With August wrapping up, Labor Day upon us, and most academic years in full swing, many admissions officers will be in a bit of a lather-rinse-and-repeat cycle in the coming weeks. Regarding this year’s entering class, they have to submit standard reports to the American Bar Association by October 5. This reporting isn’t difficult, but it’s very detailed and can take a bit of time to produce, double-check, say some prayers, and then triple-check. Regarding this upcoming admissions cycle, many applications will go live this Friday, the first big wave of law fairs is coming up next week, and AdComms are already beginning their plans for admitting students (it takes time to update websites and order a new round of Admittens). Law school admissions officers will be rotating among all these tasks for the coming weeks. So let’s take a few minutes today to do a quick status check on a few fronts to get a sense of what’s happening out there and what we may expect in the weeks to come.
Class Profiles
As discussed a few weeks ago, ’tis the season for schools to announce the essential awesomeness of their incoming classes. For example, Harvard Law managed to enroll three professional figure skaters … and yet no one from Wyoming. Looks like the immaculate inning continues to evade our friends on the Commons! While we won’t have complete stats from the incoming classes until ABA reports go live in December, we have enough information now to point to a few trends.
T14s Hold Steady
Half of the “historic” (i.e., still counting Georgetown) T14 reporting their profiles on their websites and their stats are pretty close mirrors of last year. No one was able to boost their LSAT medians. Most were able to push their GPAs up just a smidge—an average of 0.02 per school. There’s a bit more fluctuation in enrollment size—most schools were within a standard deviation of +/-3% of last year’s class size, but Michigan’s class shrank by 34 students (10%) while Duke increased their class size by 19 (8%) and Berkeley by 65 students (23%).
Movement in the T15–40 Range
This is where the fun is happening. With the T14 holding on to their stats, a greater number of high-LSAT scorers were “pushed down” to the schools in the next tier. Schools like Notre Dame and Boston College raised their LSATs and GPAs from last year’s classes. George Mason raised its medians by two points. The only outlier so far in this group is UCLA, whose LSAT went down a point to a 170. But even that outcome was something we expected based on their lawschooldata chart. Given that they maintained their class size from the previous year, our best guess is that they felt like they had to stretch for a 171 in 2022 (as seems clear from that year’s lawschooldata chart) and that it would be prudent to fall back this year and bring in more tuition revenue (since schools typically have to spend more scholarship money on higher LSAT scores).
This movement among the T15–40 contingent has brought their medians just in line below the T14. Combined with stable LSAT test-taking numbers, this would seem to indicate that a lot of schools feel like they’ve pushed their stats about as high as they can go. There aren’t enough students with 172+ scores for the T14 to boost their medians. Meanwhile, the T14 have decided to maintain their class sizes for the most part, and that’s pushing the high LSATs down to the next tier of schools. That tier of schools (T15–40) have boosted their stats but their LSAT medians are now right below the T14. There’s no more room for growth without an influx of applicants (which doesn’t seem likely given flat national LSAT test-taking numbers) or a direct fight with the T14. Here’s a quick dramatic reenactment of how that enrollment strategy tends to go for the non-T14s.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on matters but the tl;dr version is likely to remain “T14 same, T15–40 are up.”
Applications Opening on Friday
Many schools’ applications will open this Friday, September 1. While there’s certainly a chance for a last-minute hitch to matters based on the SFFA Supreme Court decisions, we remain optimistic that the majority of apps will open.
While some schools update their application instructions on their website prior to the opening date, most wait for the actual open date. Given what we’ve seen thus far, don’t be surprised to see more questions on the application forms about your personal, educational, and family background. It’s also safe to assume that we will also continue to see schools take cues from Duke and Yale to add further short-answer or supplemental statements to their written sections. Our best advice is to stay flexible and not be surprised if you have a little more homework on your plate come September 2!
Law Fairs
Labor Day week brings with it the first set of law fairs—AdComms are double-checking their frequent flyer and hotel loyalty accounts often!
The best ways to find out about upcoming law fairs are LSAC’s events page and by making sure that you’ve opted into LSAC’s Candidate Referral Service (CRS). We will also try to keep everyone up-to-date via these blog posts.
This week’s events include:
Wednesday, Sept 6 – MINK Law Day (Kansas City)
Thursday, Sept 7 – Connecticut Law Fair (North Haven, CT)
Friday, Sept 8 – Providence Law Fair
Saturday, Sept 10 – Boston Law Fair
On-Campus Recruitment Events
And last but not least, campus visits are in full gear! Check out our website every week for an updated roster of upcoming events but—as with finding out about law fairs—also consider opting into LSAC’s CRS system so that you can get email updates directly from the schools themselves.
And with admissions officers stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque loop of similar tasks in the coming weeks, our blog will echo the same topics. We’ll provide updates about recruitment events and law fairs, while also providing any updates/analysis of the news of the week. We’ll then revert back to our normal deeper dissection of “the secret lives of law school admissions officers” once we approach file-reading season in November. Until then, all the best as you work on your application materials and attend your law school recruitment events!