include:
Late admits. Perhaps you’re a school with a deposit deadline of April 15. While you’d ideally like to have all your initial offers of admission made by early March, you sometimes read a few files from late applicants and KNOW that you have to extend an offer to this student. But because they were admitted later in the process, it’s only fair to give them an additional week or two to do their research and make up their mind.
Deposit deadline extensions. Perhaps a student received a late offer from their other top-choice school. Maybe a last-minute personal or family issue arose and they wanted to resolve that before depositing at your school. Or it could be that the student is married, their spouse is interviewing for a job in your city, and they should hear back about that offer in another week or two. Regardless, these students specifically reached out to you to ask for a little more time and you granted it to them.
The Unknown Unknowns – The students who haven’t identified themselves, but you’re a bit suspicious of them.
These are the flight risks. They are the evil twins of the solid deposits noted above. Whereas you absolutely understand why the solid deposit is coming to your school, you have NO IDEA why this student has deposited at your school. They may be:
Statistical Misfits. Sure, you will enroll some students who are above both your LSAT and GPA medians. Those students tend to make sense for you because maybe they’re just a smidge over on both, maybe they’re an undergrad alum, and/or maybe they have ties to your main employment market. But what about the student who is WAY over the targets and has NO discernible ties to your school? This leads into the….
Profile Misfits. Sure, you can understand why the in-state student with big stats has deposited at your school. But this other student is out-of-state, has no ties to your school, didn’t submit a “Why School X” statement in their application, never visited your campus or attended any of your online sessions for admitted students—why did they deposit? While you hope the answer is something along the lines of “Perhaps it’s due to our office’s brilliant recruitment methods!”, the real answer is probably more along the lines of “We’re the backup choice and they’re still waiting to hear from their preferred school about admission and/or scholarship.” This student will be g-o-n-e as soon as that other school comes through for them.
The majority of “dust settling” happens by May 1st. That other law school finally comes through with their admission and/or scholarship offer. The admitted student’s spouse now has a few good leads on jobs in your market and they feel comfortable depositing at your school. One of the Profile Misfits contacts your office to schedule a tour and they mention that their parents are alums and will also be visiting (and now it makes some sense why this student applied to your school in the first place!). But one key matter to consider as you read up on all of this is that AdComms can’t really do anything about this—this is all “reactive” rather than “proactive.” They have to let the dust settle before they get out their Swiffers.
So what can you do about all of this? A few things, but it depends on if you are the dust or not.
You’re “the dust” if you read one of the descriptions above and said, “You got me. I am a proud Statistical Misfit and I only deposited at this school where I’m 10 points over the LSAT median because I’m still waiting on my scholarship reconsideration from my top-choice school … but I’m definitely going to the top choice even if they don’t give me more money.” In this case, be mindful that other students are waiting for you to make a move. It’s okay for you to keep your interests as a top priority, but remember that we’re all connected in the Admissions Circle of Life. When you cancel your deposit at a school during this time of year, you may very well be opening up a spot for someone from the waitlist.
If you’re that person who is hoping for the Statistical Misfits to just get moving already and open up a seat from the waitlist, now is the best time to prepare your letters of continued interest. You can read up about LOCIs on the 7Sage Admissions Course. Schools are most likely to go to their waitlists—if they need to go to them at all—during May, so get your ducks in a row now. We’ll touch more on this subject in next week’s digest!