This app cycles vs next year's app cycle Forum

[ercmilla]

I feel like the consensus is that next year will be easier to gain admission into selective schools than this year. What are everyone's thoughts?

[teachmehowtoraji]

I feel like the consensus is that next year will be easier to gain admission into selective schools than this year. What are everyone's thoughts?

Next year is impossible to predict right now, especially when this cycle hasn't played out fully yet. It all hinges on whether schools decide to decrease class sizes, let medians fall, or both (and whether the applicant pool continues to decrease).

[dingbat]

I feel like the consensus is that next year will be easier to gain admission into selective schools than this year. What are everyone's thoughts?

Maybe, maybe not. There has been a very significant decline in applicants in this cycle and the two preceding ones. There's no way of knowing whether that will continue, whether we've reached the new norm, or whether it'll rebound. Similarly, there's no way of predicting whether schools will decrease class sizes (as a handful stated doing last year). Lastly, it's not easy to predict what will happen to the economy as a whole and the legal industry in specific, and how this will affect the number of applicants.

Short answer: it can't be predicted.

[ajax]

If employment stats continue to be transparent, then I would expect applications to continue to decrease until the supply of labor meets demand for labor. Currently, there are roughly 40k newly minted JDs per year for roughly 20k new jobs that require a JD. This kept up for some time, because market participants were deceived. The market is now transparent, so eventually supply will meet demand.

Who knows though, maybe the demand for newly minted JDs will significantly increase. Wouldn't that be nice.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 18096.html

[AlanShore]

If employment stats continue to be transparent, then I would expect applications to continue to decrease until the supply of labor meets demand for labor. Currently, there are roughly 40k newly minted JDs per year for roughly 20k new jobs that require a JD. This kept up for some time, because market participants were deceived. The market is now transparent, so eventually supply will meet demand.

Who knows though, maybe the demand for newly minted JDs will significantly increase. Wouldn't that be nice.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 18096.html

I think supply will ALWAYS be greater than demand (though maybe less so than now). Humans are not rational. Even with transparent employment statistics, people will still think they will be the exception.

[ajax]

If employment stats continue to be transparent, then I would expect applications to continue to decrease until the supply of labor meets demand for labor. Currently, there are roughly 40k newly minted JDs per year for roughly 20k new jobs that require a JD. This kept up for some time, because market participants were deceived. The market is now transparent, so eventually supply will meet demand.

Who knows though, maybe the demand for newly minted JDs will significantly increase. Wouldn't that be nice.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 18096.html

I think supply will ALWAYS be greater than demand (though maybe less so than now). Humans are not rational. Even with transparent employment statistics, people will still think they will be the exception.

I agree with this. Market participants being rational is always a questionable assumption. However, if federally subsidized student loans were eliminated, or limited, supply would likely meet demand. This is because private lenders would force rational participation (they wouldn't lend if they didn't think they would get their money back).

[LexLeon]

My money is on an increase in applicants for the coming cycle.

[eric922]

My money is on an increase in applicants for the coming cycle.

Why do you think that? Everything I've read points to a decline in the number of LSATs administrated which means fewer applicants competing for seats. Until the market improves I think we will continue to see a decline in the number of applicants.

[dingbat]

My money is on an increase in applicants for the coming cycle.

Why do you think that? Everything I've read points to a decline in the number of LSATs administrated which means fewer applicants competing for seats. Until the market improves I think we will continue to see a decline in the number of applicants.

Read some of Lex's other posts, you'll understand

[Aawaldrop]

I think the decline will slow as the rational folks have already jumped ship. It might be bottoming out right now; it is impossible to tell. Some encouraging employment numbers in the legal field may bring an increase, but honestly I don't see that happening soon enough (or a big enough jump) to have any effect for the next cycle.

[eric922]

I think the decline will slow as the rational folks have already jumped ship. It might be bottoming out right now; it is impossible to tell. Some encouraging employment numbers in the legal field may bring an increase, but honestly I don't see that happening soon enough (or a big enough jump) to have any effect for the next cycle.

Honestly, I think the next few cycles will probably be similar to this one. It will take at least a few years for the market to improve enough. I'll be curious to see the number of testers for this February.

[Aawaldrop]

I think the decline will slow as the rational folks have already jumped ship. It might be bottoming out right now; it is impossible to tell. Some encouraging employment numbers in the legal field may bring an increase, but honestly I don't see that happening soon enough (or a big enough jump) to have any effect for the next cycle.

Honestly, I think the next few cycles will probably be similar to this one. It will take at least a few years for the market to improve enough. I'll be curious to see the number of testers for this February.

I tend to agree with you. I don't know how it can maintain this type of decline. I think the real indications will be June/October for the next cycle.

[dingbat]

I tend to agree with you. I don't know how it can maintain this type of decline. I think the real indications will be June/October for the next cycle.

There are still significantly more applicants than there are places and the number of matriculants last year was higher than the 10 year low

[Aawaldrop]

I tend to agree with you. I don't know how it can maintain this type of decline. I think the real indications will be June/October for the next cycle.

There are still significantly more applicants than there are places and the number of matriculants last year was higher than the 10 year low

Hm that's something I wasn't aware of. What I meant to express was that even if there is still decline that it would be difficult to maintain 13% drop each year even accounting for the shrinking pool of applicants.

[dingbat]

I tend to agree with you. I don't know how it can maintain this type of decline. I think the real indications will be June/October for the next cycle.

There are still significantly more applicants than there are places and the number of matriculants last year was higher than the 10 year low

Hm that's something I wasn't aware of. What I meant to express was that even if there is still decline that it would be difficult to maintain 13% drop each year even accounting for the shrinking pool of applicants.

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... ummary.asp

Except for the last two years, the number of matriculants has been fairly steady. Same for number of admitted applicants. However, the number of applicants has had some tremendous swings.

[Aawaldrop]

I tend to agree with you. I don't know how it can maintain this type of decline. I think the real indications will be June/October for the next cycle.

There are still significantly more applicants than there are places and the number of matriculants last year was higher than the 10 year low

Hm that's something I wasn't aware of. What I meant to express was that even if there is still decline that it would be difficult to maintain 13% drop each year even accounting for the shrinking pool of applicants.

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... ummary.asp

Except for the last two years, the number of matriculants has been fairly steady. Same for number of admitted applicants. However, the number of applicants has had some tremendous swings.

Very interesting. If I wasn't doing applications I would spend all night looking at this stuff as I am a numbers guy.

[dingbat]

Very interesting. If I wasn't doing applications I would spend all night looking at this stuff as I am a numbers guy.

I'm a numbers guy and I barely spent any time looking at that at all (except to figure out the number of applicants who got my LSAT or better, and compared that to the number of spots in the schools I was targeting and peer schools)