There is another post out there talking about this article, which states that apps are up 62% in Iowa:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/applicat ... t_iowa.php

Here is why I think this is happening. Everyone thinks its going to be a harder cycle, and maybe it is, but not a 62% jump in one year. The perception of a harder cycle is causing people to hedge there bets with more and more schools and safties. Students who last year might have cut their list off at WUSTL or Vanderbilt, are now throwing in schools like Iowa, Indiana and Alabama.

At the end of the year we might see a 5-10% uptick in applications, but schools like Iowa are going to see massive decreases in percentages of accepted attending.


The moral of this story, in the words of the late Douglas Adams:
"Don't Panic"

ALL IS WELL!

Is it possible that Iowa did a much better job of publicizing their school this year?

For the most part, you're probably right - apps won't be up 60+% at every school. To say that it won't really happen at certain other schools, though, is unknown at this point and would be misguided. The same thing happened last cycle. Everyone thought that there would be a huge increase in applicants, but there really wasn't at many schools. At other places like UVA and W&L, however, there was not only a massive increase in the applicant pool but also pretty solid yield. The article obviously doesn't speak for every single school this cycle, but it could be a sign of things to come at some other schools.

If there were that many more law school applicants this year, I imagine we would have heard some story about a huge increase in people taking the LSAT long before now. Iowa seems to be one of the more accessible of T-30 schools for those with numbers on the low side (for a T-30). It has a great academic reputation, and in years past has been overlooked because...well, not many people want to be in Iowa long term. But in a recession people start thinking "Hell, decently ranked program, cheap living for three years? Sign me up."

A 62% jump could be explained by an increase to 81 applicants at this point in the cycle compared to 50 from last year. That's not really so impressive, nor is it necessarily an indicator that there will be a 62% increase overall for the whole cycle.

the RIGOROUS question is: will it be so accessible this year?

We shall wait and see....

There aren't that many applicants on LSN though

Possibly
I've gotten 4 emails from them this year, and none last year.

They don't have the internet in Iowa.

I don't know if this has been said or not, but if that increase at Iowa was indicative of the general applicant pool, we probably would've seen a surge in LSAT takers.

I think a couple of other factors may be at play.

1. I think people may be applying earlier in the cycle than in previous years (maybe due to competition, maybe ITE). I was planning to apply last year but held off because of LSAT and then getting my LSAC file complete without giving recommenders too little time.

2. Fee waivers. I got a bunch last year. I solicited the same ones and asked all the schools I wanted to apply to this year for some. Taking out ALL of the solicited fee waivers, I still got more this cycle than last year (including those after my December LSAT).

3. Money. I want money for law school. I don't know if I'll get it where I apply but I think I'd go to a T30 school with money before a T20 school without money at this point, depending of course how much we are talking.

My $.02

When I got the Iowa email, my first thought was that it's likely more people are just applying early, not that more people are applying. My second thought was it's possible that in actual numbers, rather than percent (love that I'm using my LSAT knowledge) it could easily be just a few more people. My third thought was it's possible they're just lying. It took me that long for it to even occur to me that this might be a serious problem. Harder cycle? Maybe. By a magnitude of 62%? I doubt it.

Definitely true. Don't the bulk of applications come after Thanksgiving. It is definitely possible that the actual numbers of apps in by this point usually isn't a lot anyway. That combined by Iowa marketing themselves a bit more this year, and some other factors ...

How many apps can we assume Iowa has received so far? I'm guessing they got about 400-600 out of about a yearly average of 1600 apps/yr. What can really be said about a 200-300 app increase within the first couple months compared to last year??

not much

a lot. the numbers don't matter because your not comparing them across schools. you're comparing iowa to iowa, and a 62% increase is too large, imo, to try to explain away.

also, an increase in applications doesn't necessarily mean that the # of LSAT takers would increase proportionally. I would bet that the average applicant is applying to more schools. there also might have been a significant increase in need-based fee waivers, given that a lot of people have lost their jobs.

. . .

we could go on forever with our ideas. oh well. good for iowa. i met the dean of admission, dean byrd, last year when i visited. he is really cool, and if you're considering iowa you should go meet him.

I wonder if Iowa, or if most law schools, are aware of these possibilities when considering admitting super high numbers. This is usually where "yield protection" comes into play but I really wonder if this will be applicable this year because it seems from that email that they seem pretty proud and confident in the increase...maybe they might see it as their golden opportunity to bump up in the rankings after falling a few spots over the years. Or it could be that they will end up digging deep into the waitlist and in the worst case, have an underfilled class. Or it could be that I need to chill out and go to sleep cause it's late.

Probably

I don't know if I'm wrong but even with 600% the number of applicants, the school can only hold and only wants to only hold so many people, so the number of lawyers that will be entering the market to compete with you in the future for jobs is exaggerated.

That's not reliable. Not everyone knows about LSN, or wants to report their information if they do know about it.

Iowa got everybody talking about Iowa. Iowa wins.



Contradiction? Haha

HEY!

Number of applications on LSN that have been "sent" by November 6th this cycle as compared to last cycle. I just picked random schools. Obviously self reported data with a huge margin of error, so I'll let you decide whether or not it has any meaning.

Iowa
Last Cycle-19
This Cycle-31
Up 63% (surprised that it's so close to the "official number Iowa gave)

Harvard
Last Cycle-181
This Cycle-173
Down 4.5%

UVA
Last Cycle-247
This Cycle-238
Down 3.7%

WUSTL
Last Cycle-99
This Cycle-107
Up 8.1%

Boston U
Last Cycle-112
This Cycle-115
Up 2.7%

George Washington
Last Cycle-110
This Cycle-81
Down 35.8% (???)

Cardozo
Last Cycle-57
This Cycle-52
Down 9.6%

Rutgers-Newark
Last Cycle-22
This Cycle-20
Down 10%

Nice work. It's actually not that surprising that the Iowa figures match. People fail to realize how significant a sample the size of LSN's is. George Washington's probably down because of their rankings drop. One concern I have about your methods though is that people may retroactively add their application information. That's what I'm planning to do.