Despite change in the physical world all around them—Rising temperatures! Blooming flowers! Exploding pollen counts!—the period between April 15 and May 1 is a bit of a quiet time for law school admissions officers. After the rush of the past few weeks—Send out admit letters! Now scholarship letters! Admitted students are visiting soon!—most admissions officers take a bit of a deep breath after their deposit deadlines pass. They know their deposit numbers and they know that they may be able to pursue some waitlist opportunities. But they also know that there’s an object looming on the horizon and, unfortunately, that’s no moon … it’s the T14 deposit deadline on April 30 / May 1. And some schools are still making offers of admission and issuing scholarships. So as our AdComm friends enjoy a brief quiet spell, let’s take a quick look at the updates around the world of law school admissions to assess what’s happening and what may be looming on the horizon.

June LSAT Registrations

Speaking of looming, let’s take a live view of the numbers for June LSAT registrations:

When we checked in on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report two weeks ago, registrations were at a little over 15,000. Last week, that number was just over 18,000. And this week?

We’re over 22,000 registrations with the registration deadline still a week away. Oof!

We acknowledge that this surge of test takers may be because so many applicants are fans of Logic Games and just want to be sure to experience that section one last time. But this continues to confirm our suspicions that the upcoming year will see an increase in law school applicants.

Checking In on Deadlines

As referenced in our opening, this is the lull period between the rush of deposit deadlines on April 1 and April 15 and the upcoming deadlines for the T14 on April 30 and May 1.

Admissions officers outside of the T14 are currently assessing their deposits—not just the raw number of deposits but also their LSAT and GPA medians, demographics, in-state versus out-of-state populations, and scholarship budget. With this information in hand, they can begin to formulate a strategy for waitlist season.

The only “but” to those plans is a rather large one—but this can all be made irrelevant by what members of the T14 do in the coming two weeks. For example, NYU Law has continued to admit a number of students in the past two weeks and we’ve heard from some Columbia Law admits that they’ve been receiving their scholarship packages recently. The decisions those two schools make will have a broad effect on the greater market but a direct effect on schools like Fordham Law. So Fordham Law’s staff likely has some initial plans in mind for what to do with their waitlist (if anything!) in the near term but know that they may have to pivot as necessary.

LOCI Season In Bloom

And given everything we just wrote about regarding deadlines, that can only mean one thing—now is a good time to write that letter of continued interest (LOCI).

For our new readers, a letter of continued interest is just as the title implies! It is an update letter or email that a waitlisted student sends to a school to inform them that the student remains interested. These letters can be very useful for admissions officers because so much has happened since the student submitted an application:

  • They may have new grades.
  • They may have new items on their résumé.
  • They may have had a chance to do more research or networking regarding the law school.

And most importantly, the student has received their other admissions decisions and can now give an honest assessment of their continued interest in the school. For example, maybe they would have accepted an offer of admission from School A in a heartbeat in January … but then they were admitted by School B in February, got a great scholarship offer and enjoyed a campus visit in March, and are now happily deposited in April.

The best letters of continued interest are simple and direct. A student should:

  • Address any updates to their application since they were last in touch with the office of admission (and that “last in touch” moment may have been the actual app!). Current undergrads are likely to have a few more things to update than most other applicants because they can at least mention their latest grades and upcoming graduation.
  • Reiterate their high-level interest in the school. An AdComm is most likely to review a LOCI if the office staff has already determined that this particular applicant has the stats and/or demographics that they’re looking for off the waitlist. The AdComm will then review the file to see what was going on with the student’s application and only then will look at the LOCI. So there’s no need to go into all the same details that the applicant touched on in a “Why School X” document!
  • State if the student remains interested and—most importantly—if the student would accept an offer of admission. If this is truly a student’s top school, they should say so! It’s no time to be bashful!

Additionally, the best LOCIs are scannable. Let’s say a school is trying to fill 10 seats and would like to give a preference for students with high LSAT scores. They may have 50 waitlisted students who fit that need. The AdComms are going to scan through all of the applicants’ documents to assess both the unique things they would bring to the class (like their résumé and statements) as well as their continued interest (the LOCI). So channel your inner Ernest Hemingway-style of writing—clean, concise, clear. That will win the day!

7Sage Events

In the most shameless of shameless plugs, we’re very happy to have a new season of our admissions podcast up and rolling on our website! You can also find us on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, or your preferred streaming system.

Season 1 was entitled How to Get into Law School and the goal was to walk our audience through all the ins and outs of the process from applications, to documents, to special consideration if you’re an international applicant, and even the broader question of “Are you sure you want to go to law school?”

By contrast, Season 2 is Next Stop: Law School. We’ll focus on the main headlines of the season but we’re also going to have interviews with folks from around the law school world—admissions officers, LSAT tutors, current students, lawyers, etc.—so that our audience can be better informed about the broader legal profession. The more information a potential law student has now, the better an applicant they’ll be, and the more likely that they will get the most out of law school. The first episode is up and we plan to publish new ones every two-ish weeks!