Br3v wrote:Come on man, you gotta act like you've been there before hahaStarLightSpectre wrote:BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Kafka wrote:Storynkp007 wrote: Cool
yes
You should have seen how fast I was hitting submit. haha
Br3v wrote:Come on man, you gotta act like you've been there before hahaStarLightSpectre wrote:BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Kafka wrote:Storynkp007 wrote: Cool
yes
CoolStarLightSpectre wrote: You should have seen how fast I was hitting submit. haha
Story lolthelawyler wrote:CoolStarLightSpectre wrote: You should have seen how fast I was hitting submit. haha
Want to continue reading?
Absolutely FREE!
Already a member? Login
nah, the best part is the meta-application of a meme.thelawyler wrote:Best part is brevs avatar is just perfect
There may not be an epic slap, at least as far as money's concerned. When it comes to the law school business, the normal rules don't seem to apply.nkp007 wrote:Anxiously waiting for the epic slap law schools will endure in this cycle and next...especially since they've been slapping applicants for a decade.
As it goes in investing, "When the tide goes out, you discover who's been swimming naked".
Register now!
It's still FREE!
Already a member? Login
Well being that LSAC was set up by law schools for law schools, you can guess where their loyalties are. And LSAC isn't run like other businesses. Other businesses cut prices when demand falls because of economics and supply & demand. LSAC doesn't abide by those economic rules because they are a monopoly.sunynp wrote:Why aren't they charging school more to participate? If they need more money why didn't they look to the schools. The number of schools participating isn't changing. And tuition certainly isn't going down.
Here is the thing: if fewer students are applying costs to LSAC should go down. They have a couple hundred thousand less people to process. Why isn't LSAC cutting costs to accomodate the reduction in applicants. That is what most businesses including law firms do.
Those are great charts.MLBrandow wrote:Are you equivocating LSAC fees with law school fees in general? It makes sense that if the price of properly vetting an LSAT for administration remains static, LSAC has no choice but to raise fees to compensate for the decrease in applicant volume. I'm not sure one can make a similar claim to the price of law school when they are essentially profit-driven, whereas LSAC is not. Even if many of those law schools don't reap the benefits of most of their profits, their universities certainly do.
Adjusting for inflation, the LSAT registration fee has remained roughly static over the past 11 years.
Yes, that's definitely the impression I get from the news articles that come out. No one else really seems to be interested in dropping LSAT medians / easier admission to T14, etc., except us. If the # of LSATs administered drop further, next cycle may have even fewer 170+ applicants.TatNurner wrote:Negativity about law school is music to my ears.
Videos like this give me faith that we haven't seen the bottom yet.
As an interesting aside, I feel like the news about declining law school apps/LSATS administered is having a positive feedback effect where it is amplifying the unpopularity of law school, (e.g. "law school is so bad, look how many people are giving up on it" ) rather than giving the impression that this trend should make things easier in the near future, which is what most of us watching this stuff closely are thinking.
So what I'm hoping for is that I'm buying low and selling high on this whole law school thing.LSAT Blog wrote:Yes, that's definitely the impression I get from the news articles that come out. No one else really seems to be interested in dropping LSAT medians / easier admission to T14, etc., except us. If the # of LSATs administered drop further, next cycle may have even fewer 170+ applicants.TatNurner wrote: As an interesting aside, I feel like the news about declining law school apps/LSATS administered is having a positive feedback effect where it is amplifying the unpopularity of law school, (e.g. "law school is so bad, look how many people are giving up on it" ) rather than giving the impression that this trend should make things easier in the near future, which is what most of us watching this stuff closely are thinking.
Get unlimited access to all forums and topics
I'm pretty sure I told you it's FREE...
Already a member? Login
I think there's a lot of things "high-end LSAT applicants" can mean. Also the whole "just blanket T-14" thing is probably catching on very fast.KevinP wrote:^
Interesting. I wonder why some of the 170+ applicants decided to apply this late at a faster rate than last year.
On a related note:
"and it is worth noting that Northwestern Law has seen just a very slight decline this year (in approximately the 4% range) and no decline in the high-end LSAT applicants"
http://deansblog.law.northwestern.edu/2 ... n-decline/
thoughts?
Thursday, April 19, 2012
What is Going On at Law School Admission Council (LSAC)?
Brian Tamanaha
The LSAC administers the LSAT as well as the applications of students to law school. Anyone who wishes to attend law school--tens of thousands of people every year--must go through LSAC. The monopoly position it holds makes it a reliable money producing machine. From 2005 to 2009, income from test and application fees generated a total of $230,000,000 (By year: $41,500,000; $43,000,000; $43,5000,000; $47,900,000; $53,900,000; and 2010 fees will exceed $55,000,000).
