URM 2014-2015 Cycle Thread Forum

[ChiefMango]

Congrats to all of you on your acceptances! Submitted in the beginning of December to most of the top 14, haven't heard back from anywhere yet.

Looking through the old posts, a lot has been said about how this cycle is "weird" or "different." What exactly makes this cycle odd, and what do you guys think the impacts will be for the URM crowd (positive/ negative overall?)

[LoganCouture]

Congrats to all of you on your acceptances! Submitted in the beginning of December to most of the top 14, haven't heard back from anywhere yet.

Looking through the old posts, a lot has been said about how this cycle is "weird" or "different." What exactly makes this cycle odd, and what do you guys think the impacts will be for the URM crowd (positive/ negative overall?)

Different = later first RD acceptances at NU (Dec 19 -> after the new year presumably?), much later first acceptances at H (Nov 25 last cycle -> Dec 15 this year), much much later first acceptances at S (Nov 20 last cycle -> literally never????).

The big thing is probably H only giving out one round of JS2s so far, and a late one at that.

Schools seem concerned about their LSAT medians right now and are moving slowly a ton of applicants (the exception being Duke, because their Priority Track requires them to give a decision on a 10 day timeline). At the same time, the lower T14 seem to be up to their usual YP tricks (UVA has had people in "complete" purgatory for 3+ months, Mich has been similarly silent/slow on a lot of high number applicants, Duke has been doing funny things with PT reserve, Cornell has requested interviews from almost everybody above both medians).

[Atmosphere]

Lol'd @ "literally never"

[LoganCouture]

Lol'd @ "literally never"

Yeah I mean, obviously I'm hoping for Stanford to make a ton of calls the moment they open their doors on 1/5 but not optimistic.

[ChiefMango]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

[Harvette]

Do we have raw numbers of applicants and their score ranges? By ethnicity?

[LoganCouture]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.

[gamerish]

Post removed...

[LoganCouture]

Do we have raw numbers of applicants and their score ranges? By ethnicity?

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -12-03.pdf

This might be the closest thing.

[ChiefMango]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.

Interesting. I'm trying to figure out (it's hard with a small sample size of TLS) what the effects of these trends will be on high scoring URM candidates. I imagine that schools will still want to YP. At the same time, though, maybe they would be less likely to YP this cycle, since there are (potentially) fewer URMs with above-median numbers?

My reasoning is that they would want to get the strongest candidates first. But at the same time, HYSCCN would all be taking this into consideration as well, and be admitting URMs who can help medians. Other schools can see this as well, and YP accordingly.

Whatever way it pans out (I'm sure it will vary based on the individual applications, as admissions invariably does), this is starting to seem like a giant signaling game both between schools and between schools and applicants.

[gamerish]

Post removed...

[LoganCouture]

Do we have raw numbers of applicants and their score ranges? By ethnicity?

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -12-03.pdf

This might be the closest thing.

Is the link broken for anyone else?

Yeah fixing rn.

[jw316]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.

Is this for all applicants or just URM?

[Harvette]

Do we have raw numbers of applicants and their score ranges? By ethnicity?

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -12-03.pdf

This might be the closest thing.

Is the link broken for anyone else?

Yeah fixing rn.

Thanks.
Not working for me. Might u copy and paste?

[Harvette]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.

Interesting. I'm trying to figure out (it's hard with a small sample size of TLS) what the effects of these trends will be on high scoring URM candidates. I imagine that schools will still want to YP. At the same time, though, maybe they would be less likely to YP this cycle, since there are (potentially) fewer URMs with above-median numbers?

My reasoning is that they would want to get the strongest candidates first. But at the same time, HYSCCN would all be taking this into consideration as well, and be admitting URMs who can help medians. Other schools can see this as well, and YP accordingly.

Whatever way it pans out (I'm sure it will vary based on the individual applications, as admissions invariably does), this is starting to seem like a giant signaling game both between schools and between schools and applicants.

