“Late March” doesn’t exist for college admissions officers at any level—law, graduate, or undergrad. They’ve surely heard myths and legends of this time period. Perhaps a passing reference—a text message from their mother hoping that they’re enjoying the warmer weather, seeing billboards on the way to work advertising green foodstuffs, or noticing that the clock on their cell phone has magically jumped forward by an hour. But all of those matters aren’t signs of spring approaching. Rather, it’s simply a reminder of all the work that’s left to do in the coming weeks—files to read, admitted students to host, scholarships to package and send out, occasional moments of sleep, etc. So while law school AdComms freak out about Starbucks switching their seasonal flavors over from pistachio to lavender (“Purple drinks must mean that another admitted student program is this weekend!”), let’s take a quick look at the news from around our little corner of the internet as some important deadlines and updates approach.

National App Figures

Now that we’re past March 15th, we can pretty well put a stamp on application numbers for this admissions season. Per LSAC’s information on their Current Volume Summaries, usually 90%-ish of all applications for a cycle have been submitted to law schools by this time of year.

To that end, this almost-but-not-quite-final table from LSAC appears pretty benign on the surface:

but it doesn’t tell the entire story. Sure, applicants ended up about 5% higher than last year … but only after beginning very slowly. Applicants were down 20% on October 1. They basically caught up by November when they were down just 3% from 2022. But applications were still lagging greatly at that point—down 13% on November 1, down 10% at Thanksgiving, 4% at Christmas, and only breaking even with the 2022–2023 admissions cycle after the January 2024 LSAT results went live in late January/early February.

This slow boil of applications has caused a downstream issue of application processing. Admissions officers—despite all the coffee and motivational music in the world—can only read applications so quickly while maintaining some sense of lucidity. They can absorb some of that file-reading burden during October and early November as their recruitment travel winds down. But if the wave of apps arrives a bit later, they simply don’t have time to catch up. This is why we still see a lag of decisions on our favorite weekly Reddit update.

Returning to the data, there’s also that gap between applicants and applications. While the former are up 4.8% versus last year, the latter have only increased by 1.4%. For our new audience members who are applying next year and wondering, “Huh…?”, this can be attributed almost exclusively to the additional writing prompts that schools introduced after the Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court decision. When faced with writing more and more unique statements for schools, it appears that students said, “No mas” about 3.4% earlier than last year. Looking ahead and assuming that schools substantially maintain their prompts from this year, we would expect that any percentage rise or fall in applicants next year would also be reflected in applications.

Updated Total Cost of Attendance Figures

Mid-March also brings us our first wave of updated total cost of attendance figures for the coming year. Among the first to publish their new stats are Harvard, Georgetown, and Notre Dame. And be warned to take a deep breath before clicking on those links! Those are some big figures!

Once your blood pressure settles back down, let’s dive into these numbers and what they mean.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. The U.S. Department of Education requires every school receiving federal funding to publish a maximum total cost of attendance. This is because grad students who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States can use federal loans to completely finance their legal education. However, to ensure that students don’t unnecessarily overborrow, the Department of Education needs a cap on how much a student can borrow using Grad and Grad Plus loans. That cap is this “total cost of attendance” budget. This budget includes some costs that are fixed, like tuition and fees. Tuition and fees will be the same for all students before scholarship aid is applied. The budget also includes good-faith estimates for matters that can vary from one student to the next—things like personal expenses, books, and travel. Here’s a screenshot of Harvard Law’s information:

Let’s unpack a few really important things here:

  • Again, this is meant to be a maximum budget so final totals can vary among students. For example, an incoming 1L who has family in Boston who is willing to house them may spend far less in rent. Another student who lives in Los Angeles may spend far more on travel.
  • This budget is only for the academic year. What about those three months over the summer? Well, you’re going to be working, and the Fin Aid officers don’t know where you’ll be and how much you’ll earn. As such, they can’t give you a budget (but—per the mention of “work” and “how much you’ll earn,” hopefully your summer income will help cover those particular expenses).
  • Finally (and most germane to our discussion today), note that this is the budget for the 2024–2025 academic year.

That last point is important, both for understanding your upcoming costs and for negotiating scholarships. Regarding the former topic, schools are in the process of updating their figures. You don't want to tell School A that School B has a much lower cost of attendance … without noticing that School A has already updated their figures for the coming year while School B has not. This is the biggest negotiating faux pas you can make ... or maybe the second biggest depending on your style:

Schools typically finalize their cost of attendance figures at Board of Trustee meetings in March and April. This just happens to coincide—conveniently!—with deposit deadlines. So as those deadlines approach, be sure that you know these figures for your top options. If one of your schools doesn’t have updated figures listed on their website, contact the admissions office to ask. If they inform you that the figures haven’t been published, ask them when that typically happens. You can also ask about the most recent increases in tuition (a figure you can also calculate from schools’ ABA 509 Reports). The more you know and understand this information, the better a decision you can make when you’re depositing!

7Sage Events and Blogs

OK, enough math and “consumer financial information” for now!

Some quick reminders regarding some new features on our blog page:

  • Be sure to check out Tajira McCoy and Sam Riley’s latest “Dear AO” column!
  • And for the readers looking ahead to next year’s applications, a reminder to check out the posts from Ethan Madore and Lulu Dewey. Lulu’s most recent post goes over how to define target, reach, and safety schools.