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

[prezidentv8]

63% of students get jobs in a legal profession.

Probably should let this one go, but this stood out to me.

Whatever proportion of students "get jobs in a legal profession" is going to be a statistic that is highly dependent on what you mean by "students," "jobs," "legal," and "legal profession."

I would reckon that to get to 63%, you would need to include a whole lot of jobs that most prospective law students would not want. I would dig a little bit deeper on that NALP report and on law school transparency if that's the figure you're currently relying on.

[Tiago Splitter]

Considering that higher LSAT applicants probably have more opportunities, it isn't a safe presumption to make that the avg LSAT taker is now a 160.

People at the top might have more opportunities, but it takes less to pull someone with a 150 LSAT away from law school than it does for someone with a 170. The guy with a 150 might be looking at a third tier school at full price and decide that his 40K job really isn't so bad after all. The guy with the 170 will have better law school choices and therefore a harder time stepping away.

But that's not the real reason why the average matriculant has a higher LSAT than the median LSAT taker. The real reason is that people in the 120s and 130s simply can't get in to law school. People in the 160s and 170s can. Presuming that the median matriculant has a higher LSAT than the median LSAT taker is one of the safest presumptions anyone could make.

But whatever. Let's assume all this crazy statistical data you presumed to be "true".

LOL. Yes, the data from the LSAC Volume Summary is just some crazy statistical numbers I pulled out of my ass. In fairness, I pulled the 160 number out of my ass, but that was to make a point that you can't just look at the median LSAT score and assume the median law student had that score.

37,000 new graduates. 22,000 jobs (As per after the recession). 160 medium LSAT

I thought you were assuming my data? Where do you see that we have only 37,000 grads? Class of 2011 had 44,495 graduates. The class of 2012 started with more people than the class of 2011, and the class of 2013 started with more people than the class of 2012. Fortunately, the trend reversed for the class of 2014 and it appears the class of 2015 will have fewer graduates still. But I don't know that we can simply assume we'll be down to only 37,000 graduates in the near future. It'd be awesome if you're right though.

Substantial is not a term based on percentages. That's why I used it. Yes, I believe a substantial amount of law graduates would be better off working in a market not related to law as far as income is concerned. I would say as much as 5% would be better off.

Then I would say 5% would be worse off, but not significantly, and would bolster their resumes to obtain said jobs by a noticeable amount because of their completion of law school.

Again, agree to disagree here.

I will give you 2 things I have left unaccounted for:
Previous J.D.s unemployed/underemployed competing with graduating J.D.s and the debt one takes on when entering law school. Neither a laughing matter.

Both very good points. You might be right that adding a JD to the resume helps some people in non-legal areas. But I'm sure we can agree that the added value isn't worth 200K for most of those people.

Your other point is also important because even if we cut the number of grads down to 20K we'd still have to deal with the cumulative effects of all of the recent unemployed grads.

But when I hear T-14 or bust, it seems quite ridiculous if job opportunities are available for the 40th %, and class sizes are shrinking whilst demand for lawyers is still available to be taken advantage of.

You are misrepresenting the common wisdom on TLS by saying it's always T-14 or bust. For someone who wants biglaw and wouldn't be happy with much else that is the CW and it is legitimate. But for many people who would be happy working in a small firm or for a government agency, etc. the advice is always to look at T-14 as well as schools in the region one wants to work where debt can be kept to a minimum.

[Tom Joad]

I think there is a pretty strong argument to be made that getting the government out of student loans (at least for the current regime regarding law school, since that's what I am familiar with) would increase social mobility. Lots of school would vanish and others would decrease in price making jobs available to almost all of the graduates. A person wouldn't have to be a rockstar/savant to get into a solid school like BC or something and make a decent living.

[uvabro]

hopefully this means less competition for jerbs. every classmate i've met would make great employees relative to even my college mates who fared better jerb wise. the kids in my class mostly are very intelligent with great social skills, and are multitalented. it's ridiculous to think some of them won't have jerbs.

[Tom Joad]

hopefully this means less competition for jerbs. every classmate i've met would make great employees relative to even my college mates who fared better jerb wise. the kids in my class mostly are very intelligent with great social skills, and are multitalented. it's ridiculous to think some of them won't have jerbs.

