As May continues forward with all of its typical pomp and pollen, law school admissions officers are caught between the rush of the spring and the doldrums of the upcoming summer. Deposit deadlines have passed and there’s still waitlist activity, but the biggest rush was likely to be right after the deadline passed. Final exams and graduation ceremonies kept everyone at the law school busy, but now the 1Ls and 2Ls are heading out for their summer jobs while the grads are prepping for the bar so it’s so much quieter around the building. Filling this void are personal matters! This is a fairly common time of year for admissions officers to try and get some vacation in. It’s also a normal time for AdComms to change jobs since it’s ideal to transition to different schools in the gap between the spring’s recruitment events and summer’s prep for the upcoming cycle. And, of course, while the collegiate year has concluded in many places, the academic year for primary and secondary schools is just hitting its crescendo. As our favorite obnoxiously musical YouTube family puts it, it’s Maycember when—somehow!—each of your children is scheduled for completely different “must do” activities in completely different parts of your metro area.

So as law school AdComms jet off to Target for teacher gifts, figure out how many pre-filled balloons they need to bring to field day (since the hoses always seem to break), and—oh dang!—fill that seat that just opened up in the incoming class, let’s take a quick look at the headlines around the world of law school admissions.

Harvard WL Activity

The largest domino in the law school waitlist season is always Harvard Law due to their class size (huge) and prestige (huger). Everyone both in and out of the T14 knows that there can be some trickle-down action if and when Harvard starts admitting. To that end, the HLS admissions team decided to make some moves last week per both Reddit and their lawschooldata.org chart:

Nearly as important as actually admitting from their waitlist is that HLS has continued to interview waitlisted candidates. That indicates that there’s more action to come. While waitlist activity elsewhere has slowed a bit in the past week, we expect it to ramp back up as schools open their inbox to find an email from a deposited student, subject line “Regretfully Canceling.”

June LSATs

When we last checked in on June LSAT registrations via LSAC’s LSAT Registrant and Test Taker Volumes report, possible test takers had declined 5% from roughly 36,000 to 34,000. Another week out, and the decline in registrations this time is only a trickle of 1.8%:

With three weeks to go before test date, numbers continue to run higher than for any June LSAT in the past 10+ years. The record number of test takers in that era was 27,613 in June 2017. We’re currently 17% above that record number. Our current guess is that this June’s numbers end up right around the 2017 mark when all is said and done.

7Sage Events

We published our most recent podcast this past Monday. If you love this blog so much that you want it practically read to you (unlikely) OR if you would like to learn more about fashion law, cultural heritage law, and soft IP (far more likely), be sure to tune in on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or your podcast streaming service of choice.

Taj McCoy and Sam Riley are back with their latest “Dear AO” column that tackles the most existential of law school admissions questions—if the LSAT and the GPA are the most important factors in this process … what’s the third?

For our applicants looking ahead to next cycle and already honing in on a possible #1 dream school, Lulu Dewey walks you through the thought process of whether or not to apply via Early Decision.

And looking ahead to next week, we will have our next Deans’ Roundtable Discussion. The topics du jour will be commitment overlap reports, financial aid updates (including the continued delays with the FAFSA), and waitlist season. You can register for the event here.