Are fewer people applying to law school? Forum

[roranoa]

Or is it practically the same for T14 schools?

I'm hoping that if fewer people are applying nowadays, then the standards (by LSAT score especially) would be a little lower.

What do you think?

[Nova]

Go back to the 2011-12 cycle for pretty accurate results on http://www.mylsn.info

[prezidentv8]

"fewer"

[roranoa]

"fewer"

Right

[ms9]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

[Moneytrees]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

What makes you say this? Seeing June LSAT test takers go down 9% is certainly good news, but do you think we are going to see a bigger drop than last year (I think it was around a 6 or 7 percent drop from the previous cycle)?

[foles]

.

[sfoglia]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you think the trend is likely to keep?

Considering holding off on applications if I am not PTing consistently at 175+ for September's LSAT, but I do want to take advantage of the smaller applicant pool.

[rahulg91]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you think the trend is likely to keep?

Considering holding off on applications if I am not PTing consistently at 175+ for September's LSAT, but I do want to take advantage of the smaller applicant pool.

There seems to be some press lately on how law school is once again become "a good investment" I hope people aren't buying it, but if they do applications might even out.

[ms9]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

[roranoa]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

How do you know all this? Where do you get your information? Do you work for a prep company?

[bombaysippin]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

How do you know all this? Where do you get your information? Do you work for a prep company?

He is the all seeing eye

[roranoa]

He is the all seeing eye

How much credit does he have? 'Cause I want to believe him. I want to believe that applications are going down.

[Ricky-Bobby]

He is the all seeing eye

How much credit does he have? 'Cause I want to believe him. I want to believe that applications are going down.

Are you citing him in a dissertation or do you want reassurance about next admissions cycle? Jesus, dude, Spivey gets his numbers from the ABA. Chill out.

[rahulg91]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

I'd really like to know what this critical mass is (although I guess it's impossible to really know).

[RCSOB657]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

How do you know all this? Where do you get your information? Do you work for a prep company?

Hello, you see his avatar right? Google it bro.

[Skump]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

Nevermind that Law School enrollment will always be somewhat inflated until the feds stop giving graduate programs a blank check for tuition. The entire system is a demented scam. In a round about way, the US government has essentially implemented an insane QE program for graduate schools in which it blindly buys the educational equivalent of LIAR loans "underwritten" by schools, allowing them to externalize all risk, privitize all profits, rinse, and repeat.

When this scam collapses, there should be another dramatic drop in enrollment to go with it (if only because a number of law schools would cease to exist...). It's hard to say what might set that off, but a heated national conversation on government waste (perhaps inspired by outrage over an iconic issue in a totally unrelated area, like the F-35 procurement fiasco) should naturally turn to higher education, and law school is the most disgusting example of the perverse incentives of higher education financing at work.

[JCougar]

The driver of the current drop was all the negative press about law graduate job prospects and schools being forced to disclose that only around 50% of graduates were getting real lawyer jobs (half of which were terribly-paid).

But there's a second driver emerging--the improving economy for people getting their undergrad degree. A lot of the more competent ones will be taking jobs straight out of undergrad and foregoing applying to law school.

Personally, I think this year's drop has a chance at being steeper than last year's, and the drop will be tilted toward people with better undergrad degrees that usually score higher on the LSAT. But it still won't be enough, if you ask me. Until law schools are graduating under 30K students per year with severely reduced tuition, it's unlikely that there will be any justice in the legal education system.

[JCougar]

Nevermind that Law School enrollment will always be somewhat inflated until the feds stop giving graduate programs a blank check for tuition. The entire system is a demented scam. In a round about way, the US government has essentially implemented an insane QE program for graduate schools in which it blindly buys the educational equivalent of LIAR loans "underwritten" by schools, allowing them to externalize all risk, privitize all profits, rinse, and repeat.

When this scam collapses, there should be another dramatic drop in enrollment to go with it (if only because a number of law schools would cease to exist...). It's hard to say what might set that off, but a heated national conversation on government waste (perhaps inspired by outrage over an iconic issue in a totally unrelated area, like the F-35 procurement fiasco) should naturally turn to higher education, and law school is the most disgusting example of the perverse incentives of higher education financing at work.

