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

[Cicero76]

175+ scores dropped by over 30%

Do you have a source? How many actual people does that translate to? Seems like it would be very, very, very few...in the hundreds.

Yes I do but cant post it now. There's about 294 175+ scores in total

For the December test or for this entire year? That can't be for June, Oct, AND December. That would be absurd.

[hume85]

The employment #'s will likely be even worse when released this year. Graduating class sizes are bigger than last year (because of the recession bump in applicants a few years ago), and there is no indication of legal employment picking up, so percentages of those gaining employment requiring a JD will be lower. We may not even be at the bottom in terms of # of applicants this cycle, because this new employment data will likely really scare people.

Actually the employment numbers for c/o 2012 should be better than c/o of 2011, for T10 schools at least.

And why might that be?

The 2012 graduating class is roughly 4.5% larger than 2011. I didn't realize that there was going to be a larger than 4.5% gain in legal opportunities for the 2012 class over the 2011 class. Some are even arguing that gross opportunities will even be less for the 2012 class than the 2011 class. Note that information is now coming out that a lot of the blows to the legal market are structural and not cyclical, so lost jobs are not necessarily coming back.

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

The c/o of 2011 went through OCI shortly after the nadir of the financial crises, and a bunch of people from the c/o of 2010 got deferred for a year. Most people say the c/o 2011 was the bottom for placement statistics barring we go off the fiscal cliff, the Euro fails, etc. Also summer placement numbers at Chicago, Duke, and Michigan suggest c/o of 2012 was an improvement upon c/o of 2011. For verification you can check Chicago and Michigan's websites and look in the Duke legal employment forum.

ETA: But I am only referring to the top 13 schools. I have no idea if 2012 will be an improvement for everyone else.

[Tiago Splitter]

175+ scores dropped by over 30%

Do you have a source? How many actual people does that translate to? Seems like it would be very, very, very few...in the hundreds.

Yes I do but cant post it now. There's about 294 175+ scores in total

For the December test or for this entire year? That can't be for June, Oct, AND December. That would be absurd.

I believe that's the number of applicants who've applied with a 175+ to this point.

[jym_dawg]

175+ scores dropped by over 30%

Yes I do but cant post it now. There's about 294 175+ scores in total

For the December test or for this entire year? That can't be for June, Oct, AND December. That would be absurd.

I believe that's the number of applicants who've applied with a 175+ to this point.

Could make for a very interesting cycle. Do we know the number of 170+ applicants as well?

[KevinP]

Champagne papi can confirm my numbers. In fact, the decline for 170+ scorers is over 30 percent. The 175+ is noticeably higher.

[justonemoregame]

daaaaaaaayum

[chadbrochill]

Champagne papi can confirm my numbers. In fact, the decline for 170+ scorers is over 30 percent. The 175+ is noticeably higher.

daaaaaaaayum

I guess depending on how i scored in december...

[cahwc12]

So, when will the December numbers be out?

[moonman157]

Where are we getting these 175+ numbers from? Or is that a secret that we're all eagerly believing because it would be so nice if it were true?

[HarlandBassett]

[LRGhost]

Champagne papi can confirm my numbers. In fact, the decline for 170+ scorers is over 30 percent. The 175+ is noticeably higher.

What do you think this means for this cycle compared to last?

[banjo]

I don't know what the actual source for this is, but: http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leit ... again.html.

At this very moment, I'm feeling like the "epicness" of this cycle was absurdly oversold, so I don't want to get anyone's hopes up.

[Mal Reynolds]

I don't know what the actual source for this is, but: http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leit ... again.html.

At this very moment, I'm feeling like the "epicness" of this cycle was absurdly oversold, so I don't want to get anyone's hopes up.

I don't understand, LSAT takers are still going down. Not saying this cycle is epic, but this article doesn't really do anything to disprove that either.

[justonemoregame]

I don't get what's going on in that link. The guy cites himself (via link) as the source for a different party explicitly named as the source (LSAC). Then in the additional link provided in the citation it goes to a brief comment which had to be corrected twice, and it was he who made the last correction.

[2014]

I should have applied this year, I'd have cleaned house on scholarships I suspect

[KevinP]

Where are we getting these 175+ numbers from? Or is that a secret that we're all eagerly believing because it would be so nice if it were true?

See Bolded:

New data published:
http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... volume.asp
I haven't kept up with law school info since I stopped caring, but I have access to the score breakdowns. I'd post them but don't want to get in trouble with LOLSAC. This breakdown this time is a bit weird... decline was greatest among top (170+) and bottom (149-) applicants. 175+ group saw such a huge decline... you wouldn't believe me even if I wrote it.

What do you think this means for this cycle compared to last?

Much easier to get into schools for which you are above both medians, and much easier to argue for scholly money. Schools will most likely decrease class sizes and relax acceptance standards. However, I don't expect miracles to happen.

[biggemflowers]

If you are aiming for Tier 3 or 4 does this really really help those applicants??

[spleenworship]

If you are aiming for Tier 3 or 4 does this really really help those applicants??

If you are in the mid to high 160s and looking at T3 your scholly chances just went way up. Otherwise, not really.

[jms1987]

I wonder if any California schools or UT-Austin will become more splitter friendly with this decrease in LSAT takers? That would make me very happy.

[ajax]

If you are aiming for Tier 3 or 4 does this really really help those applicants??

If you mean is there a higher chance you will be accepted to a school that has a sticker price of 50k/year not including cost of living that upon graduation will give you less than 50% chance of finding a job, then I believe the answer is yes.

[LRGhost]

Does anyone have the number of 170s this cycle compared to last? Would be interesting to play with the numbers compared to
class sizes.

[justonemoregame]

I don't know the number of 170+s, but the number of December 2012 takers is reportedly supposed to be right around 30,000, a 16% decrease from last year, which is awesome if true, and maybe the lowest number since 1997-1998.

[LRGhost]

I don't know the number of 170+s, but the number of December 2012 takers is reportedly supposed to be right around 30,000, a 16% decrease from last year, which is awesome if true, and maybe the lowest number since 1997-1998.

Would be great if someone had numbers from Feb-June-Oct-Dec this year compared to last year. I know last cycle, someone had all the 170s compared to the number of admits in the T14. I forget if it was here or on LSAT Blog, though.

[onionz]

Looks like LSAC updated some data recently:

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

Applications still down around 22% this year. Anyone have an updated breakdown of the drop of the 170+ test takers?

[curious66]

Looks like LSAC updated some data recently:

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

Applications still down around 22% this year. Anyone have an updated breakdown of the drop of the 170+ test takers?

don't have that but at best 170+ it is 5-6% of the population that took the test. Of those that got 170+, some will be splitters; & and still others will not be applying this year. Hopefully that bodes well for the rest of us.