And what is "strong" urm lsat? I am asking because above medians would be 170 and at the very least 165 and from the shocking posts I have read before, there are only a handful of those, especially AAs.

[LoganCouture]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.

Is this for all applicants or just URM?

All. Here's the same kinda thing, but using URM applicants (again from LSN).

Yale - no URM acceptances.
Harvard - one URM acceptance, PM for stats.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - one URM acceptance @ 162, guy has some serious softs though (military officer w/ good WE). Every other accepted URM seems to be 164+.
Penn - one URM acceptance, 170/4.0.
UVA - seems to be the year of the URM reverse splitter at UVA with several sub 160/3.9+ applicants being accepted. Only one non-splitter acceptance: 172/3.7.
Berkeley - notorious black box. 165+/3.6+ seems like the floor for right now.
Michigan - I actually don't understand Michigan. Reverse splitters seem to be getting love here (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+) compared to others. Some URMs with high numbers being picked up by better schools and ignored by Mich. Much like UVA.
Duke - weird as well. Accepting some URMs with 165+ and WLing others.
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - A handful of acceptances by my count, either 166+ or a reverse splitter (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+).

[LoganCouture]

Do we have raw numbers of applicants and their score ranges? By ethnicity?

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -12-03.pdf

This might be the closest thing.

Harvette, here is the fixed link. Unfortunately the report is like 40+ pages long but you can google "LSAT technical report" and it should come up. The report is entitled: "LSAT Performance With Regional, Gender, and Racial/Ethnic Breakdowns: 2005–2006 Through 2011–2012 Testing Years"

[Tr3]

Why is applying to law schools so daunting!

I remember applying to undergrad feeling excited, now with law schools it's definitely exciting but also very intimidating! At least for me anyway. ahhhhhhhhfff

[IDream247]

Haven't actually posted on here in a while but i've lurked from time to time lol. Congrats on all of the acceptances! You guys give me hope. I'm becoming extremely anxious waiting for my December scores. Just trying to keep my mind off of it by doing applications, they are pretty much ready to go accept for putting last minute stuff on my diversity statement. Guess I should hurry up since December scores should be released soon. But again congrats guys! Hope to be joining you guys soon.

[jw316]

Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.

Is this for all applicants or just URM?

All. Here's the same kinda thing, but using URM applicants (again from LSN).

Yale - no URM acceptances.
Harvard - one URM acceptance, PM for stats.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - one URM acceptance @ 162, guy has some serious softs though (military officer w/ good WE). Every other accepted URM seems to be 164+.
Penn - one URM acceptance, 170/4.0.
UVA - seems to be the year of the URM reverse splitter at UVA with several sub 160/3.9+ applicants being accepted. Only one non-splitter acceptance: 172/3.7.
Berkeley - notorious black box. 165+/3.6+ seems like the floor for right now.
Michigan - I actually don't understand Michigan. Reverse splitters seem to be getting love here (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+) compared to others. Some URMs with high numbers being picked up by better schools and ignored by Mich. Much like UVA.
Duke - weird as well. Accepting some URMs with 165+ and WLing others.
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - A handful of acceptances by my count, either 166+ or a reverse splitter (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+).

Thank you for taking the time out to do this lc!

[IDream247]

Why is applying to law schools so daunting!

I remember applying to undergrad feeling excited, now with law schools it's definitely exciting but also very intimidating! At least for me anyway. ahhhhhhhhfff

Second this!This was my Facebook status earlier!

