Admissions officers continue to wake up in anonymous hotel rooms, not knowing their location since all chain hotels look the same and the USA Today in the breakfast alcove doesn’t give any local news.

Applicants continue to curse themselves for not taking on more ethical leadership positions so that they could have some material for new supplemental statements.

This can only mean that the calendar has officially flipped to October, the time of year when everyone’s nerves are getting a bit frayed around the edges! Let’s take a quick loop around the world of law school admissions before taking a look at this upcoming week’s recruitment calendar.

September LSAT Initial Results—Oof

As we touched on a few weeks ago, the initial feedback from the September LSAT seemed to vary between “disaster” and “nuclear disaster.” We’re now starting to get a peek into how deep those problems may be.

For context, let’s take a look at the LSAC “Test Registrants and Test Takers” report on their website. During the 2022–23 test year, 131,752 test takers produced 107,177 reportable scores. That’s a conversion rate of 81.3%. The lowest conversation rate for any one test was April 2023 at 79.3%.

We published our blog post about the August LSAT on September 13—two weeks after test takers received their score reports. At the time of our blog post, the conversion rate for August was 74.6%. Woof. As of the writing of this post, the conversation rate for August is now at 79.6%. We’ve moved from “That ain’t good” to “Not our best effort, but passable.”

By comparison, the conversion rate on October 4 for the September LSAT—one week after score reports came out—is at a mere 57%. That’s less “That ain’t good” and more “This phone number has been disconnected.”

While acknowledging that this percentage will climb as the dust continues to settle, it appears unlikely that the September conversion will come anywhere close to the neighborhood of 79%. This could perhaps be a reason why there are so many more students registered for the combined October and November LSATs this year (60,025 as of the writing of this post) versus last year (40,057).

So, what can you do with this news? First, pour one out for all your friends and well-wishers who took the September LSAT (and if you were a September test taker, pour one for yourself—you earned it). Second, it’s likely that this will add a further delay to submitting apps this cycle. We were already expecting a bit of a slow start to the application cycle due to all the new written prompts that schools produced post-Students for Fair Admissions. But this will just slow things down all the more.

But on a positive note, it could also mean that the applicants who are nottaking a future LSAT could be well served by submitting their applications in the coming weeks. If a significant number of applicants will be delayed due to LSAC’s tech issues and if AdComms need to start reading some applications once they end their law fair travels, it stands to reason that the applications that they can read in early November may get a smidge of a boost. So if you are one of those candidates who have been delaying the completion of their apps because they enjoy reading law school admissions blogs instead, close this browser tab and go finalize everything!

Law Fairs and On-Campus Recruitment Events

After a week of traveling through Big 10 and SEC country, AdComms have easier travel but also two of the biggest recruitment events of the entire year—the New York City LSAC Forum and the October Digital Forum. Given that these are happening at the same time as the October LSAT, what could possibly go wrong?

October 9

  • University of Maryland Law Fair
  • Washington D.C. Law School Fair

October 10

  • Penn State Law School Fair

October 11

  • University of Connecticut Law Fair
  • New Jersey Law School Admissions Day
  • LSAC Digital Forum

October 12

  • A Day of Rest!

October 13 and 14

  • New York City LSAC Forum

As always, be sure to check out LSAC’s Calendar of Events for the latest and most comprehensive information regarding law fairs.

And, as always, be sure to check out our page of law school-specific recruitment events. Highlights for the coming week include:

  • Notre Dame Law is hosting a virtual visit on the evening of October 11.
  • Georgetown University Law and Columbia Law will host their own virtual info sessions the evening of October 10.
  • George Washington Law will have a “student ambassador drop-in” session on the 11th. This could be a great opportunity to hear about the student experience directly from the current students.
  • Illinois Law will host a webinar on choosing the right law school on the afternoon of the 12th. Even for those not looking to spend a few years in Champaign-Urbana (or “Urbana-Champaign”—this is an eternal debate), this is a wonderful chance to consider all the factors that can go into making your law school decision.
  • Fordham Law will host a virtual information session on October 12.