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Definitely don't know the admission process as well as most, and definitely not as much as "monochromatic" over here, but quick question about his thought on the declining median being harmful for splitters.

I can see the decline in medians being bad for splitters if schools just kind of say, "ok, well, our median dropped, so lets maintain it from here on out", but am I right in thinking that splitters can benefit if the schools try to get their median UP?

What are the odds of this happening, especially for those schools who dropped from 170 to 169 (seemingly an important threshold for some reason)?

wolfgang wrote:Definitely don't know the admission process as well as most, and definitely not as much as "monochromatic" over here, but quick question about his thought on the declining median being harmful for splitters.

I can see the decline in medians being bad for splitters if schools just kind of say, "ok, well, our median dropped, so lets maintain it from here on out", but am I right in thinking that splitters can benefit if the schools try to get their median UP?

What are the odds of this happening, especially for those schools who dropped from 170 to 169 (seemingly an important threshold for some reason)?

No matter whether a school's median declined or rose more recently, the fact that a school favors the LSAT median over the GPA median is what's specifically beneficial to splitters. It is merely the decline, signifying decreasing LSAT sandards, that hurts the splitters. The consequent of that scenario, where LSAT medians rise, benefits splitters, who are now part of a "rarer" pool of above-median scorers. But even if a school is trying to raise their medians directly after they've fallen, the decline is not beneficial. To continue with the above scenario: if UVA attempts to raise its LSAT median, now there are 170 students with higher GPAs than yours contribute equally as much as you to raising the median, whereas they would not be contributing to its increase last cycle, when they were merely at it.

But the point is moot in some respect, because no school is attempting to raise their LSAT median. They're essentially holding on for dear life, given that applications are expected to continue to decline next cycle.

I see.

That's an acceptable answer. I feel like it's probably a better answer than I'm giving it credit for based on this first quick reading, so I'm going to think on it a little more.

Carry on...

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

wolfgang wrote:Definitely don't know the admission process as well as most, and definitely not as much as "monochromatic" over here, but quick question about his thought on the declining median being harmful for splitters.

I can see the decline in medians being bad for splitters if schools just kind of say, "ok, well, our median dropped, so lets maintain it from here on out", but am I right in thinking that splitters can benefit if the schools try to get their median UP?

What are the odds of this happening, especially for those schools who dropped from 170 to 169 (seemingly an important threshold for some reason)?

No matter whether a school's median declined or rose more recently, the fact that a school favors the LSAT median over the GPA median is what's specifically beneficial to splitters. It is merely the decline, signifying decreasing LSAT sandards, that hurts the splitters. The consequent of that scenario, where LSAT medians rise, benefits splitters, who are now part of a "rarer" pool of above-median scorers. But even if a school is trying to raise their medians directly after they've fallen, the decline is not beneficial. To continue with the above scenario: if UVA attempts to raise its LSAT median, now there are 170 students with higher GPAs than yours contribute equally as much as you to raising the median, whereas they would not be contributing to its increase last cycle, when they were merely at it.

But the point is moot in some respect, because no school is attempting to raise their LSAT median. They're essentially holding on for dear life, given that applications are expected to continue to decline next cycle.

are you trying to say that if schools fall to a 168, they can essentially say 'fuck it' to the 170+ crowd? they can simply fill their classes with 165-169 crowd, saving much money by not throwing expensive dough to get their medians up? after all, since everyone's fallen and there's no point in raising the median, might as well just solely concentrate on the 160s?

i'm sure schools still want the best they can get, namely higher lsats, even if the their medians have fallen below that. if virginia is given a choice, i'm pretty sure they would fill their classes with a 177 median. i think its also misleading to note that three cycles haven't shown much love to splitters. now, if your gpa is below 3.0 or below 3.3 for some of the T10s, then even a 180 might not help you. but if you're a 3.4-3.6 (below median), lsn has clearly shown easier admissions.

Lavitz wrote:Not much to report from Cornell's orientation.

Class size is supposed to be 197, but Dean Geiger said 2 people hadn't shown up yet, so I suppose that number might change.

I know one of the two and he will be here next week. I don't know about the other one though.

longlivetheking wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

wolfgang wrote:Definitely don't know the admission process as well as most, and definitely not as much as "monochromatic" over here, but quick question about his thought on the declining median being harmful for splitters.