That's cuz u r a uvabro. We are better than everybody else.

[KevinP]

hopefully this means less competition for jerbs. every classmate i've met would make great employees relative to even my college mates who fared better jerb wise. the kids in my class mostly are very intelligent with great social skills, and are multitalented. it's ridiculous to think some of them won't have jerbs.

UVA? Aren't they law-school funded secure?

[Sheffield]

Using data from this thread and shooting from the hip. If the decline in applications equals a class size of 37,000 and there are 22,500 legal openings then 60% will secure legal employment.

Est. Employment Calculation
95% of T-14 (class size 4,200) = 3,780
80% of Tier-1 (class size 10,800) = 8,640
60% of Tier-2 (class size 15,000) = 9,000
15.% of Tier-3\4 (class size 7,000) = 1,080

Looks somewhat logical to me.

[sinfiery]

People at the top might have more opportunities, but it takes less to pull someone with a 150 LSAT away from law school than it does for someone with a 170. The guy with a 150 might be looking at a third tier school at full price and decide that his 40K job really isn't so bad after all. The guy with the 170 will have better law school choices and therefore a harder time stepping away.

But that's not the real reason why the average matriculant has a higher LSAT than the median LSAT taker. The real reason is that people in the 120s and 130s simply can't get in to law school. People in the 160s and 170s can. Presuming that the median matriculant has a higher LSAT than the median LSAT taker is one of the safest presumptions anyone could make.

Good point about the actual rejections. Fair enough.

LOL. Yes, the data from the LSAC Volume Summary is just some crazy statistical numbers I pulled out of my ass. In fairness, I pulled the 160 number out of my ass, but that was to make a point that you can't just look at the median LSAT score and assume the median law student had that score.

The 160 number was really the only part I found to be crazy, lol. But I agree with your point, and I did make such a judgement.

I thought you were assuming my data? Where do you see that we have only 37,000 grads? Class of 2011 had 44,495 graduates. The class of 2012 started with more people than the class of 2011, and the class of 2013 started with more people than the class of 2012. Fortunately, the trend reversed for the class of 2014 and it appears the class of 2015 will have fewer graduates still. But I don't know that we can simply assume we'll be down to only 37,000 graduates in the near future. It'd be awesome if you're right though.

I got 37k from projecting the class of 2015 by taking the number of applicants applied (68k) and mutiply it by .618 (the ratio of total applicants to attending in 2011) then I added the 10% attrition rate you said was widely held to be true. That left me at 37,822. I rounded down.

Both very good points. You might be right that adding a JD to the resume helps some people in non-legal areas. But I'm sure we can agree that the added value isn't worth 200K for most of those people.

Your other point is also important because even if we cut the number of grads down to 20K we'd still have to deal with the cumulative effects of all of the recent unemployed grads.

Yeah, I would agree. Paying sticker for that added benefit alone wouldn't seem worth it. There's something to this argument about the cost gives you a floor of the added benefit to your resume and a ceiling of a legal position you would want. The variable being how you perform at law school.

[You are misrepresenting the common wisdom on TLS by saying it's always T-14 or bust. For someone who wants biglaw and wouldn't be happy with much else that is the CW and it is legitimate. But for many people who would be happy working in a small firm or for a government agency, etc. the advice is always to look at T-14 as well as schools in the region one wants to work where debt can be kept to a minimum.

I can agree that T-14 or bust for biglaw is seemingly reasonable aspect to have, albeit not absolute.

Same for wanting to keep your costs down if you don't plan to have a biglaw job after college.

If that's the actual TLS mindset, it doesn't seem too bad. Albeit I would still attend a sticker T25 over $$$ at a TTT.

Using data from this thread and shooting from the hip. If the decline in applications equals a class size of 37,000 and there are 22,500 legal openings then 60% will secure legal employment.

Est. Employment Calculation
95% of T-14 (class size 4,200) = 3,780
80% of Tier-1 (class size 10,800) = 8,640
60% of Tier-2 (class size 15,000) = 9,000
15.% of Tier-3\4 (class size 7,000) = 1,080

Looks somewhat logical to me.

