While there is no “official” date on which we flip from one admissions cycle to another, the beginning of May is certainly as close as any to the “unofficial” date.
We finally have passed the initial deposit deadlines for every school (shout-out to the T14 and their April 30/May 1 deadlines!). May will bring its fair share of activity for this current year’s applicants as law school admissions officers not only go to their waitlists but also continue to work through this year’s record number of applications.
But we also will have received the opening salvo to next year’s admissions cycle—the results of the April LSAT. And then we will have college graduations, after which time our 2025–2026 applicants will have final transcripts (they can now get their official LSAC-calculated GPA!) and collegiate résumés.
So although law school AdComms will have their eyes affixed to their present tasks—trying to get to the light at the end of the file-reading tunnel, keeping an eye on their deposits, reaching out to possible waitlist admits—they also know that the wheels are already turning in earnest for the coming year.
And while our AdComms friends begin to balance two different cycles at one time, let’s keep our attention singularly focused on the headlines from this week in the world of law school admissions!
National Applications and Waitlist Tea Leaves
Before we spend a bit of time with the new folks and their shiny April LSAT results (which will still have that “new LSAT” smell on them for a few weeks!), let’s check out the news for our grizzled veterans of the 2024–2025 admissions cycle!
LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report continues to show that we’re holding steady on the increased number of national applicants and applications:
There’s a chance that we will see one final burst of activity as the April LSATs come back. Although the testing population of the April LSAT skews towards first-time test takers, there’ll be some applicants from this year who took this exam as a final Hail Mary pass down the proverbial field.
So perhaps next week’s blog will include a note about passing the 500,000 application total for the first time since 2011!
But giving this year’s applicants some good news, we’re starting to feel some rumblings regarding continued admission and/or waitlist activity. We’re seeing promising news on r/LSA regarding offers off the UCLA waitlist and that Georgetown has sent out “feeler emails” (e.g., an email asking a waitlisted applicant to reiterate their interest). The former is obviously a good sign (someone got admitted!), and the latter portends good things. Regarding GULC, their message carefully avoids giving guarantees or false impressions … but they sent the message prior to their deposit deadline. One doesn’t try to get a waitlist queued up for possible admissions decisions before the deposit deadline unless they feel reasonably confident that such a move is necessary. This isn’t a “just for funsies” kind of strategic move. Over on the Recent Decisions page of lawschooldata.org meanwhile, we can see that Notre Dame Law School had a busy day last Friday:
If we then go to their profile page and sort their applicants by Result and then Decision Date, we get the following table:
Although it’s just five entries, this actually tells us a lot since our digital friends were kind enough to also include either their “Sent” or “Complete” dates. All five applied to NDLS just after Thanksgiving, all have high LSATs and GPAs for NDLS, and two are reporting substantial scholarships. Additionally, NDLS’s deposit deadline was back on April 15th. What does this mean?
- NDLS still has seats to fill in their class and they still have scholarship money to spend.
- Right now, they’re going back through their applicant group to take students who applied and were still awaiting a decision.
- But since they went all the way back to applicants who submitted their paperwork in December, that means that NDLS also likely has applicants they could admit—if needed—who applied in January, February, and March.
While this may mean that it could take a while before NDLS comes back to candidates on the waitlist (after all, a lot of students apply to law school during the winter months!), it’s not crazy to hold out some hope. Because let’s go back to two key points: 1) NDLS has seats to fill and 2) they’re pursuing high-stat students who applied in November and December. Those applicants are unlikely to accept an admit offer from NDLS at this juncture because the chances are good that the applicant has been admitted to other schools of comparable quality in the meantime and has already made enrollment plans. At best, these are long shot bets for NDLS. And if those bets don’t pan out en masse, NDLS will have to go to their waitlist to fill the rest of the roster.
It’s early and we haven’t even finished our cup of tea to the point where we can read the leaves clearly
but for a national applicant pool that’s been starved for good news, we’re sure that they’ll take any sliver of hope possible!
LSAT Registrations
Speaking of “slivers of hope,” the April and June LSATs!
We’re writing this week’s post on Tuesday, April 29th. By the time we publish the blog on Wednesday the 30th, we’ll have some new stats to share for the April LSAT. But suffice to say that it’ll be a big one regardless. Checking in on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report shows over a 10% increase versus the April 2024 test:
We wouldn’t be at all surprised if the actual number of increased test takers is closer to 10% once the stats go live.
But the real number to keep an eye on is the June LSAT. The registration deadline passed last week and nearly 5,000 test takers registered on the final day—oof! While the test-taking numbers can only come down in the weeks before the test, there’s a chance that the June 2025 LSAT could be the biggest June exam since 2010 … back when the LSAT was only offered four times a year.
Registration for the LSATs in the 2025–2026 testing cycle won’t begin until mid-May. Once we start seeing numbers for the autumn LSATs (August, September, October, and November), we’ll have real certainty regarding the direction of applications for the coming cycle. But we can at least look at these preliminary numbers and feel a storm brewing in our knee.
7Sage Events
It’s a busy week for our admissions classes! We have another AMA-style session on April 30th with one of our LSAT tutors and one of our admissions consultants. We’ll also have several “What Does My Score Mean” sessions on the 30th as well as May 2nd. Registration is free but required.
Also, a reminder that you can check out our past sessions via our Class Library—just enter “Admissions” into the search bar.
The most recent episode of the 7Sage Admissions Podcast dropped last Monday and features a conversation with Pauline Syrnik—7Sage consultant and someone with lots of experience in the public interest and government sectors. Be sure to tune in on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts! Our next episode comes out on Monday and will cover all things related to waitlists.