I can see the decline in medians being bad for splitters if schools just kind of say, "ok, well, our median dropped, so lets maintain it from here on out", but am I right in thinking that splitters can benefit if the schools try to get their median UP?

What are the odds of this happening, especially for those schools who dropped from 170 to 169 (seemingly an important threshold for some reason)?

No matter whether a school's median declined or rose more recently, the fact that a school favors the LSAT median over the GPA median is what's specifically beneficial to splitters. It is merely the decline, signifying decreasing LSAT sandards, that hurts the splitters. The consequent of that scenario, where LSAT medians rise, benefits splitters, who are now part of a "rarer" pool of above-median scorers. But even if a school is trying to raise their medians directly after they've fallen, the decline is not beneficial. To continue with the above scenario: if UVA attempts to raise its LSAT median, now there are 170 students with higher GPAs than yours contribute equally as much as you to raising the median, whereas they would not be contributing to its increase last cycle, when they were merely at it.

But the point is moot in some respect, because no school is attempting to raise their LSAT median. They're essentially holding on for dear life, given that applications are expected to continue to decline next cycle.

are you trying to say that if schools fall to a 168, they can essentially say 'fuck it' to the 170+ crowd? they can simply fill their classes with 165-169 crowd, saving much money by not throwing expensive dough to get their medians up? after all, since everyone's fallen and there's no point in raising the median, might as well just solely concentrate on the 160s?

i'm sure schools still want the best they can get, namely higher lsats, even if the their medians have fallen below that. if virginia is given a choice, i'm pretty sure they would fill their classes with a 177 median. i think its also misleading to note that three cycles haven't shown much love to splitters. now, if your gpa is below 3.0 or below 3.3 for some of the T10s, then even a 180 might not help you. but if you're a 3.4-3.6 (below median), lsn has clearly shown easier admissions.

I don't think it's a matter of filling the class with the 165-169 crowd, it's simply the value of certain LSAT scores in relation to the median becomes weaker as the median falls. If the median has fallen to 168, then a school attempting to increase its median LSAT score has a wider range of options in terms of applicants to help increase their median - in a world where the school has a median of 170, the 171-180 range are the only applicants that a school can justify admitting in hopes of boosting their median.... in that same scenario, a 168 means there are many more applicants that represent a potential median increase for that class.

Because in the scenario of a 170 median there are so few applicants with scores on the LSAT that potentially increase that median, it's much better for splitters as there's less competition and thus a better shot at a school being willing to overlook a lower GPA. A drop down to 168 means there's now a much larger pool of applicants that represent an increase to a school's median - if those new applicants represent something close to median GPA while a splitter doesn't, a school is likely to select a 169 or a 170 with a median GPA because either way, it's an increase to their LSAT median.

I agree that the drop in medians is probably not ideal for splitters. This is simply a result of the LSAT "curve". I am not sure if this http://www.alphascore.com/resources/lsa ... onversion/ is accurate but even taken hypothetically it shows how it *could* adversely effect splitters if a school drops even one point. Let's say a school is primarily targeting the 170-172 range to increase/maintain their 170 median (they have to throw significant money at 173+ candidates). That means they are looking at about 1.6% of the entire LSAT pool. If they switch to targeting 169-171 they are looking at an increase to 1.9% of the LSAT pool. This corresponds to an 18.75% increase in the number of people they are targeting for admissions. However, given the decrease in total test takers it appears it might be a wash and I really have no idea if this is how admissions committees look at applicants but it is possible that the lower medians will have little impact on splitters.

I think the caveat here is that LSAT median declines generally parallel LSAT 75th declines. A splitter will benefit if he now finds himself above a given school's 75th whereas before he might have been in the no man's land that is the 50th-74th percentile.

Vexed wrote:

longlivetheking wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

wolfgang wrote:Definitely don't know the admission process as well as most, and definitely not as much as "monochromatic" over here, but quick question about his thought on the declining median being harmful for splitters.

I can see the decline in medians being bad for splitters if schools just kind of say, "ok, well, our median dropped, so lets maintain it from here on out", but am I right in thinking that splitters can benefit if the schools try to get their median UP?

What are the odds of this happening, especially for those schools who dropped from 170 to 169 (seemingly an important threshold for some reason)?

