Which Law Schools Received The Most Applications For Fall 2014?

People are finally realizing that it's not a very good time to go to law school.

Law school is no longer considered the golden ticket necessary for success in life. How do we know? Fewer and fewer people are applying to law school, because lo and behold, members of the would-be applicant pool have finally discovered that they may not be able to get jobs as lawyers after they graduate. In fact, according to the latest data from LSAC, the number of law school applicants has declined by about 50 percent from where it was a decade ago.

Just 55,700 people applied to law school in 2014, compared to the hordes that applied in 2009 and 2010. But even with the significant drop in applicants, some law schools were still able to convince thousands of would-be lawyers to apply.

U.S. News provided us with a list of the 10 law schools that received the most applications. Unfortunately, not everyone can get into a highly ranked law school, so we compiled our own list of the top 10 unranked law schools that received the most applications.

Which schools are on the dueling lists of the cream of the crop v. the cream of the crap?

Here are the 10 law schools that received the most applications for full-time programs for the class that entered in Fall 2014, courtesy of the Short List blog of U.S. News:

Just as it was the last time we covered this list, representation from the top 14 is still strong, with Georgetown once again clinching the top spot. This time around, prospective law students didn’t stray from the top 25 schools when submitting their applications. Job statistics matter, and these are the schools that may enable graduates to work as attorneys.

In case you’re interested, here are the employment statistics for full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar passage for the class of 2013 (these statistics do not included school-funded positions; information for the class of 2014 is regrettably not yet available):

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  • Georgetown: 72.4 percent
  • NYU: 86.2 percent
  • Columbia: 88.3 percent
  • Harvard: 85.5 percent
  • Penn: 85.7 percent
  • UC-Berkeley: 78.4 percent
  • GW: 63.2 percent
  • UCLA: 66.6 percent
  • Duke: 85.0 percent
  • UVA: 79.7 percent

So what do the numbers look like at the other end of the spectrum? People are still applying to unranked law schools despite all the doom and gloom about employment and debt that’s delivered on a daily basis, but in much smaller numbers than in the past:

  1. Florida Coastal: 2,666 (77.7 percent admit rate)
  2. Charlotte: 2,472 (75 percent admit rate)
  3. Southwestern: 1,909 (60.8 percent admit rate)
  4. Suffolk: 1,808 (87.4 percent admit rate)
  5. New England: 1,807 (79.7 percent admit rate)
  6. South Texas: 1,631 (65.6 percent admit rate)
  7. Barry: 1,586 (62.6 percent admit rate)
  8. Nova Southeastern: 1,487 (54.2 percent admit rate)
  9. Cooley: 1,481 (85.4 percent admit rate)
  10. Thomas Jefferson: 1,381 (84.3 percent admit rate)

Just think, when we compiled this list back in 2012, Florida Coastal had about 50 percent more applicants. In just one year’s time, the number of applications to Cooley is down by more than 25 percent. You can really see which schools here are trying to keep up appearances by attempting to show some semblance of standards, and which ones have decided to let in just about everyone, their mother, and their dog to keep the lights on.

So there you have it: law school applications are down overall, and many people have decided to shy away from unranked law schools. With fewer applications, we’re making progress in alleviating the stressed legal job market, but it’s still not enough. By the time people learn better, it may be too late.

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10 Law Schools That Get the Most Full-Time Applications [The Short List / U.S. News]