[Harvette]

ChiefMango"]Interesting. So given the comparative dearth of high scoring applicants, a few T-14 are vying for those at the top, sending out as many admits as possible to 175+ crowd to try and secure 50%/75%, while other schools are pushing back admittance of URMs/ Non-URMs with lower numbers to get a better view of the entire applicant pool- is that the general consensus?[/quote]

I don't know if there is a consensus. Some 175+ applicants are being YP'd pretty hard from most schools, and as 3/T6 have no RD decisions out yet and H certainly hasn't sent "as many admits as possible" this cycle has been slow for high scorers as well. Here's the data from LSN:

Yale - multiple small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 172+/3.8+.
Harvard - one small round of decisions. All acceptances 173+/3.7+.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - multiple rounds of decisions. Seems like the non-URM apps are mostly 170+/3.7+.
Penn - two small rounds of decisions. All acceptances 170+/3.8+.
UVA - has a ton of 173+ applicants with no decision since going complete in Sep/Oct/Nov.
Berkeley - see above.
Michigan - see above.
Duke - has put several 173+ applicants on priority reserve (essentially WL).
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - sent interview invites to a lot of (most?) 172+ applicants, indicating yield protect.[/quote]

Is this for all applicants or just URM?[/quote]

All. Here's the same kinda thing, but using URM applicants (again from LSN).

Yale - no URM acceptances.
Harvard - one URM acceptance, PM for stats.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - one URM acceptance @ 162, guy has some serious softs though (military officer w/ good WE). Every other accepted URM seems to be 164+.
Penn - one URM acceptance, 170/4.0.
UVA - seems to be the year of the URM reverse splitter at UVA with several sub 160/3.9+ applicants being accepted. Only one non-splitter acceptance: 172/3.7.
Berkeley - notorious black box. 165+/3.6+ seems like the floor for right now.
Michigan - I actually don't understand Michigan. Reverse splitters seem to be getting love here (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+) compared to others. Some URMs with high numbers being picked up by better schools and ignored by Mich. Much like UVA.
Duke - weird as well. Accepting some URMs with 165+ and WLing others.
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - A handful of acceptances by my count, either 166+ or a reverse splitter (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+).[/quote]

Thank you for taking the time out to do this lc![/quote]

Thanks!

[Harvette]

Do we have raw numbers of applicants and their score ranges? By ethnicity?

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -12-03.pdf

This might be the closest thing.

Harvette, here is the fixed link. Unfortunately the report is like 40+ pages long but you can google "LSAT technical report" and it should come up. The report is entitled: "LSAT Performance With Regional, Gender, and Racial/Ethnic Breakdowns: 2005–2006 Through 2011–2012 Testing Years"

Thanks. I thought we were speaking about a summary of 2014 stats. Will check.

[LoganCouture]

Is this for all applicants or just URM?

All. Here's the same kinda thing, but using URM applicants (again from LSN).

Yale - no URM acceptances.
Harvard - one URM acceptance, PM for stats.
Stanford - no decisions.
Columbia - no RD decisions.
Chicago - no RD decisions.
NYU - one URM acceptance @ 162, guy has some serious softs though (military officer w/ good WE). Every other accepted URM seems to be 164+.
Penn - one URM acceptance, 170/4.0.
UVA - seems to be the year of the URM reverse splitter at UVA with several sub 160/3.9+ applicants being accepted. Only one non-splitter acceptance: 172/3.7.
Berkeley - notorious black box. 165+/3.6+ seems like the floor for right now.
Michigan - I actually don't understand Michigan. Reverse splitters seem to be getting love here (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+) compared to others. Some URMs with high numbers being picked up by better schools and ignored by Mich. Much like UVA.
Duke - weird as well. Accepting some URMs with 165+ and WLing others.
NU - no RD decisions.
Cornell - A handful of acceptances by my count, either 166+ or a reverse splitter (high 150s/low 160s with 3.9+).

Thank you for taking the time out to do this lc!

No problem! Done super hastily so may not be the most accurate and of course the sample size is very small to begin with. Seems like there are more 3.8+ URM applicants than 170+ URM applicants (at least on LSN) so that might explain me noticing more reverse splitters being accepted. I have faith that this will be a great cycle for us URMs, even if it is a slow one.

[applelover]

I haven't kept up with this thread, but I just want to say good luck to all those applying this cycle and congrats to those who have already been accepted to some schools.