No matter whether a school's median declined or rose more recently, the fact that a school favors the LSAT median over the GPA median is what's specifically beneficial to splitters. It is merely the decline, signifying decreasing LSAT sandards, that hurts the splitters. The consequent of that scenario, where LSAT medians rise, benefits splitters, who are now part of a "rarer" pool of above-median scorers. But even if a school is trying to raise their medians directly after they've fallen, the decline is not beneficial. To continue with the above scenario: if UVA attempts to raise its LSAT median, now there are 170 students with higher GPAs than yours contribute equally as much as you to raising the median, whereas they would not be contributing to its increase last cycle, when they were merely at it.

But the point is moot in some respect, because no school is attempting to raise their LSAT median. They're essentially holding on for dear life, given that applications are expected to continue to decline next cycle.

are you trying to say that if schools fall to a 168, they can essentially say 'fuck it' to the 170+ crowd? they can simply fill their classes with 165-169 crowd, saving much money by not throwing expensive dough to get their medians up? after all, since everyone's fallen and there's no point in raising the median, might as well just solely concentrate on the 160s?

i'm sure schools still want the best they can get, namely higher lsats, even if the their medians have fallen below that. if virginia is given a choice, i'm pretty sure they would fill their classes with a 177 median. i think its also misleading to note that three cycles haven't shown much love to splitters. now, if your gpa is below 3.0 or below 3.3 for some of the T10s, then even a 180 might not help you. but if you're a 3.4-3.6 (below median), lsn has clearly shown easier admissions.

I don't think it's a matter of filling the class with the 165-169 crowd, it's simply the value of certain LSAT scores in relation to the median becomes weaker as the median falls. If the median has fallen to 168, then a school attempting to increase its median LSAT score has a wider range of options in terms of applicants to help increase their median - in a world where the school has a median of 170, the 171-180 range are the only applicants that a school can justify admitting in hopes of boosting their median.... in that same scenario, a 168 means there are many more applicants that represent a potential median increase for that class.

Because in the scenario of a 170 median there are so few applicants with scores on the LSAT that potentially increase that median, it's much better for splitters as there's less competition and thus a better shot at a school being willing to overlook a lower GPA. A drop down to 168 means there's now a much larger pool of applicants that represent an increase to a school's median - if those new applicants represent something close to median GPA while a splitter doesn't, a school is likely to select a 169 or a 170 with a median GPA because either way, it's an increase to their LSAT median.

by extension, you're also assuming they will overlook 171, 172....180s just because they CAN use a 169 to increase median?

sasquatchsam wrote:I agree that the drop in medians is probably not ideal for splitters. This is simply a result of the LSAT "curve". I am not sure if this http://www.alphascore.com/resources/lsa ... onversion/ is accurate but even taken hypothetically it shows how it *could* adversely effect splitters if a school drops even one point. Let's say a school is primarily targeting the 170-172 range to increase/maintain their 170 median (they have to throw significant money at 173+ candidates). That means they are looking at about 1.6% of the entire LSAT pool. If they switch to targeting 169-171 they are looking at an increase to 1.9% of the LSAT pool. This corresponds to an 18.75% increase in the number of people they are targeting for admissions. However, given the decrease in total test takers it appears it might be a wash and I really have no idea if this is how admissions committees look at applicants but it is possible that the lower medians will have little impact on splitters.

Agreed, there has to be some middle ground. With 170+ scores down 44% and even 165-169 down substantially, those 169s are going to have other options with money. If certain T-14s can get 170s at sticker, a 170+ splitter is still probably going to win out. We may just see a lesser amount of scholarships being awarded instead of rejections. The flip side is things may not change and schools may still try to recruit what's left of the shrinking 170+ pool.

anyone know UF's 25th/75th lsat?

More specifically, this won't be ideal for high splitters - those with LSAT scores already above every target school's medians. However, splitters in the low 170s will be able to target schools they had no chance at before. For example, if NYU's median goes down to 170, suddenly (relatively lower) splitters with 171s become more competitive.
Is my thinking reasonable?

longlivetheking wrote:are you trying to say that if schools fall to a 168, they can essentially say 'fuck it' to the 170+ crowd? they can simply fill their classes with 165-169 crowd, saving much money by not throwing expensive dough to get their medians up? after all, since everyone's fallen and there's no point in raising the median, might as well just solely concentrate on the 160s?

i'm sure schools still want the best they can get, namely higher lsats, even if the their medians have fallen below that. if virginia is given a choice, i'm pretty sure they would fill their classes with a 177 median. i think its also misleading to note that three cycles haven't shown much love to splitters. now, if your gpa is below 3.0 or below 3.3 for some of the T10s, then even a 180 might not help you. but if you're a 3.4-3.6 (below median), lsn has clearly shown easier admissions.

