16.9% Decrease In October Test Takers(Detailed Stats Inside) Forum

[Jeffort]

I wonder if this increased publicity about LSATs administered hitting a 10 year low is going to send people piling back into law school again.

Since a bunch of uniformed people will probably mistakenly believe that it will make 'the curve' easier and admission standards at top law schools to go down, the idea likely has some merit for future cycles.

PLEASE GOD NO.

"Everything that has happened before will happen again."

-Cylons
Battlestar Galactica

i endorse this sort of comment!

I figured you would like it, given that your avatar is of Starbuck!

[ddacey]

.

[Gail]

I imagine further declines, though probably not as dramatic as this year. More importantly though, will it matter?


Answer:

No. It won't.

[Jeffort]

I imagine further declines, though probably not as dramatic as this year. More importantly though, will it matter?


Answer:

No. It won't.

I pretty much agree with this. My prediction is that there will probably be just a slight decline from the 2011-2012 testing year, but nothing huge like happened the past two testing years. It'll level off, after all it was basically just a correction from record high volumes over several years and the bubble burst.

I also agree that it will not matter for people shooting for T1 schools. It will matter for T3 & T4 law schools though. T2 schools will be fine but the ones in the mid to lower end of the tier are probably going to loosen up a little bit and their subsequent numbers will shift down a little. T1 and T14 schools admission stats are unlikely to be affected. That's my prediction.

Also, none of it may matter at all because supposedly the world is going to come to an end sometime late this year! lol

[KevinP]

Decrease in applicants, contrary to common assumption, are fueled a lot more from the top scorers than from the bottom. The only exception is the 175+ (noticeably smaller decline than the other groups but that is to be expected since that group experienced a huge decline last year. The average decrease over the last 2 years for the 175+ will show that they decreased proportionately more than the overall decline.
http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/la ... mbers.html

ETA:
Click on the actual LSAC link to see a breakdown of applicants by LSAT score.

[bernaldiaz]

Decrease in applicants, contrary to common assumption, are fueled a lot more from the top scorers than from the bottom. The only exception is the 175+ (noticeably smaller decline than the other groups but that is to be expected since that group experienced a huge decline last year. The average decrease over the last 2 years for the 175+ will show that they decreased proportionately more than the overall decline.
http://www.taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_ ... hool-.html

ETA:
Click on the actual LSAC link to see a breakdown of applicants by LSAT score.

Pretty, prettty, pritttttaaay, interesting

[marcellus]

So the people on this thread who said the number of high-scorers would fall by alot appear to have been vindicated.

But what about their prediction that top law schools would lower their LSAT standards?

I haven't seen solid evidence that that has happened -- but the cycle isn't over yet. (Many high-LSAT splitters hve actually been rejected when we might think they'd be snapped up more readily). But LSAT standards may be lower but if they're only marginally lower, we may not notice until we see published numbers. If Harvard's 25% LSAT is down 1-2 points, we probably won't be able to tell from LSN and TLS reports.

Certainly doesn't feel like HYS have opened the floodgates in desperation to get students.

[EMZE]

Hopefully a ~15% decline in supply of people willing to pay to go to law school + no change in the supply of seats offered at law schools = a coressponding ~15% decrease in tuiton.

[KevinP]

So the people on this thread who said the number of high-scorers would fall by alot appear to have been vindicated.

But what about their prediction that top law schools would lower their LSAT standards?

I haven't seen solid evidence that that has happened -- but the cycle isn't over yet. (Many high-LSAT splitters hve actually been rejected when we might think they'd be snapped up more readily). But LSAT standards may be lower but if they're only marginally lower, we may not notice until we see published numbers. If Harvard's 25% LSAT is down 1-2 points, we probably won't be able to tell from LSN and TLS reports.

Certainly doesn't feel like HYS have opened the floodgates in desperation to get students.

My guess is that we won't really see the effects until schools start taking people off the waitlist.

[Tom Joad]

Hopefully a ~15% decline in supply of people willing to pay to go to law school + no change in the supply of seats offered at law schools = a coressponding ~15% decrease in tuiton.

Depends on the elasticity of supply, brah.

[nkp007]

The chart below shows the high LSAT score of 2012 ABA applicants with the percent change from last year:

Highest LSAT Number of Applicants Pct Chg YTD
< 140 4,180 -4.3%
140–144 5,631 -6.2%
145–149 8,709 -13.8%
150–154 11,449 -18.8%
155–159 12,059 -13.8%
160–164 8,817 -18.4%
165–169 5,673 -18.5%
170–174 2,571 -20.7%
175–180 659 -13.6%

[Gail]

It doesn't seem to have had an effect. And quite honestly, if a school not in the top 14 takes you off the WL but doesn't offer you a scholarship, I think it's a bad idea to go anyways.

[KevinP]

Here are data and the analysis on these data that I thought was interesting:
The 175+ (highest LSAT) group last year saw an overall decline of 24%, so the lower 13.6% decline this year (YTD) isn't entirely unexpected. Assuming the 13.6% decline holds for the remainder of the year, the average decline over the course of the last 2 years would be 34.3% for the 175+ applicants.

Surprisingly, the 170-174 group only saw a decline of 7.5% last year. This year the decline is (YTD) 20.7%. Assuming the 20.7% decline holds, the average decline over the last 2 years would be 26.5% for 170-174 applicants.