+ Academia and MBA/JDs and people entering law school with the intention of doing something other than law. Small differences, but it helps skew the numbers even more favorably to the side of "acceptable"

63% of students get jobs in a legal profession.

Probably should let this one go, but this stood out to me.

Whatever proportion of students "get jobs in a legal profession" is going to be a statistic that is highly dependent on what you mean by "students," "jobs," "legal," and "legal profession."

I would reckon that to get to 63%, you would need to include a whole lot of jobs that most prospective law students would not want. I would dig a little bit deeper on that NALP report and on law school transparency if that's the figure you're currently relying on.

Most likely true. But life ain't perfect.

[cahwc12]

Using data from this thread and shooting from the hip. If the decline in applications equals a class size of 37,000 and there are 22,500 legal openings then 60% will secure legal employment.

Est. Employment Calculation
95% of T-14 (class size 4,200) = 3,780
80% of Tier-1 (class size 10,800) = 8,640
60% of Tier-2 (class size 15,000) = 9,000
15.% of Tier-3\4 (class size 7,000) = 1,080

Looks somewhat logical to me.

From all the data I've seen, those numbers currently look closer to

70% of T-14
60% of T-1
55% of T-2
55% of T3-4

I don't see how a drop in graduates would severely disproportionately benefit the top grads and negatively impact the bottom grads. They aren't competing for the same set jobs.

And it's highly volatile the further down you go, so much so that the rankings really don't mean anything after the top 25 or so (and several 15-25 that shouldn't be there). There are some T3/4 schools that place very well in their regions. A below-median grad from Michigan isn't exactly a lock to unseat an above-median St. Mary's grad in a San Antonio midlaw firm.

[Sheffield]

From all the data I've seen, those numbers currently look closer to

70% of T-14
60% of T-1
55% of T-2
55% of T3-4

I don't see how a drop in graduates would severely disproportionately benefit the top grads and negatively impact the bottom grads. They aren't competing for the same set jobs.

The only projection I would take issue with is the T-14 70%. Everyone I know got what they wanted. Granted, some (at median) faced several anxious weeks following OCI.

[Tiago Splitter]

[
I got 37k from projecting the class of 2015 by taking the number of applicants applied (68k) and mutiply it by .618 (the ratio of total applicants to attending in 2011) then I added the 10% attrition rate you said was widely held to be true. That left me at 37,822. I rounded down.

That's a fair way to do it, but I have a suspicion that with schools admitting more people the 61.8% number will continue to rise. For most of the last decade the number of applicants was almost twice the number of matriculants. The ration was 57% and 58% for the incoming classes in 2009 and 2010. It seems that last year schools increased that percentage by admitting a higher percentage of people than normal and that trend could continue going forward as schools are squeezed. We should know fairly soon just how it played out for this year's incoming class.

[uvabro]

though you are assuming everyone who goes to law school wants a legal job. i can see the argument for a local businessman or whatever going to the local TTT on a big scholarship or getting the degree just to use it in a different field, and people do, do this. also, many people meet their spouse in law school and wind up not working. finally, some are just pressured by their parents, and some are just old and want another degree. i think it's fair to assume that 10-20% of matriculating students don't want/wind up pursuing a "legal" job. so really your 60% figure should be altered to about 70% of students wanting a legal job get them. still shity, but if that # is right then law is not as bad as many other professions.

[cahwc12]

Anyone know when the October 2012 numbers will be out?

[togepi]

Anyone know when the October 2012 numbers will be out?

Interested in this as well.

[LSAT Hacks (Graeme)]

I totally thought the October 2012 numbers were out, seeing this on the front page.

I'd be interested in hearing the impressions of LSAT tutors and LSAT course teachers. Anecdotally, I've been seeing a lot more LSAT students in Montreal. It's largely not word of mouth, most of them just find me from online ads.

On my (crappy) personal LSAT website, traffic is up from last year, despite my total lack of attention to it. My Reddit LSAT forum is growing. So is 7Sage. I've talked to a few other site owners, and traffic is up all around.

This is all *despite* the public decline in the number of LSAC test takers.