Schools can indeed afford to say "fuck it" to a few more people after the medians drop or rather, from a more precise standpoint, the incentives for what helps them changes. If I'm UVA and I need to raise my GPA median, a 3.9/120 is a more useful applicant to me than a 3.8/180. If I need to raise my LSAT median, a 1.0/171 is more useful than a 4.0/168. When medians change for a school that's gaming them, there's a new set of incentives. Yes, they'll take the higher numbers all else equal. But new incentives mean new forms of making decisions that can be harmful to some.

Hypothetical: I'm UVA Admissions, shamelessly attempting the highest medians possible. As applications are dropping, my target is to maintain last year's medians. To build my class, I need to choose five students per year, all of whom will matriculate if accepted, and at least one must be a URM.

Last Cycle's Applicants

A. 4.0/180 (I'm throwing $$$ at him and he loves softball, popped collars and the color orange or whatever. Point is, he's above both medians.)
B. 4.0/169
C. 3.84/169
D. 3.8/168
E. 3.8/167
F. 3.5/165 (URM)
G. 3.87/169--This is Gary Oak, your fiercest rival.
H. 3.4/170--This is Hypothetical You
J. 3.85/172

For the highest medians, I'm taking A, B, F, J, and you, H! Congrats on your acceptance to UVA Law! I now have medians of 3.85/170.

But let's say the two of you apply this cycle. And J has read awful things about law school and decides not to apply. Now the best LSAT median I can have is a 169, because only two of you are above that. So this cycle, I'm selecting A, B, F, C, and G, for medians of 3.87/169. Sorry, you get left out in the cold, because changing median targets meant different incentives, even though you weren't any weaker of an applicant and you actually became a scarcer commodity than you once were. Rather, the marginal value you provide has dropped when compared to other applicants.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

longlivetheking wrote:are you trying to say that if schools fall to a 168, they can essentially say 'fuck it' to the 170+ crowd? they can simply fill their classes with 165-169 crowd, saving much money by not throwing expensive dough to get their medians up? after all, since everyone's fallen and there's no point in raising the median, might as well just solely concentrate on the 160s?

i'm sure schools still want the best they can get, namely higher lsats, even if the their medians have fallen below that. if virginia is given a choice, i'm pretty sure they would fill their classes with a 177 median. i think its also misleading to note that three cycles haven't shown much love to splitters. now, if your gpa is below 3.0 or below 3.3 for some of the T10s, then even a 180 might not help you. but if you're a 3.4-3.6 (below median), lsn has clearly shown easier admissions.

Schools can indeed afford to say "fuck it" to a few more people after the medians drop or rather, from a more precise standpoint, the incentives for what helps them changes. If I'm UVA and I need to raise my GPA median, a 3.9/120 is a more useful applicant to me than a 3.8/180. If I need to raise my LSAT median, a 1.0/171 is more useful than a 4.0/168. When medians change for a school that's gaming them, there's a new set of incentives. Yes, they'll take the higher numbers all else equal. But new incentives mean new forms of making decisions that can be harmful to some.

Hypothetical: I'm UVA Admissions, shamelessly attempting the highest medians possible. As applications are dropping, my target is to maintain last year's medians. To build my class, I need to choose five students per year, all of whom will matriculate if accepted, and at least one must be a URM.

Last Cycle's Applicants

A. 4.0/180 (I'm throwing $$$ at him and he loves softball, popped collars and the color orange or whatever. Point is, he's above both medians.)
B. 4.0/169
C. 3.84/169
D. 3.8/168
E. 3.8/167
F. 3.5/165 (URM)
G. 3.87/169--This is Gary Oak, your fiercest rival.
H. 3.4/170--This is Hypothetical You
J. 3.85/172

For the highest medians, I'm taking A, B, F, J, and you, H! Congrats on your acceptance to UVA Law! I now have medians of 3.85/170.

