Every year, around this time of year, the current law school application cycle starts to wrap up.
Most schools have completed admitting students and may just be finalizing the class and admitting students from waitlists.
Looking back at this admissions cycle can give you clues as to what the upcoming admissions cycle may be like. Most schools will be opening up applications by early September.
A great resource to understand current admissions conditions is the LSAC Volume Summaries: https://report.lsac.org/VolumeSummary.aspx?Format=PDF
The Volume Summary is a daily report, updating the number of applications to law school, as well as applicants daily throughout the admissions cycle. For example, a day in July shows that applicants to law school were up 5.6% over one year ago. It also informs us that compared to two years ago, applications were up by 3.2%.
The daily reports include detailed information on each region of the U.S., as well as comparative data broken down by LSAT scores, ethnicity, gender and first-generation college students.
So what can this data tell you?
It can show you that applicants were up, not down in this cycle. This could be potentially predictive of the upcoming cycle. It can also show you which parts of the country showed the greatest growth in applicants, showing you where it has been the most competitive. The LSAC Volume Summaries break down these daily statistics both by applicant and application numbers.
As the next application cycle begins, you can again refer to these reports when the new cycle opens in early fall, to see if applicants and applications continue to trend upwards, and if so, in what parts of the country is there the most growth? This can indicate to you how competitive this upcoming cycle might look.
Bear in mind this is only one predictor. There are other circumstances and numbers can change considerably from the beginning to end of an application cycle.
Another predictor of the upcoming application cycle could relate to the current job market for lawyers, and the outlook for hiring.
For information on that, look at www.nalp.org, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), which has valuable information on associate hiring trends, statistics and hiring reports.
Another way to evaluate the job market for lawyers is to look at the ABA Standard 509 employment reports for each law school that interests you: https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/EmploymentOutcomes.aspx
You will be able to see the employment rate for recent graduates of each law school, 10 months after graduation. You can also see how many were hired by large firms, small firms, government agencies and public interest groups, among other employment settings.
You will be able to evaluate how good the entry-level job market for lawyers has been recently, which may be a predictor for you of how it will fare in the near future.
Of course, no one has a crystal ball, and it’s all potentially changeable, but it is a very good source of fairly current information that you might not otherwise know.
There is so much changing on the law school admissions front — from essay topics changing, to the LSAT, to the writing section, and on a broader scale the economy and upcoming election, that it may be a potentially tense time to be applying.
During a time in your life when you may feel that so many circumstances are out of your control, being able to see good, reliable statistical information about law school application trends, and hiring, may help a lot to make you feel more in control as you start this process.
