As the middle of May arrives at law schools, AdComms are encountering one of their emotional days of the work calendar—graduation!
One of the inherent aspects of the admissions process is not only reading about someone’s past—résumés, transcripts, etc.—but projecting their future.
If we admit this applicant, how will they fit into the class?
What will they add to the conversation?
What will they do professionally?
But AdComms may not be able to track the progress of the admitted and enrolled students at their school due to the simple fact that the job of “enrolling one class” is immediately followed by “enrolling the next class.” As such, the current students at the law school may be frozen in time in the minds of the admissions officers, forever an applicant and forever full of potential.
Then graduation rolls around, the Registrar and Office of Student Services draft every available law school staff member into assisting with events, and the AdComms are time warped from the past into the present. They attend the awards ceremonies and see all that those applicants … sorry, “students” … accomplished. They help direct families at the graduation banquet and quickly learn which students … okay, they’re basically “grads” … have been dating or are engaged, and whose parents are now at one table. With graduation events following hot on the heels of last month’s admitted student days, AdComms are quickly reminded of the important role that they play in the law school’s circle of life. They aren't Simba, but maybe they're the Rafiki.
Then they go back to their lonely offices, wipe away their emotional tears, check their rosters of deposited students to see if anyone has canceled, and start answering emails from nervous applicants on the waitlist.
And in that “back to the grind!” spirit, let’s check in on the news and headlines from the world of law school admissions!
National Application Numbers
Admittedly, it’ll be a bit of a quick lap around the headlines since—as mentioned in all the razzmatazz above—it’s been a bit of a quiet week out there as law school administrators have had their attention elsewhere.
It’s been a few weeks since we last checked in on the national numbers via LSAC’s Current Volume Summaries report and … you guys … guess what?
We crossed the 500,000 application mark! Woo! Let’s break out a little more razzmatazz!
It’s the first time we’ve hit that threshold since the 2010–2011 cycle per LSAC’s Admissions Trends report. The 71,445 applicants also just nudged past the number of applicants in the 2020–2021 cycle. Admissions officers thought that year would be the craziest one we would see in quite some time (COVID shutdowns, online LSATs, applications through the roof), so we tip our cap to the 2024–2025 admissions cycle for digging deep and proving the haters wrong. It turns out it’s possible to have two “once in a lifetime” cycles in five years.
National LSAT Figures
In last week’s blog, we pointed out that June LSAT registrations had dropped 6% in the week after the registration deadline. That was a bit steep for the first week, and we wondered if it was a one-off—maybe some applicants hit their target scores on the April LSAT and decided to cancel their future LSAT registration, and maybe some other April LSAT takers fell a bit short of their target … so short that they canceled their June LSAT plans with an eye towards retaking in August or September. This week’s check on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report seems to confirm our guess:
June registrations went down by just 1.7% this week and that is more like it!
Expect to see a few more weeks of gradual declines. The biggest movement for canceled registrations tends to happen right before the test occurs. That magic date on the calendar is June 4th. As such, having a 30,000+ strong June LSAT is still a distinct possibility.
Waitlist Movement
Meanwhile, the national waitlist movement was a bit quieter this week than what we’ve seen in the past two per the chatter on r/LSA and the Recent Decisions page of lawschooldata.org. One quiet week doesn’t make a trend, and we know that there are still law schools out there that are evaluating applications submitted in January, February, and March. Let’s see what develops in the coming week. If it’s another slow one, then it will likely continue to be slow through Memorial Day and the first wave of second deposit deadlines on June 1.
7Sage Events
We have another AMA-style session on May 14th with one of our LSAT tutors and one of our admissions consultants. Also, a reminder that you can check out our past sessions via our Class Library—just enter “Admissions” into the search bar.
The most recent episode of the 7Sage Admissions Podcast dropped on Monday and is all about waitlists! Be sure to tune in on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts!