Even though we are just short of the spring equinox, we already know the season is upon us. The birds are chirping, Starbucks has rolled out their lavender-flavored lineup, hordes of law school applicants are descending on college campuses for admitted student days … while other hordes of applicants continue to await decisions (and more on that below). We’re in the busiest of seasons for the law school admissions world! So let’s get our coffee cups refilled, learn how to make our own lavender syrup to save ourselves some cash before we take out some student loans, and check out the headlines from around the world of law admissions.

National Application Trends

We noted in last week’s blog that we were about to cross one of the last important threshold dates for applications—March 15th, a common application deadline for schools across the country. Would this finally be the time when national applications slowed down? The quick answer is “no.” The visual answer is

When we last checked in on LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report, national applicants were up 20.5% versus last year and applications were up 23.6%. March 15th has come and gone and the song has remained the same:

By this time of year, LSAC has typically received about 90% of total applications for the entire admissions cycle. LSAC offers data on the national applicant pool that goes all the way back to 1989. In all that time, there’s never been a year when applications went up by more than 15%, let alone 20%. Oof.

Just adding further logs to the fire of insanity:

  • By the time it’s all said and done, nearly every law school in the country will have seen an increase in applications per the following table from the Current Volume Summaries report.
  • And the increased number of applicants weren’t even distributed evenly over the LSAT bands or in a normal pattern like a bell curve. Instead, it was a “hockey stick” distribution with the greatest increases happening at the top LSAT bands.
  • Heck, it’s been so wild that even the national media caught on to things over the weekend (or maybe they just finally started reading this blog).

This has—of course—led some law school applicants from this year to consider if perhaps next year will be any better. The answer to that question depends somewhat on some personal matters unique to each applicant:

  • Were there any obvious shortcomings to the application that can be addressed next year? For example, retaking the LSAT and raising that into a range above the medians for their target schools.
  • Did the applicant submit their applications later than expected and can they fix that for the coming cycle?

But then there’s the obvious question looming out there that affects the dynamics of that decision:

  • Will next year’s applicant pool be any less competitive?

So let’s segue into….

LSAT Registrations

We’re now three weeks away from the April LSAT, and LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report shows that registrations are holding steady at a record high level for this particular exam:

Only 379 April registrants changed their plans over the past week—a decline of just 1.4%. Meanwhile, June LSAT registrations increased by 10% in the past week and the registration deadline is still a month away.

Put it all together, add in a dash or two of economic uncertainty (which tends to drive up grad school applications), and it looks like we’re going to have to come up with more gifs to summarize the continued application increase. For now, we’ll go with

2025–2026 Cost of Attendance Figures

But enough about the stress from the applicant pool, both from this year and next. Let’s focus our Stress Laser onto our admitted applicants!

Spring break is a fairly normal time for universities to publish their cost of attendance figures for the coming academic year. Some of the first out the starting gates are Harvard Law, UCLA Law, and Notre Dame Law and they’ve kept up their traditions nicely!

We know that seeing large numbers is rather scary, so let’s take a minute to break things down and walk you through what everything means.

First things first, the Department of Education requires every college/university to publish a maximum total cost of attendance—a figure including not just tuition and required fees but also estimated costs for transportation, books, and cost of living. This isn’t just for the sake of consumer information. Grad students can use federal loans to finance their education in total. But to make sure that grad students don’t overborrow, the Feds require schools to place a cap on the amount of Grad and Grad Plus loans someone can take out. Schools use this total cost of attendance budget as that cap.

Now let’s start breaking it down a bit by using NDLS’s cost of attendance figures per the following screenshot:

The first two line items are fixed costs—tuition and fees are the same for all law students before scholarship is applied. The following line items are good faith estimates of maximum expenses for each student. Meaning, not everyone may spend that much (your housing costs will be less if you live in a house with three roommates; your transportation expenses will be higher if you insist on hiring a team to carry you to law school every day on a sedan).

The main point being—you can lower your costs with some smart planning, but you can also assume that this is the maximumfor the coming academic year.

It’s also worth noting these budgets as deposit deadlines approach in the not-so-distant future:

  • If you are attempting to negotiate your scholarship with School A versus your award from School B, be sure to note if one—or both!—schools have updated their figures for the coming year. You want to do your best to compare apples to apples.
  • If one of your top choices hasn’t updated their cost of attendance figures, reach out to them to ask when they plan to do so. You can also ask them about their most recent percentage increases in tuition.
  • If the school is evasive or if you suffer from phone/email-related anxiety, you can figure out the most recent percentage increases in tuition on your own using the ABA 509 Reports. Look for the “1L Tuition and Fees” field either at the bottom of the second page or top of the third page. It will look like this (courtesy of Berkeley’s 509 report):

Then look up the figures from the previous year, figure out the percentage increase, and then calculate that moving forward for your three years of law school. Got it?

It may not be fun to consider what tuition will look like in three years. In fact, we guarantee that that number will spook you. But just as good lawyers need to plan for worst-case contingencies, law students need to know what they’re signing up for prior to the first day of orientation (or—more appropriately—their first loan disbursement right before the first day of orientation).

7Sage Events

Our latest episode of the 7Sage Admissions Podcast dropped last Monday and featured a recording from our February Law School Deans’ Roundtable. The topics du jour were focused on all things financial aid, especially best practices for negotiating scholarships and/or asking for a scholarship reconsideration (and when it’s best to say “thanks!” and not press your luck). Be sure to tune in on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts! And speaking of the roundtable, our next one will be March 27th at 8 PM Eastern. Registration is required but free.

Our next 7Sage Admissions podcast arrives on Monday and will feature a conversation with our Sam Squad—Dr. Sam Riley and Sam Kwak, admissions consultants extraordinaire—about how public and private law schools typically approach the merit- and need-based financial aid process.