Setting aside 2008 and 2009, when it suffered substantial losses in the market, LSAC's revenues exceed its liabilities by a significant margin every year. That's because it earns much more on fees than it costs to administer the tests and applications. At the end of the 2010 fiscal year it was up by $17,500,000 from its starting balance.
Given this money making capability, it is not surprising that LSAC has assets of $191,000,000--including cash and securities of $170,900,000--which produces millions more in annual investment income.
This is relevant because LSAC President Dan Bernstein just announced that the fee to take the exam is going up by 15 percent. Application fees are going up as well. With these price hikes, an applicant who takes the LSAT and applies to six law schools will pay LSAC about $450. That's no small amount.
Law schools cannot view this as good news, since they are already dealing with a sharp decline in applicants.
Bernstein explained that the increase in fees is necessary because the fall in applications of the past two years has cut into revenues.
"It is now time for us to correct our fees in light of new volume realities, and to align them more closely with the true value of those services to law schools and their applicants," Bernstine wrote. "We sincerely hope that this will be the only correction to our candidate-fee levels, and that the 'new normal' will identify itself in the next couple of years."
By mentioning true value, what he means is that "the level of service provided to applicants has grown over time — making the process more convenient and worth the extra money." That is, they are getting more so they should pay more.
What Bernstein doesn't state in his explanation for the fee increase is that LSAC will lose money on its operation without the hike. That would be hard to imagine given that the fees generated appear to exceed the costs of running the tests and processing the applications, much of which is computerized.
When a business is faced with declining demand, the usual course is to cut price (and reduce expenses), but LSAC is doing the opposite. LSAC is not a "business," of course. It is a non-profit organization that was created by law schools to administer the LSAT--with equal voting shares held by every ABA accredited law school. It doesn't need to cut price because it holds a monopoly, and the decline is not owing to the price of its service but to a dampening of interest in attending law school. There is no point in cutting price, they probably reason, because that won't lead to more applicants.
That's true enough, but it still doesn't explain why fee hikes are necessary given that LSAC is sitting on nearly $200 million in assets, and revenues exceed expenses.
Here is another curiosity: the officers of this non-profit are extremely well compensated. In 2009, the President earned $635,000 (with what looks like a $200,000 forgivable loan upon hiring)--compared to the previous president who earned $442,000 in 2007. The next highest officers earned $375,000, $322,800, $299,2000, $282,000, $252,500, $237,400, $231,912, and so on. In 2008, the four highest officers below the President also received one time supplemental payments of $100,000, $100,000, $85,000, and $70,000.
This a lot of money to pay people for what amounts to running a money machine. They do not engage in any fundraising. Their income stream is unrelated to anything they do: revenue goes up when more people apply to law school and goes down with the reverse.
I have previously raised questions about LSAC and its role in connection with law schools. There is no doubt that it can provide a much better service--in particular by supplying the ABA the data on LSAT and GPA medians for every law school. It has this information in its data bank and providing this directly to the ABA would avoid errors as well as false reporting.
Law schools elect the Board of Trustees that oversees LSAC. It is time to elect people who will take a hard look at its operation. What are LSAC's priorities? Why is it amassing a huge pile of money? Why is it raising fees when it is not losing money? Why are the officers paid so much? Why is there a general counsel and assistant general counsel, with a combined salary of half a million dollars, along with legal fees to outside law firms totaling another half a million dollars? Why is a million dollars spent each year on lobbying? Why does LSAC pay for "guests" to accompany staff members to two board meetings a year? (All of this information is available on Guidestar).
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with LSAC. There may be good answers to all of this. But it doesn't hurt to ask.
Communicate now with those who not only know what a legal education is, but can offer you worthy advice and commentary as you complete the three most educational, yet challenging years of your law related post graduate life.
Already a member? Login
+1ahnhub wrote:I think there's a lot of things "high-end LSAT applicants" can mean. Also the whole "just blanket T-14" thing is probably catching on very fast.KevinP wrote:^
Interesting. I wonder why some of the 170+ applicants decided to apply this late at a faster rate than last year.
On a related note:
"and it is worth noting that Northwestern Law has seen just a very slight decline this year (in approximately the 4% range) and no decline in the high-end LSAT applicants"
http://deansblog.law.northwestern.edu/2 ... n-decline/
thoughts?
I mean, law schools have all been clamoring to proclaim that while overall applications are plummeting, THEY are faced with the most impressive, largest, most special-snowflake applicant pool in school history.
Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!
Already a member? Login