With the calendar turning to the Ides of August, law school admissions officers are preparing for one of the most important moments of the entire recruitment cycle—orientation. In the coming days, they’ll be watching their classes like hawks to ensure that every incoming student arrives on time. They’re giving their deans daily updates with any cancellations and late adds. They’re developing their backup strategies in case someone “no shows” at orientation. To put this in gif form, the attitude around admissions offices is very

So with a similar mix of excitement, nervousness, and curiosity if our best plans will work or will end up with velociraptors roaming around, let’s check in on the headlines around the world of law school admissions.

2023–2024 Applicant Pool—Last Call

It is not odd to see one last wave of decisions as schools approach orientation. For some schools, it’s a matter of releasing their waitlists because it’s clear that their incoming class is all set. For example, Stanford Law’s lawschooldata profile when you sort applicants by their decision date:

But on the other hand, a few schools are still trying to fill more seats. We can see this via the lsd.law profiles for schools like Notre Dame:

and William & Mary:

Recall from our blog a few weeks ago that this last-minute activity is not because the law schools in question are only now trying to fill seats in their class. Rather, it’s far more likely that these seats just became available because of a deposited student being admitted off the waitlist at another school.

So don’t lose hope if you’re still riding a waitlist or two—things sometimes work out in the end!

LSAT Registration Numbers

But it also helps if you get your application process off to a good beginning! So let’s turn our attention to what’s cooking up for the upcoming cycle.

We can glean a few interesting nuggets from our weekly check-in on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report:

  • On the eve of the August LSAT last week, registrations sat at 24,852. As such, it looks like about 1,100 students changed their plans at the last minute. This helps account for the sharp increase in October registrations (which we’ll come back to momentarily). August scores come back in two weeks but it was—by all accounts—a fairly smooth administration.
  • September LSAT registrations are holding steady—they only declined by 275 students or 1% from last week.
  • And October registrations are beginning to skyrocket now that that test’s registration deadline is just a week away.

So we’ll continue our weekly pep talk—now is a great time to get moving on your application materials if you can! Especially since….

Schools Updating Application Instructions

More and more schools are publishing their application instructions for the coming year!

How can you find out about a school’s app instructions? Without being too shameless, we think the best resource is this page on our website. This allows users to easily toggle between different schools’ instructions—easy peasy! The only drawback is that we believe in being accurate and official, and we don’t consider a school’s application instructions to be “official” until we read them straight off a school’s application. That can’t happen until the school’s app opens … and most don’t open until September 1.

Until then, the best way to find out a school’s instructions is to go directly to their admissions website. Since we acknowledge that navigating any university’s website is like trying to use a machete to clear a path through dense jungle, here’s one of the best time-saving tips you can use this admissions cycle:

Do a Google search for: [school name] law, application instructions.

For example: yale law, application instructions.

“Law” is an important part of that formula! Otherwise, you’ll likely be brought to the undergrad admissions page and will be curious why schools still care about your ACT score.

Once you find a school’s application instructions page, the next thing you want to do is make sure the instructions are for this year and not for last year. How can you tell? Look for key dates. For example, UVA Law still has their old instructions on their website. Per a screenshot taken on August 13 (since this information can be updated any minute):

UVA notes that their app will open on September 1, 2023, and will remain open through March 1, 2024.

Contrast that with what we find on Northwestern Law’s page that immediately notes in bold font that 2025 applications will open on September 1:

Or how Yale Law explicitly notes on their website that they last updated their information in July 2024:

And once you see that a school has updated their application instructions for the year, you should feel like you have a green light to begin work on any documents that they list—go get ’em!

7Sage Events

A reminder that we are hosting weekly live classes on different components of the application process in the coming months. Up next—a session on Wednesday, August 14 regarding character and fitness statements, followed by “Why X” statements on August 21. Registration is required but free.