for breaking newsDecember 18 — Looking Ahead
Looking forward to Numbers
We'd all like to know about applications, applicants, LSAT scores, LSAT re-takes, and medians, and we don't know any of them.
Applicants are down about 16% nationally as of Thanksgiving, but apps were down only 14%. That means applicants are applying to slightly more schools than they did last year.
The irony is that most of them are applying without LSAT scores. Test-takers declined markedly in both June and October, and December applicants have been fairly ambivalent about the test. Many people thought the reading section was particularly hard; others had trouble with one of the games. Some of these people are applying and praying for a good score; others are waiting for the score to decide where to apply. But we have to take this with a grain of salt. More people are likely to contact me to say, "I think I blew it; what do I do now?" than, "I aced it and I'm applying." |
The other factor clouding my crystal ball is that an "average" decrease is not very informative. Richmond is one of a half-dozen schools with an app increase of over 30%, while more than 150 of the 200 law schools LSAC tracks show a decline. Apps as of December 15th were down a bit more, at almost 20%, perhaps reflecting that uncertainty in the outcome of the December LSAT. If you click back to my Nov. 25th update and look at the red-blue-green bar graph, you can see that in any year, an "average" increase or decrease can easily cover a range from 50% increases to 50% decreases. So my prediction of the day is that we won't have any realistic idea of where the applicant pool is headed until around January 15th.
Looking forward to Christmas
Every year without fail, I put up a Christmas gift right around midnight Pacific time. I've chosen this year's gift, and my avatar is here to tell you about it:
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Looking Forward to Seattle's Law Fair!
On Saturday, January 21, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Seattle U's Law School is Hosting the Law Fair for the West Coast Consortium, a group of private law schools.
This is an RSVP event, so check out the web page and click this link to reserve a space.
Okay, folks, see you on Christmas!