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This was from today's one-hour Spivey Consulting internal conference call where most of our admissions team shared observations from speaking with hundreds of applicants on a daily basis and admissions deans each week. Thought I'd share a bit of it and hope it helps!
- Top schools are maybe seeing even bigger increases in apps, from what we're hearing
- As a result, decisions are coming out much more slowly compared to past years, particularly at the top 7 or so schools
- E.g. right now there have been almost no decisions that we've heard of (other than ED) from Yale, Stanford, Chicago, or Columbia, and very few decisions from Harvard, Penn, and NYU
- Note: applicants may be under the impression that they haven't heard from these schools yet because they're less competitive due to the app increase, but that's not necessarily the case; schools are just trying to get a handle on their increasing applicant pools
- Another trend: legal goals/the question of "why law" seems to be of increasing importance/a bigger differentiating factor when well articulated in apps – particularly for KJDs.
- Our belief is that the ABA in March will rule that no standardized tests are necessary for law school admission going forward so long as the school shows compliance with 501 (good admissions standards), but even if this is the case change will be slow and the LSAT will remain the "gold standard" in the next cycle
