Turmoil in the legal job market and pessimism about the future of the legal profession have deterred some people from applying to law school.
For aspiring lawyers, this creates a window of opportunity to apply to law school when competition for a spot at a reach school is less intense than it is under ordinary circumstances, experts say.
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“I think it does make sense to apply to a few programs that are stretch programs,” says Linda Abraham, the founder and CEO of Accepted, a California-based admissions consulting group. “There’s no reason to reject yourself unless you don’t want to go through the time and expense of applying or if you simply can’t stand the concept of rejection.”
U.S. News data reveal that the average number of applicants at the top 14 schools in the Best Law Schools rankings was 20.6 percent lower for the entering class of 2016 than it was for the entering class of 2008. Meanwhile, the average number of applicants at lower-ranked law schools plunged 52.3 percent between 2008 and 2016.
This precipitous drop in applications has given law school applicants increased leverage in negotiations over scholarships and financial aid awards, says Aaron N. Taylor, executive director of the nonprofit AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence.
“Law schools are more generous overall, meaning that students with lower LSAT scores are probably more likely to receive scholarship aid than they were before the downturn,” Taylor wrote in an email. “But the scholarship awards for students with higher LSAT scores have become much more generous (and common). So while lower LSAT scorers are reaping some benefits from this renewed generosity, it is the higher LSAT scorers who are reaping the true windfalls.”
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Jeff Thomas, executive director of prelaw programs at Kaplan Test Prep, says law schools are eager to entice the most promising applicants with scholarship money, since their academic reputations depend on the quality of their student body.
“You see more and more law schools that are clamoring for the applicants with the decent LSAT scores and GPAs near their medians,” Thomas says.
U.S. News data shows that acceptance rates at the top 14 law schools were only slightly higher for the entering class of 2016 than they were for the entering class of 2008. But acceptance rates at lower-ranked law schools rose more than 20 percentage points between 2008 and 2016.
Experts warn that the honeymoon period for law school applicants may soon end because according to the Law School Admission Council, the number of people who took the LSAT in June 2017 was almost 20 percent higher than it was in June 2016. That means that the number of law school applicants could be on the upswing.
Some experts say that the uptick in LSAT test-takers is an argument for aspiring lawyers to apply to law school as soon as possible, so they can capitalize on the relaxed admissions standards at mid-ranked and lower-ranked law schools. Median LSAT scores and GPAs for the entering classes at these schools dipped between 2006 and 2016.
By contrast, at the top 14 law schools, the average median LSAT score of admitted full-time students was nearly identical for the entering class of 2006 and the entering class of 2016, and the average median undergraduate GPA of admitted full-time students was actually higher in 2016 than it was in 2006, U.S. News data show.
The top 14 law schools have maintained their strict academic standards, experts say, and getting accepted at one of these schools is still a difficult feat.
Alison Spada, assistant dean of admissions at Georgetown University‘s law school, tied at No. 15 in the rankings, says that although the law school receives fewer applicants than it did when its annual applications reached an all-time high of roughly 12,000 applications, there are still many more applicants than spots.
“When you talk about easier to get in, I do think it’s a little relative,” says Spada. “It’s still pretty difficult to get in at a place like Georgetown.” The school had a 26.4 percent acceptance rate for its fall class in 2016.
Nevertheless, Thomas says this is an ideal time to apply to a reach law school. “That one data point of June 2017 LSAT aside, we are still in a time where there are far fewer applicants to law school than there used to be and students should absolutely be encouraged to shoot high.”
Abraham of Accepted says law school applicants should be wary of attending schools with low job placement rates or low bar passage rates. “The applicants don’t want to be one of those people who has $200,000 in debt and can’t get a job or can’t pass the bar,” she says.
Spada of Georgetown says the reduction in the number of law school applicants means the applicant pool overall is more serious about pursuing a legal career.
“One of the things that the leveling or correction of the national market might have done was eliminate some of the people from the applicant pool that were using law school as a fallback,” she says. “So I do think in some ways you were left with maybe fewer applications but a more intentional applicant pool.”
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Law School Admissions Less Competitive Than 2008 originally appeared on usnews.com