I'm not against QE if it's used to counter deflationary pressures in a system (such as our economy a few years ago)...but the problem with legal education is that you have a market with inflationary competition cost pressures. When you add infinity demand to such a market, it becomes broken pretty quickly.

It's hard to imagine why the federal government puts zero accountability on schools benefitting from it's loan guarantees. It would be so easy for them to just say "you can't get any money from government loans if tuition crosses this threshold." In any other country, this would be classified as a pyramid scheme, and the people responsible for it would be perp-walked.

[Archangel]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

Do you see this applying to the t14 too Mike?

I think it is highly, highly likely applications will be down to a number of t14 schools this cycle, yes. We will know a bit more in about a month when the June data in full comes out.

As far as long-term, that is must more difficult to predict. We are going to hit a bottom at some point, as there will always be a critical mass of people who want to go to law school. I personally think we are not very far from said bottom, but I've also been saying that for two years now. So long-term, anyone's guess is as good as the other. This cycle, down, down down!

Articles like the one linked below also help.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/15/pf/jobs ... ?iid=HP_LN

[Julius]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

What makes you say this? Seeing June LSAT test takers go down 9% is certainly good news, but do you think we are going to see a bigger drop than last year (I think it was around a 6 or 7 percent drop from the previous cycle)?

First time takers were down 14% and that is the relevant number for gauging applicants.

A 6-7% drop in applicants also hits schools harder now then at market peaks (even if it represents a smaller drop in absolute terms), so even a repeat of this year's drop will have an effect.

[JCougar]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

What makes you say this? Seeing June LSAT test takers go down 9% is certainly good news, but do you think we are going to see a bigger drop than last year (I think it was around a 6 or 7 percent drop from the previous cycle)?

First time takers were down 14% and that is the relevant number for gauging applicants.

A 6-7% drop in applicants also hits schools harder now then at market peaks, so even a repeat of this year's drop will have an effect.

I really hope this forces at least 50 or so law schools to close.

The ABA could have prevented this long, drawn-out embarrassment, but it seems abundantly clear that its strategy is to "let the market figure it out" and distract themselves by giving out awards to scam law deans:

http://abovethelaw.com/2014/07/aba-to-h ... education/

[Julius]

We are going to see a significant drop this cycle.

What makes you say this? Seeing June LSAT test takers go down 9% is certainly good news, but do you think we are going to see a bigger drop than last year (I think it was around a 6 or 7 percent drop from the previous cycle)?

First time takers were down 14% and that is the relevant number for gauging applicants.

A 6-7% drop in applicants also hits schools harder now then at market peaks, so even a repeat of this year's drop will have an effect.

I really hope this forces at least 50 or so law schools to close.

The ABA could have prevented this long, drawn-out embarrassment, but it seems abundantly clear that its strategy is to "let the market figure it out" and distract themselves by giving out awards to scam law deans:

http://abovethelaw.com/2014/07/aba-to-h ... education/

School closures and mergers are the absolute best case scenario and they are surely going to happen as the drop snakes through the system (those peak years are still 3L tuition dollars). If schools get by through trimming class sizes they'll have the institutional capacity and motivation to swell up again; outright closures makes it harder to bounce back.

I'm sure many schools are waiting for the school across the street to blink first or to have an LSAC data point that is favorable for future economic prospects. February looked like the latter but it was a small sample and June made it clear that the bottom isn't here yet.

[RCSOB657]

At least Cooley is freezing a whole 1l class, that made me smile.

[JCougar]

School closures and mergers are the absolute best case scenario and they are surely going to happen as the drop snakes through the system (those peak years are still 3L tuition dollars). If schools get by through trimming class sizes they'll have the institutional capacity and motivation to swell up again; outright closures makes it harder to bounce back.

I'm sure many schools are waiting for the school across the street to blink first or to have an LSAC data point that is favorable for future economic prospects. February looked like the latter but it was a small sample and June made it clear that the bottom isn't here yet.

Yeah, eventually, parent universities will tire of the financial burden coming from propping law schools up (which a lot are doing right now after over a decade of the opposite being true). I imagine some parent universities agreed to step in for a few years to ride out the trough and give the applicant market time to rebound. But when it becomes clear that no rebound is in the works, I think a lot of universities will start cutting bait. It's possible that this coming year will be the last straw for quite a few.

Free-standing law schools, on the other hand, are pretty much screwed as we speak.