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As we get into the month of March and start seeing the first of the application deadlines, we wanted to provide a quick data update on where the cycle stands.
We wanted to provide a bit of a wider view on current law school applicant data trends.
LSAC has recently stopped displaying percentage changes with their volume data, so we wanted to publish these figures for anyone who may find this information useful.
We're not sure where the time has gone, but it's already November 1st, and we're a couple months into our 2021-2022 application cycle.
Disclaimer: It's still early. Data is most volatile early and things can change. But I suspect, highly, this cycle won't look like last cycle in respect to number of high scorers 170+, and I also think it is likely applicants (maybe not applications though) will end up down from last year.
LSAC has posted our first look at 2021-2022 applicant volume. As of today, there are 12.6% more law school applicants so far this cycle than there were at this time last year. For comparison, at this time last year there were 32.8% more applicants than the cycle before that.
We have our first glimpse at 2021-2022 cycle volume. As of 9/23 there were about 6,000 law school applicants so far this year. That's about 15% more than last cycle's ~5,100, and 50% more than the 2019-2020 cycle's ~3,900.
If you're here looking for new law school medians, they're in this document!
Registration for the August 2021 LSAT closes today. Right now there are about 33,000 registrants, but we should note that we've been seeing an unusual number of dropouts and/or date switches lately, so that number will probably go down, and perhaps a great deal.
As much as we deign to use absolutes, there is at least one principle we can think of that is absolutely non-negotiable in law school admissions. Regardless of your qualifications, breaking this rule can tank any applicant's chances—this episode of Status Check with Spivey discusses that rule.
Mike mentions our blog post predicting the 2023-2024 admissions cycle in this episode—you can read those predictions here. You can find our interview with Terry Real, which Mike also mentioned in this episode, here.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike has a conversation with Spivey Consulting's COO Anna Hicks-Jaco about what to expect during the upcoming cycle, her perspective as both a recent Dean of Admissions and relatively recent applicant, and advice for applicants getting ready to apply.
Mike and Anna mention several resources and past podcasts in this episode:
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, two experienced and respected law school Deans—Craig Boise, Dean of Syracuse University College of Law, and Daniel Rodriguez, former Dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law—discuss the history, the present, and the future of law school admissions and legal education. Their conversation covers a range of topics, including problems with the LSAT, the recent test-optional proposal to the ABA, the impacts that the U.S. News law school rankings have had on legal education (and their thoughts on the new methodology changes), and a new pathway to law school admissions, JD-Next.
You can find basic information on JD-Next, as well as a list of schools that have been granted variances to accept JD-Next in lieu of another admissions test (LSAT or GRE), here.
Craig Boise is the Dean of Syracuse University College of Law, where he is currently completing his final year in that role, after which he will be working with colleges, universities, and law schools as a part of Spivey Consulting Group. He is a Member of the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education, previously served on the ABA’s Standards Review Committee and the Steering Committee of the AALS’s Deans’ Forum, and served as Dean of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He holds a JD from the University of Chicago Law School and an LLM in Tax from NYU School of Law.
Daniel Rodriguez is a current professor and former Dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He served as President of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in 2014 and served as Dean of the University of San Diego School of Law from 1998 to 2005. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses a question we receive often (especially lately, in light of the most recent U.S. News law school ranking methodology changes that significantly emphasized job outcomes over admissions metrics)—just how important is work experience in the law school application process?
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike gives his top 5 pieces of advice from his 20+ years working in law school admissions.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Ellen Cassidy, author of the acclaimed Loophole in LSAT Logical Reasoning and founder of Elemental Prep, on LSAT strategies, handling expectations (both from others and self-imposed), trends in law school applicants/LSAT-takers over time, and more. Ellen, as an LSAT expert and former applicant who was admitted to Harvard Law but turned them down thrice, has a great many nuggets of wisdom to share about confidence, bad advice, mentorship, destiny, and imaginary ceilings. Listen below.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
