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

[LSAT Blog]

For UT Austin, that's very promising news.

For Chicago, we'd have to look at the timeline on WL acceptances in previous years to see if this year is truly different. But, yes, it's nice to see these happening so soon after the deposit deadline.

(Btw, for Chicago, I see 3 WL acceptances in the past week, not 4. One of other recently-listed WL acceptances is about a decision made on 1-13-12.)

[mijenks]

For UT Austin, that's very promising news.

For Chicago, we'd have to look at the timeline on WL acceptances in previous years to see if this year is truly different. But, yes, it's nice to see these happening so soon after the deposit deadline.

(Btw, for Chicago, I see 3 WL acceptances in the past week, not 4. One of other recently-listed WL acceptances is about a decision made on 1-13-12.)

The Chicago original WL decision was 13 Jan, the acceptance off the WL was, like the other three, 20 Apr. It pays to read the fine print.

[LSAT Blog]

Thanks for clearing that up. I tend to use official statistics, so I've hardly spent any time on LSN. Didn't know that the meaning of the date in the "Decision" column varied from user to user.

[thelawyler]

A mere week after Chicago's deposit deadline, LSN shows Four WL acceptances (half of last year's total of eight), all with high LSAT's (three 172's and a 179).

Same story at UT Austin - deposit deadline April 15th, already 6 WL acceptances (only 3 WL acceptances total last year), 5 are at/above median LSAT, 3 are at/above 75th LSAT.

It's early, but this seems to fit the theory we've been batting around..

Thoughts?

I guess that means I should LOCI to Chicago...

[cogitoergosum]

I'm wondering if the shitstorm is starting...

1) A bunch of people (myself included) got full-tuition offers from Cardozo today after withdrawing, asking us to reconsider. As far as I can tell, everyone who got the full ride offer was above 75th percentile LSAT. Some were serious splitters (one was a 2.7 GPA, I'm 3.2). So it looks like they're in the market for LSATs. People above median LSAT also got pretty nice offers to reconsider.

2) I got a call from another t25 school I had withdrawn from today, asking if I might still be interested.

Signs that we're in for an epic month?!? I think maybe...

[KellyFan2000]

I have a feeling this is, indeed, the beginning of a very interesting month.

[StarLightSpectre]

I'm wondering if the shitstorm is starting...

1) A bunch of people (myself included) got full-tuition offers from Cardozo today after withdrawing, asking us to reconsider. As far as I can tell, everyone who got the full ride offer was above 75th percentile LSAT. Some were serious splitters (one was a 2.7 GPA, I'm 3.2). So it looks like they're in the market for LSATs. People above median LSAT also got pretty nice offers to reconsider.

2) I got a call from another t25 school I had withdrawn from today, asking if I might still be interested.

Signs that we're in for an epic month?!? I think maybe...

I withdrew from Cardozo with a full scholly. A few days after their first deposit they asked me to reconsider. Also, I've still been getting emails and extensions from Davis despite withdrawing from there too.

[shifty_eyed]

Sounds like this cycle will end up going well for splitters! Hope that trend continues next cycle.....

[cogitoergosum]

Sounds like this cycle will end up going well for splitters!

Well, it might be too soon to be sure about this cycle but I'm certainly hoping so, and I think the post-deposit-deadline behavior of schools with mid-April deadlines is looking suggestive.

[jkpolk]

If we can project this decrease of high LSAT scores into the next cycle, think there is a chance we see deferral offers to this year's class in order to bolster next year's numbers?

[thelawyler]

Any movement at other t14s with mid april deadlines like cornell?

[cogitoergosum]

Any movement at other t14s with mid april deadlines like cornell?

I don't see any Cornell WL movement on LSN. UT Austin has had pretty substantial movement already, and to a lesser extent Chicago.

[LSAT Blog]

If we can project this decrease of high LSAT scores into the next cycle, think there is a chance we see deferral offers to this year's class in order to bolster next year's numbers?

Quite possibly, but that depends on how likely law schools think another such decrease would be.

Of course, that would be a real disaster for them, since the T14 presumably don't want to shrink their class sizes by nearly that amount. They will likely shrink their class sizes in this cycle to deal with the decrease that's already occurred.

The 4/13 LSAC report suggested a 20% decrease in applicants in the 170-174 range, letting us project 2,627 applicants in that range for this cycle. If we project *another* 20% decrease in this range into next cycle, we'd have only 2,101 170-174 applicants.

With LSAC's 4/13 reporting suggesting a 13.5% decrease, we can project 664 175+ applicants for this cycle. If we project *another* 13.5% decrease in this range into next cycle, we'd have only 574 175+ applicants.

So, we'd be going from 3,291 170+ applicants this cycle (2627+664) to only 2,675 170+ applicants next cycle (2101+574).

I looked at law schools' websites and arrived at 4,497 as a general estimate of the top-14's law school enrollment (and enrollment goals) for the Class of 2014.

(http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/ad ... asier.html - details with projections for applicant numbers in each range based on LSAC's 3/30 report.)

[LSAT Blog]

Re the increase in fees, by Brian Tamahana

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/what ... chool.html

LSAC just sent out an email responding to his criticisms:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/lsac ... -post.html

[outlookingin]

Re the increase in fees, by Brian Tamahana

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/what ... chool.html

LSAC just sent out an email responding to his criticisms:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/lsac ... -post.html

It's pretty awesome that we have Brian Tamahana in our corner.