But let's say the two of you apply this cycle. And J has read awful things about law school and decides not to apply. Now the best LSAT median I can have is a 169, because only two of you are above that. So this cycle, I'm selecting A, B, F, C, and G, for medians of 3.87/169. Sorry, you get left out in the cold, because changing median targets meant different incentives, even though you weren't any weaker of an applicant and you actually became a scarcer commodity than you once were. Rather, the marginal value you provide has dropped when compared to other applicants.

Your tar makes everything you say seem slightly threatening.

itachiuchiha wrote:anyone know UF's 25th/75th lsat?

I think the median is 160 for this class (as stated a couple pages back), so I'm thinking it's probably around 158/162 given their previous 25/75 splits. Total guess, though.

bimmer11 wrote:Agreed, there has to be some middle ground. With 170+ scores down 44% and even 165-169 down substantially, those 169s are going to have other options with money. If certain T-14s can get 170s at sticker, a 170+ splitter is still probably going to win out. We may just see a lesser amount of scholarships being awarded instead of rejections. The flip side is things may not change and schools may still try to recruit what's left of the shrinking 170+ pool.

This is why it's so important to draw the distinction.

As a splitter, the shrinking applicant pool itself gives you better odds. Responses to it, which include dropping LSAT medians and class sizes, give you worse odds. Overall, your odds may be better if the strength of the applicant decline is greater than the strength of the responses (which it seems to be). But of course you could imagine it going the other way--if every school's response to the declining applicant pool was to cut class sizes in half, your odds would be, in sum, demonstrably worse.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

bimmer11 wrote:Agreed, there has to be some middle ground. With 170+ scores down 44% and even 165-169 down substantially, those 169s are going to have other options with money. If certain T-14s can get 170s at sticker, a 170+ splitter is still probably going to win out. We may just see a lesser amount of scholarships being awarded instead of rejections. The flip side is things may not change and schools may still try to recruit what's left of the shrinking 170+ pool.

This is why it's so important to draw the distinction.

As a splitter, the shrinking applicant pool itself gives you better odds. Responses to it, which include dropping LSAT medians and class sizes, give you worse odds. Overall, your odds may be better if the strength of the applicant decline is greater than the strength of the responses (which it seems to be). But of course you could imagine it going the other way--if every school's response to the declining applicant pool was to cut class sizes in half, your odds would be, in sum, demonstrably worse.

i'm gonna go ahead and agree with you, on the assumption that the adcoms are following a no-nonsense cold hearted 169 median maintaining strategy without regard to other factors. what about for schools like CCN which has a median of 170+? wouldn't they be the promised land splitters have always sought?

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

bimmer11 wrote:Agreed, there has to be some middle ground. With 170+ scores down 44% and even 165-169 down substantially, those 169s are going to have other options with money. If certain T-14s can get 170s at sticker, a 170+ splitter is still probably going to win out. We may just see a lesser amount of scholarships being awarded instead of rejections. The flip side is things may not change and schools may still try to recruit what's left of the shrinking 170+ pool.

This is why it's so important to draw the distinction.

As a splitter, the shrinking applicant pool itself gives you better odds. Responses to it, which include dropping LSAT medians and class sizes, give you worse odds. Overall, your odds may be better if the strength of the applicant decline is greater than the strength of the responses (which it seems to be). But of course you could imagine it going the other way--if every school's response to the declining applicant pool was to cut class sizes in half, your odds would be, in sum, demonstrably worse.

True. IMO this is something that will take a few cycles to work out as opposed to an across the board reduction this year. There is going to be a bottom line where schools cannot drop below, which should make splitters relevant. Who knows where that line is and when/if it will be reached. Also there will come a time when Presidents and other administrators put a stop to the massive amounts of scholarships. Eventually there will have to be an "x" amount of admits at sticker to make the numbers work.

longlivetheking wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

bimmer11 wrote:Agreed, there has to be some middle ground. With 170+ scores down 44% and even 165-169 down substantially, those 169s are going to have other options with money. If certain T-14s can get 170s at sticker, a 170+ splitter is still probably going to win out. We may just see a lesser amount of scholarships being awarded instead of rejections. The flip side is things may not change and schools may still try to recruit what's left of the shrinking 170+ pool.

This is why it's so important to draw the distinction.