When taken in context of the expected 24.1% decline over the course of 2 years, both these numbers confirm my suspicion that the top scorers (170+) are forgoing law school faster than some of the other groups. The interesting thing is that I haven't really seen the elite law schools becoming more lenient (according to LSN) towards applicants, with a few exceptions of course. I think we may not see the effects of the decline until May, when schools start taking people off the waitlist.

tl;dr: Law schools lose more than 1/4 (relatively close to 1/3) of their 170+ applicant pool over 2 years and act as if everything is okay, but I suspect reality will set in for them come waitlist time.

It doesn't seem to have had an effect. And quite honestly, if a school not in the top 14 takes you off the WL but doesn't offer you a scholarship, I think it's a bad idea to go anyways.

Point well taken. This is what surprises me a lot, to be honest.

[marcellus]

Some months ago I looked at the then-recent statistics and saw that the number of people applying to law school was going to be around the same level as applied in 2001-2, I believe.

Might that suggest we can expect 2001-2 style medians and 25/75 numbers for the incoming classes?

[Tiago Splitter]

Some months ago I looked at the then-recent statistics and saw that the number of people applying to law school was going to be around the same level as applied in 2001-2, I believe.

Might that suggest we can expect 2001-2 style medians and 25/75 numbers for the incoming classes?

No because schools in those days would average LSAT scores, so retaking wasn't nearly as popular.

[KevinP]

Some months ago I looked at the then-recent statistics and saw that the number of people applying to law school was going to be around the same level as applied in 2001-2, I believe.

Might that suggest we can expect 2001-2 style medians and 25/75 numbers for the incoming classes?

No because schools in those days would average LSAT scores, so retaking wasn't nearly as popular.

Also, although the number of LSATs administered is close to the 2001-2 level, the number of applicants should be at the lowest level in more than 20 years assuming the decline remains constant.

[ahnhub]

There were 130,000 LSATs administeed this year. For 2010 and 2011, the ratio of LSATS administered-to-Applicants was 1.96. Apply the same ratio and you get 66,000 applicants--and KevinP's estimate of the lowest number in the past 20 yrs becomes conservative. There are probably fewer people applying to law school this year than at any point in modern history.

The most interesting thing (besides of course, whether Harvard breaks down and lets all of us in at once) is whether 45,000+ still get accepted and choose to attend. I'm going to bet this year total enrollment actually shrinks substantially.

[marcellus]

Yep, the LSAT blog predicts 66,696 applicants this year and the WSJ picks up on it.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/04/09/num ... -to-slide/

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/la ... mbers.html

[LSAT Blog]

Tamanaha has a great analysis of the impact on law schools:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/law- ... s-and.html

[thelawyler]

Oh lawl schools. Take me off that WL and throw me some monies.

[TatNurner]

So what I don't get, given all this overwhelming evidence, is why the schools are still swagging like its 2009-10?

I mean, one would expect any rational actor to be trying to strengthen their position vis-a-vis the competition as early as possible by throwing lots of $ at attractive candidates and letting in the best of borderline candidates before other schools start showing them wait-list love.

But as we've heard in this thread we haven't seen any of this yet. Anyone have any ideas why the schools are playing it so cool? What's the strategy here?

[bernaldiaz]

The chart below shows the high LSAT score of 2012 ABA applicants with the percent change from last year:

Highest LSAT Number of Applicants Pct Chg YTD
< 140 4,180 -4.3%
140–144 5,631 -6.2%
145–149 8,709 -13.8%
150–154 11,449 -18.8%
155–159 12,059 -13.8%
160–164 8,817 -18.4%
165–169 5,673 -18.5%
170–174 2,571 -20.7%
175–180 659 -13.6%

It literally has to be impossible for HYS CCN to keep up their medians. I'm sure Yale won't suffer, but I refuse to believe that there won't be any noticeable differences by the end of the cycle. Really, the only people on here who have most plainly not seen a difference are pretty big splitters, and that is unpredictable anyways.

[nkp007]

The chart below shows the high LSAT score of 2012 ABA applicants with the percent change from last year:

Highest LSAT Number of Applicants Pct Chg YTD
< 140 4,180 -4.3%
140–144 5,631 -6.2%
145–149 8,709 -13.8%
150–154 11,449 -18.8%
155–159 12,059 -13.8%
160–164 8,817 -18.4%
165–169 5,673 -18.5%
170–174 2,571 -20.7%
175–180 659 -13.6%

It literally has to be impossible for HYS CCN to keep up their medians. I'm sure Yale won't suffer, but I refuse to believe that there won't be any noticeable differences by the end of the cycle. Really, the only people on here who have most plainly not seen a difference are pretty big splitters, and that is unpredictable anyways.

These aren't marginal hits...these are massive. Medians must take a hit.

I like to take take scenarios to an extreme. If there was an 80% hit in 170+ applicants, would medians take a hit? How about 70%? Given that there's a hit, something has got to give.

This cycle and next cycle.

[RaleighStClair]

I'm sure it will vary market to market, but in general, does this mean that grads in 2014-2015 will be seeing higher overall percentages of legal employment, since there will be less graduates seeking work? I realize the legal market sucks and likely will still suck then, but the number of jobs available year to year certainly isn't shrinking at this high of a rate, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

[bernaldiaz]

I'm sure it will vary market to market, but in general, does this mean that grads in 2014-2015 will be seeing higher overall percentages of legal employment, since there will be less graduates seeking work? I realize the legal market sucks and likely will still suck then, but the number of jobs available year to year certainly isn't shrinking at this high of a rate, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

There won't be less graduates? Just less applicants. Very few schools are decreasing class size, and even those that are aren't making huge cuts.