Now that we’ve crossed over into the back half of November, that time when rafters of turkeys take to the streets to try and, in a final effort, assert their dominance over humanity pre-Thanksgiving

law school admissions officers are in one of the unique stretches of the file-reading calendar. While Reading Season proper just began, we’re already starting to hit the major holidays. Applicants who clicked “submit” on their paperwork back in September will soon be hoping for / furiously expecting decisions before the December holidays arrive. So there’s no “easing into it” period for admissions officers. It’s “go time” right away and—as we’ll see in the National Decision Trends section—some of our friends have been very busy. So with that spirit of industriousness in mind, let’s take our usual lap of the news and headlines from the world of law school admissions.

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National LSAT Numbers

The big headline of the week is that the November LSAT has finally come and gone. While there will still be a little dust to settle, we can feel fairly confident about what the numbers will be and the possible effect on the landscape. Per LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report

it sure doesn’t look like our increased number of national applications is going to go anywhere.

While we saw another 2.7% decline in registrations versus last week’s blog entry (which took the number from right before the test), we’re going to end up with just around 38,000 registrations for the November LSAT. Extrapolating things out, that means that we’ll probably have about 37,900 test takers and reportable scores in the range between 31,000 and 32,000. That will be a solid 22‒24% increase across the board in those numbers. It’ll also represent the biggest LSAT since September 2017—the final year in which the LSAT was only offered four times annually. If we’re starting to match test-taking numbers from that era, our increased number of applications isn’t likely to go anywhere any time soon. Speaking of which …

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Current Volume Summaries Report

Another week, another repeat of our recent headline that “national apps have slowed down a bit, but they’re still up significantly over last year.” Here are the latest numbers per LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report:

In our check last week, applicants were up 24.6% and applications were up 21.5%. These numbers will likely continue to trickle down in the coming weeks. Our next big benchmark will be after the November LSAT and Thanksgiving holidays pass. If we’re going to see any big changes—either with applications slowing down or accelerating—it’ll be then.

It’s also worth noting that the middle of November is usually the time when law schools have received about a quarter of the total applications for the year. Doing some quick back-of-the-envelope math, that would get us to just about 600,000 applications for the year. That would be the most since 2010.

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National Decision Trends

Given those numbers, it’s a good thing that AdComms at some schools are starting to send out some decisions per the information we are seeing on the “Recent Decisions” page at lawschooldata.org:

In the case of Washington and Lee Law, that’s less “a wave” and more of a “tidal surge.”

We’re also getting to the point for some schools where we can figure out their statistical targets for the year. For example, let’s take a look at W&L Law’s lawschooldata profile page, scroll down to their applicant chart, and isolate for just the admitted students:

Immediately, we can see a line developing on the x-axis at a 168 LSAT. That would represent a one-point increase over this year’s incoming median. Given the national conditions regarding applications and test takers, it seems reasonable to assume that this is their target.

We can do the same exercise for George Washington Law. Isolate their applicant chart for just the admitted students:

and we see an even clearer line on the x-axis at a 170 LSAT. While that would represent a two-point jump over their 168 median this year, a number of law schools were able to achieve that kind of improvement this past year.

We get a little hazier for other schools, even if they have already admitted a solid number of students. Take Georgetown Law, for instance:

Here, we can start to suss out a line at a 174 LSAT … but Georgetown’s median this year was a 171 … and a three-point jump seems beyond the realm of the possible … but then we take a look at Michigan’s profile:

and we start to get a smidge concerned at the line that’s also developing at a 174, even though Michigan’s median was at a 171 this year.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. Perhaps it’s naiveté. Maybe it’s a combination of both. But our read on these early returns is that the schools outside the T14 are going to try another one- or two-point jump in stats. They’ve read the national trends and have figured that the national applicant pool will be there to support those lofty ambitions. But in the case of GULC and Michigan, we’re more of this mindset at the present

than this one

A three-point jump in an LSAT median has only been achieved once in recent memory—this year, by the St. Thomas Law Tommies—and we would honestly guess that this has been the only time this has ever been accomplished. Aiding St. Thomas in that endeavor is the basic reality that their LSAT median in 2024 was a 156. It’s far easier to raise a lower median than it is to raise one that is already—in the case of Michigan Law and GULC—representing the 97th percentile for national test takers. There just shouldn’t be enough national 174+ applicants for these schools to achieve those targets. So we assume this is just a case of 1) small sample sizes, and 2) schools being a little aggressive with their initial admits while continuing to evaluate national and local trends. But we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on this as we start to see waves come in for other schools of this ilk.

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7Sage Events

Our next Admissions AMA will be on November 19th. Stop on by and ask whatever law school admissions questions are on your mind!

Our next Admissions Deans’ Roundtable will be on November 17th. Registration is free but required. The topic du jour for our panelists will be all things related to optional statements.

Speaking of the roundtable, the latest episode of our admissions podcast dropped last week and is a recording of our October Deans’ Roundtable. Our panelists dive into the trends that they’re seeing develop but then spend the majority of their time discussing the ins and outs of the written statements on an application. Do you have to write about “why law?” in your personal statement? What happens if the school’s instructions are “two pages max” and you go on to a third page? Be sure to check it out on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts! Coming on Monday will be our latest episode about the myth, the legend, the reality (perhaps?) of yield protection.

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