My working hunch is that the remaining LSAT students are prepping more, and this accounts for the increase in LSAT students/traffic. From past LSAC data, only ~50% of LSAT students do any prep at all, IIRC (shocking, right?). Any increase in that number could increase perceived interest in the LSAT.

I'd love to get more data from other sources. ManhattanLSAT Noah, BPShinners and others, are you guys seeing more interest in your programs despite the overall decline in test takers?

[Cobretti]

I totally thought the October 2012 numbers were out, seeing this on the front page.

I'd be interested in hearing the impressions of LSAT tutors and LSAT course teachers. Anecdotally, I've been seeing a lot more LSAT students in Montreal. It's largely not word of mouth, most of them just find me from online ads.

On my (crappy) personal LSAT website, traffic is up from last year, despite my total lack of attention to it. My Reddit LSAT forum is growing. So is 7Sage. I've talked to a few other site owners, and traffic is up all around.

This is all *despite* the public decline in the number of LSAC test takers.

My working hunch is that the remaining LSAT students are prepping more, and this accounts for the increase in LSAT students/traffic. From past LSAC data, only ~50% of LSAT students do any prep at all, IIRC (shocking, right?). Any increase in that number could increase perceived interest in the LSAT.

I'd love to get more data from other sources. ManhattanLSAT Noah, BPShinners and others, are you guys seeing more interest in your programs despite the overall decline in test takers?

So why have the higher scores had the biggest drop off, while the lowest scores have had the least?

[remix]

I assume it's because the smarter kids (and by extension, the ones who would score those higher LSAT scores) are the ones that are

a) more aware that law school is becoming a worse and worse bet.
b) more likely to get better jobs that would keep them from going to law school.

[sinfiery]

I assume it's because the smarter kids (and by extension, the ones who would score those higher LSAT scores) are the ones that are

a) more aware that law school is becoming a worse and worse bet.
b) more likely to get better jobs that would keep them from going to law school.

b was always the case.

a: you calling me stupid?



but probably the right answer

[HawkeyeGirl]

I assume it's because the smarter kids (and by extension, the ones who would score those higher LSAT scores) are the ones that are

a) more aware that law school is becoming a worse and worse bet.
b) more likely to get better jobs that would keep them from going to law school.

Better jobs like what? Pretty sure hiring is down across the board for high paying jobs

[Cobretti]

I assume it's because the smarter kids (and by extension, the ones who would score those higher LSAT scores) are the ones that are

a) more aware that law school is becoming a worse and worse bet.
b) more likely to get better jobs that would keep them from going to law school.

b was always the case.

a: you calling me stupid?



but probably the right answer

If those trends are lowering the numbers in spite of people studying harder for the LSAT, I'd be shocked. I'm just saying I can't believe there really is a greater demand for LSAT tutors right now.

[sinfiery]

If those trends are lowering the numbers in spite of people studying harder for the LSAT, I'd be shocked. I'm just saying I can't believe there really is a greater demand for LSAT tutors right now.

I always wondered if LSATs were equated to be more difficult as people became more efficient at studying for them.

I think it's a safe bet to say that older tests are generally easier so maybe that takes away the people studying harder bit. Or maybe not.


But I it's still somehow true that higher test takers are diminishing because that means we're going to have 1 awesome cycle.

[togepi]

If those trends are lowering the numbers in spite of people studying harder for the LSAT, I'd be shocked. I'm just saying I can't believe there really is a greater demand for LSAT tutors right now.

I always wondered if LSATs were equated to be more difficult as people became more efficient at studying for them.

I think it's a safe bet to say that older tests are generally easier so maybe that takes away the people studying harder bit. Or maybe not.


But I it's still somehow true that higher test takers are diminishing because that means we're going to have 1 awesome cycle.

Hopefully LSAT medians continue to drop by a point or two again

[wingedwolf]

Hopefully LSAT medians continue to drop by a point or two again

This please.

[1TLStudent]

damn i thought this was for this year..got excited for a sec

[togepi]

damn i thought this was for this year..got excited for a sec

there was a thread for guessing the #of test takers,

any idea when the numbers will be released?