Which Law Schools Had the Best Yield Rate In 2013?

You may be surprised by some of the schools that made the list…

For the first time since 2010, the decline in LSAT test takers has abated, but as we noted previously, “deans shouldn’t start licking each other’s popsicles just yet” — it was only up by 1.1 percent for February takers. Law schools aren’t out of the woods yet, though, and they’re hungry for applicants. To that end, while many law schools are still desperate to fill their seats, they’re even more desperate to protect their coveted yield rate, the percentage of admitted students who actually choose to enroll.

U.S. News recently released a list of the schools with the highest yield rates in 2013. On average, more than half of accepted students ended up enrolling at these schools, but you may be surprised by some that made the list…

Here’s the list of the 10 schools with the highest yield rates in 2013, courtesy of U.S. News:

Many of the law schools here made the list last year, but we’ve got a few newcomers. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the fact that Yale Law still dominates the list, this time with an 80.6 percent yield rate. Come on, who in their right mind would turn down an acceptance to Yale? Probably someone who got into Harvard or Stanford, which also appear here with 66.2 and 45.7 percent yield rates, respectively.

Newcomers to the list include Missouri (Kansas City), North Dakota, and Indiana University (McKinney), replacing North Carolina Central (Rank Not Published), Liberty (RNP), and Hawaii (which just took a 20-spot tumble in the latest U.S. News rankings). One RNP school remains: Southern University Law Center, which made it to the Sweet Sixteen in our Worst Law School in America competition. For what it’s worth, SULC’s yield rate is better than Stanford’s. Who knows, perhaps students are looking forward to IMMERSING THEMSELVES IN THE STUDY OF CRIMINAL LAW with Professor Donald North.

U.S. News also had an interesting tidbit on the law school with the worst yield rate in 2013:

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University of California—Davis had 11.2 percent of accepted students enroll, the lowest percentage of accepted students according to the survey data. Of the 10 schools where most accepted students did not enroll, the average yield was just 12.7 percent, and the average number of accepted students was about 1,298.

UC-Davis is coming off of a nine-spot drop in 2013 and a three-spot gain in 2014. We suppose that wasn’t good enough to compete with all eleventy billion of the other California law schools out there. Ouch.

In the end, we suppose we can be satisfied with the fact that the “second-best” law school in the United States doesn’t have the second-best yield rate. The real second-best law school snagged that honor.

10 Law Schools Where Accepted Students Usually Enroll [The Short List / U.S. News & World Report]

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