As a splitter, the shrinking applicant pool itself gives you better odds. Responses to it, which include dropping LSAT medians and class sizes, give you worse odds. Overall, your odds may be better if the strength of the applicant decline is greater than the strength of the responses (which it seems to be). But of course you could imagine it going the other way--if every school's response to the declining applicant pool was to cut class sizes in half, your odds would be, in sum, demonstrably worse.

i'm gonna go ahead and agree with you, on the assumption that the adcoms are following a no-nonsense cold hearted 169 median maintaining strategy without regard to other factors. what about for schools like CCN which has a median of 170+? wouldn't they be the promised land splitters have always sought?

CLS and NYU sort of always have been that promised land (speaking as a splitter who got into both and only one of MVP, and even that was just because I'm a VA resident). They don't really have a "strategic" element to them because neither one games its medians. As the pool of 170+ students decreases, your odds at schools that draw either exclusively or near-exclusively from that pool necessarily increase. I think we saw that this cycle when NYU got a lot more lenient with the 170s and pulled several people off the WL with below-median GPAs and a 170, which used to have a pretty solid 3.8 floor there. They also have been dipping further from the 3.4 floor they used to have. CLS's standards have held a little tighter--170 is still a pretty hard non-URM floor. But they dipped a little too--they used to be quite stiff with a 3.5 floor, and they went below that quite a few times on the reserve list this year. At those two your status doesn't depend on median manipulation but rather where you fit in a sliding scale. As that scale adjusts, it could prove beneficial to splitters--indeed, for applicants like me, it already has.

bouleversement wrote:I think the caveat here is that LSAT median declines generally parallel LSAT 75th declines. A splitter will benefit if he now finds himself above a given school's 75th whereas before he might have been in the no man's land that is the 50th-74th percentile.

The thing is, few people care about 75ths... they aren't factored into rankings at all.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: CLS and NYU sort of always have been that promised land (speaking as a splitter who got into both and only one of MVP, and even that was just because I'm a VA resident). They don't really have a "strategic" element to them because neither one games its medians. As the pool of 170+ students decreases, your odds at schools that draw either exclusively or near-exclusively from that pool necessarily increase. I think we saw that this cycle when NYU got a lot more lenient with the 170s and pulled several people off the WL with below-median GPAs and a 170, which used to have a pretty solid 3.8 floor there. They also have been dipping further from the 3.4 floor they used to have. CLS's standards have held a little tighter--170 is still a pretty hard non-URM floor. But they dipped a little too--they used to be quite stiff with a 3.5 floor, and they went below that quite a few times on the reserve list this year. At those two your status doesn't depend on median manipulation but rather where you fit in a sliding scale. As that scale adjusts, it could prove beneficial to splitters--indeed, for applicants like me, it already has.

Any guesses on whether this might hold for super-splitters as well? And by that, I mean myself with a horrendous sub-3.0 GPA but a 173 LSAT. I'm worried that, having already been above everyone's 75th% outside the T6, median movement downward opens up more solid candidates at 169-170. If the middle and lower T14 move almost in concert downward with median LSAT, does my 173 buy me less because I'm opened up to hundreds more now competing with median + above median LSATs but GPAs that smash mine in the face?

I was always an outside shot at most of the T14 anyway, but I didn't know if this turned some 10-20% chances into 5-10% chances.

Sorry. It appears you have already answered my question previously ITT.

The way I've been thinking about these developments is that they'll mean different things to different people, but they should ultimately be a net positive from an applicant's perspective (ignoring of course the underlying reasons why applications are falling in the first place).

For example, a 3.4/175 applicant may have increased chances of admission to CLS and NYU, and decreased odds at other t-14's that now have a larger pool from which to maintain/increase their LSAT median. Whereas a 3.8+/169 applicant would experience the opposite. I haven't looked at this as closely as others ITT, but this at least makes sense to me on the surface.

However, this is all just speculation and what this actually means primarily depends on the schools' reactions to the drop in apps.

W&M updated their pages. They DID enroll a class of 228. That's a huge jump in size while holding medians.
http://law.wm.edu/admissions/classprofile/index.php

I'm still of the belief that T-14 schools (preferably 3.0 and above GPA) will be open to taking whatever 170+applicants that are left. I found a thread from two years ago where it was guessed that about ~2500 170+ applicants were in that cycle. With the current numbers showing a huge decline in the 170+ category, you're probably looking at ~1500 170+ applicants. It is such a rare commodity that IMO top schools will still try to lock up as many as possible.