With July days now beginning with the digit “2,” orientation is just three to four weeks away for most law schools. This means that law school AdComms are balancing the emotional/logistical needs of their incoming cohort (Trying to fill last-minute available seats via the waitlist! Trying to convince the student who was admitted off another school’s waitlist to reject that offer! Trying to convince their law school’s budget officer that they’ll bring in enough tuition revenue to keep the lights turned on in the building!) with their upcoming recruitment cycle (Scheduling law fairs! Scheduling visit days for prospective students! Noticing that their visit day aligns with a big home football game … so now we need to reschedule the visit day to another Friday!). It’s a bit like landing one plane while radioing takeoff instructions to a different airplane that’s taxiing on the runway. So while our friends in admissions do this delicate balancing act, let’s take a quick look around the world of law school admissions to catch up on the news.

LSAT Numbers

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the numbers on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report are holding steady.

Two weeks ago (right after the registration deadline), the August LSAT had 29,317 registrants. That number dwindled just 2.5% last week down to 28,995. This week, it’s a 5.5% decrease down to 27,467. Even with that decrease, the registration numbers are still holding pretty stable as the exam approaches in two weeks.

Meanwhile, 9,000 students have signed up for the September LSAT in just the past seven days—phew!

While it’s possible that the increased number of September LSATs is artificially high (e.g., maybe registrations are increasing now because students have to sign up for the September LSAT before receiving their scores from the August LSAT), we’ve done the same thing for the past few LSATs.

  • Maybe August LSAT registrations are up just because it’s the first LSAT without Logic Games.
  • Maybe June LSAT registrations are up just because it’s the last LSAT with Logic Games.
  • Maybe April LSAT registrations are up because the weather is nice.
  • Maybe February and January LSAT registrations are up because the weather is bad.

But while we continue to acknowledge that there may be reasons for these increases beyond the obvious, we should at least acknowledge said obvious explanation—maybe LSAT registrations are up because more people are interested in law school. So we continue our weekly refrain—now is a great time to start writing your application materials so that you can be ahead of the approaching tidal wave of apps.

CRS—A Friendly Heads-Up

Per our introduction, admissions officers are really starting to solidify their recruitment strategies for the upcoming year. That includes attending law fairs, emailing candidates with information about on-campus recruitment events, and sending out fee waivers for applications. A lot of these communications will be sent via email. A key tool that AdComms will use to accomplish this task is LSAC’s Candidate Referral Service (CRS).

CRS allows law schools to search for candidates along a number of different categories including by mailing address, phone number, LSAT/GPA stats, academic interests, and more.

So if they’re planning to attend the upcoming—and delightfully titled—MINK Law Fair in the Kansas City area, admissions offices can use CRS to search for and then send emails to anyone in LSAC’s database who has indicated that they’re applying to law school this year and live within 100 miles of the event location.

Or let’s say that a school has a specific scholarship for students from a particular state which they’d like to advertise. The AdComms can do a CRS search for all candidates whose current or permanent address is in that state. They can also do a search for anyone with a phone number whose area code is based in that state (because perhaps the student is originally from that state but then moved away for college).

And maybe a school is going to make a big push to increase their LSAT median this year. They could do a CRS search for all the candidates in LSAC’s database whose LSAT is at least one point higher than last year’s median and then email those students with a fee waiver to encourage them to apply.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty powerful tool! 

But as you can also imagine, LSAC is mindful that privacy rights are also important. As such, this is a service that students have to opt into via their LSAC profiles. While we’re generally adverse to opening ourselves—and our email inboxes—up to spam, this is one of those times when the rewards may outweigh the costs.

For those who are intrigued but would prefer not to have their inboxes swamped, you may want to consider a pretty simple life hack. Rather than provide LSAC with your regular email address, create an address that’s just dedicated for your application materials. On the plus side, you won’t clutter up your real email inbox. The only drawback is that you actually have to check in on this new email address periodically.

Use this knowledge wisely!

7Sage Events

We’ll be hosting a weekly live class on different components of the application process in the coming months. Up next—a session on Wednesday, July 24 regarding personal statements. Registration is required but free.

Our most recent admissions podcast dropped on Monday and features a conversation about U.S. News & World Report rankings with Evan Didier, the Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Wake Forest Law. Do schools care about the rankings? How does a drastic increase in the rankings change the enrollment strategy of a school (if at all)? Check it out on Spotify, Amazon, or your streaming service of choice.