With Memorial Day falling a little earlier than usual in the calendar, many law school admissions officers are scurrying this week to get as much done and squared away as possible. It’s not because of wanting to take an early summer vacation or because their kids just got out of school. Rather, it’s due to a quirk in the calendar—LSAC always holds its annual meeting in the days immediately following Memorial Day. And calling it an “annual meeting” is a bit of a misnomer. While there are certainly a number of housekeeping matters that LSAC attends to during this time, this is really the annual professional development and networking conference for the broader law school admissions world. It is the place to see and be seen in this very niche world.

Oh, I see Kristi Jobson and Miriam Ingber talking! I wonder if they’re planning a new season of their podcast!

I’m not sure if I want to go to the breakfast for reps from our geographic region. We just had to go to our waitlist and we’ve raided half the schools that’ll be there. Gah!

So between the holiday and the conference, that leaves many admissions offices either completely unattended or very short-staffed for the week. Don’t expect this to be the week that a lot of waitlist activity and admissions decisions will be released! Instead, communications from law schools will likely be very

So while our friends in law school admissions offices tie up loose ends and get ready to activate their out-of-office messages, let’s take a quick look at the updates from around the world of law school admissions.

Further WL Movement

Memorial Day usually brings an end to the bulk of waitlist admission. This is simply due to the logic flow that:

  • If deposit deadlines were in April,
  • Schools knew then if they had open seats,
  • And it’s best to reach out to possible candidates for admission earlier than later (because the later you reach out to them, the more likely they are to have made living arrangements elsewhere).

We’re seeing this usual pattern reflected in a few places. Michigan Law updated their FAQ page on May 17 to note that they only project to make a “handful” of further offers of admission from their waitlist. As such, they plan on releasing a number of candidates from their waitlist. Namely, they plan to release candidates either who have not yet been in touch with Michigan to reiterate their interest and/or who Michigan knows would no longer match the statistical/demographic needs for their incoming class. We also see this playing out at schools like Cornell who—per their lawschooldata.org chart—just let go of a number of candidates from their own waitlist last week:

But while this likely means the end of big waitlist movement at a lot of schools, there will be more to come in the following weeks.

First, Harvard Law has continued to admit students from their waitlist like clockwork every Tuesday. Look at all this green on their lsd.law chart! It’s like looking at the best-maintained lawn in the neighborhood.

We’ll see if Harvard continues to make offers next Tuesday in spite of the holiday weekend and conference travel (and the peer pressure of seeing all admissions officers from other schools right away!).

We’re also monitoring some waitlist admission activity at Columbia Law and know that NYU Law has started their waitlist interviews. Every student these schools admit and enroll from their waitlists means that a seat opens up at another school further down the rankings ladder.

And last but not least, we have second deposit deadlines quickly approaching. While most students only hold one active deposit at a time after the initial deposit deadlines, double-depositing is not uncommon (and while we know that that’s almost a double negative, it more accurately represents the scope of double-depositing than referring to it as “common”!). The number of double deposits declines greatly at the second deposit deadline, thus opening up seats at various schools.

So while we may not see huge waves of waitlist admits in the coming weeks, expect a continual series of drips and drops throughout June.

And speaking of trickles….

June LSAT Registrations Remain Strong

Per LSAC’s LSAT Registrant and Test Taker Volumes report, it still looks like the June LSAT will be quite the party:

Registrations last week were at 33,501. That was a decline of 1.8% from the week before. This week’s number represents an increase in the percentage change … but it’s rather hard to get worked up about a 3.1% change just two weeks before test day.

As a reminder, the magic number that we’re keeping in the backs of our minds is 27,613. That’s how many students took the June 2017 LSAT and that’s the highest number for any June administration in the past 10 years. With each passing week, it looks like we may just beat that record (which is exciting for adcomms to consider … perhaps less so for prospective applicants for this year’s admissions cycle!).

7Sage Events

And with Memorial Day on the horizon for the 7Sage consulting team, things are a bit quiet!

A reminder that you can catch up on our latest “Dear AO” column as well as Lulu Dewey’s take on whether or not to apply Early Decision.