[Easy-E]

"Considered against the total cost of a legal education, this is a very modest sum – about 0.3% of total law school costs."

Is it just me or is this comment completely irrelevant? We know law school is expensive, just because the application/testing cost is small in comparison to that doesn't change that it's excessive. I could be wrong though, I didn't give it an intensive read (@work).

Either way, I already paid that shit 3x

[Tiago Splitter]

"Considered against the total cost of a legal education, this is a very modest sum – about 0.3% of total law school costs."

Is it just me or is this comment completely irrelevant? We know law school is expensive, just because the application/testing cost is small in comparison to that doesn't change that it's excessive. I could be wrong though, I didn't give it an intensive read (@work).

Either way, I already paid that shit 3x

You're right that its terrible logic. Lsac should turn that into an lsat question.

[shifty_eyed]

"Considered against the total cost of a legal education, this is a very modest sum – about 0.3% of total law school costs."

Is it just me or is this comment completely irrelevant? We know law school is expensive, just because the application/testing cost is small in comparison to that doesn't change that it's excessive. I could be wrong though, I didn't give it an intensive read (@work).

Either way, I already paid that shit 3x

You're right that its terrible logic. Lsac should turn that into an lsat question.

Especially since the next claim "This percentage has been going down over the past decade" only serves to prove that law school tuition is rising exorbitantly, NOT that the LSAC fees are a bargain!!! I was mildly outraged at that part.

[Easy-E]

"Considered against the total cost of a legal education, this is a very modest sum – about 0.3% of total law school costs."

Is it just me or is this comment completely irrelevant? We know law school is expensive, just because the application/testing cost is small in comparison to that doesn't change that it's excessive. I could be wrong though, I didn't give it an intensive read (@work).

Either way, I already paid that shit 3x

You're right that its terrible logic. Lsac should turn that into an lsat question.

Especially since the next claim "This percentage has been going down over the past decade" only serves to prove that law school tuition is rising exorbitantly, NOT that the LSAC fees are a bargain!!! I was mildly outraged at that part.

Do they not think we've been studying to take this damned test for the last couple months or something? Don't try and fly that weak-ass proportion confusion by us.

[LSAT Blog]

Re the increase in fees, by Brian Tamahana

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/what ... chool.html

LSAC just sent out an email responding to his criticisms:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/lsac ... -post.html

For those who want to see LSAC's complete response, Tamanaha left out two parts:

the introductory paragraph:

Recently, bloggers have posted confusing and out-of-context information about the LSAC. Much of it is exaggerated, and some is flatly wrong. I am writing to make sure you have better information about the organization when you form your views.

and the second-to-last paragraph:

The LSAC is successful because it provides great value to law students and law schools. Think about what would happen without the LSAC. A student who applies to six law schools would have to pay for six original transcripts and arrange to have them sent to six different places, each of his two or three reference letters would also have to be sent separately to each school, and he might have to take different admissions tests, each of which would involve fees and which wouldn’t be nearly as good as the LSAT at predicting law school success. From the law school side, each school would have to receive, open and organize all these transcripts and reference letters, they’d have to develop software to distribute it within their schools or do it manually, they wouldn’t have information about the grading practices of undergraduate schools, they’d either have no standardized test or a less reliable and valid one, etc., etc. The LSAC does well because it provides great value and great efficiency to both law students and law schools.

(via http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... ponds.html)

[thelawyler]

Well he misses the point in that second to last paragraph. People are pissed bc they do TOO well

[cogitoergosum]

A student who applies to six law schools [...] might have to take different admissions tests, each of which would involve fees and which wouldn’t be nearly as good as the LSAT at predicting law school success.

Oh, come on... So without the LSAC there's likely NO standardized LS entrance test? Haha, riiiight.

I'm not totally sure I'm hating on the LSAC with all of this, but this comment is funny.

[Easy-E]

A student who applies to six law schools [...] might have to take different admissions tests, each of which would involve fees and which wouldn’t be nearly as good as the LSAT at predicting law school success.

Oh, come on... So without the LSAC there's likely NO standardized LS entrance test? Haha, riiiight.

I'm not totally sure I'm hating on the LSAC with all of this, but this comment is funny.

Curious, is there any data on the relationship (if there is one) between high LSAT scores and law school "success"? I guess this would be pretty tough to evaluate, since from what I understand grading is highly unpredictable and varies greatly from school to school. I suppose post-law school salary could be used, but that also doesn't seem very reliable...

[ahnhub]

Curious, is there any data on the relationship (if there is one) between high LSAT scores and law school "success"? I guess this would be pretty tough to evaluate, since from what I understand grading is highly unpredictable and varies greatly from school to school. I suppose post-law school salary could be used, but that also doesn't seem very reliable...

LSAT and GPA together supposedly correlates .4 with 1L law school grades. That in itself is actually a very strong correlation, but I don't think their methodology accounts for the fact that most students in a particular law school have nearly identically LSAT/profiles.

If you're talking salary outcomes post-law school, there is probably also a very strong correlation, but that's explained mostly by the fact that people with good LSAT scores go to schools which send people into Biglaw. Me personally, I'm gonna try to just forget my LSAT score entirely.

[LSAT Blog]

LSAT + UGPA = .47 correlation with 1L GPA

LSAT alone = .35 correlation with 1L GPA

UGPA alone = .28 correlation with 1L GPA


See page 16 of this PDF for details:
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/LSACR ... nal-12.pdf