With the calendar turning from February to March, the only change for law school admissions offices is purely decorative—taking down the red-colored streamers and hanging up all their green material. But the actual day-to-day tasks remain the same—reading applications and trying to get out the last few big waves of decisions in time to encourage admitted students to travel for the big on-campus visit days on the horizon. Joining their confreres-in-arms regarding this monotony, many applicants remain in a holding pattern while waiting for the last round of decisions to emerge (and for schools that shall not be named to review all of those files that they’ve put on hold!) so that they can have a full picture of their options. Given this relative stasis, let’s take a quicker-than-usual lap around the national numbers to bring everyone up to speed before they head out to plan their Leap Day events.
National App Figures and LSAT Registrations
After a few weeks where we’ve witnessed an acceleration of national applicants and applications, this week’s check-in on LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report is a bit of a brake tap.
Last week, applicants were up 5.1% versus the year prior when applicants were up 1.1%. This week, meanwhile:
we fell a bit off the pace. With the February LSAT results going live this week and with March 1 app deadlines nigh, our check-in next week will be a bit more telling.
Meanwhile, the story remains the same if we break the applicants down into their respective score bands:
A majority of schools with 170+ LSAT medians have application deadlines coming up on March 1st and 15th. No doubt the AdComms at said schools are currently making burnt offerings to their preferred gods for a few more high LSATs to come through when February scores go live on the 28th.
Speaking of which, the February LSAT is typically the runt of the LSAC litter. While registrations this year are 23% over last year:
we’ll likely find that half of the test takers were first timers, i.e., that they took this LSAT as prep for next year’s applications rather than as a last gasp for this year’s edition. But, again, more data to come next week!
7Sage Events
Speaking of the February LSAT, we’ll be hosting a live Zoom this Friday entitled “Score Release: To Cancel or Not to Cancel?” I will go over some of the basic points to consider when you’re pondering over this decision and then we’ll open the floor to questions. You can find further details here.
And a reminder that 7Sage Admissions Consultants Taj McCoy (formerly of Berkeley Law) and Sam Riley (formerly of Texas-Austin Law) will be hosting a new blog piece entitled “Dear AO.” Styled as a “Dear Abby” advice column, this is a chance for you to submit your questions and get feedback from some of our resident experts. Check out their debut column here!