Should I transfer?
With smaller class sizes and law schools in search of ways to line their coffers, it’s a great time for first-year law students who are itching to find new homes to put in their transfer applications. As we mentioned earlier today, the number of transfer students may have dropped from 1,979 to 1,749 between 2015 and 2016, but some schools are still completely dominating this market, accepting transfer students in droves.
Which law schools top the list?
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Thanks to research conducted by Professor Jerry Organ of the University of St. Thomas School of Law, now we know. Professor Organ has gathered this information from law schools’ Standard 509 Reports for the past several years, and as you can see in the chart below, some schools are willing to accept dozens of transfer applicants every year. “Repeat players” — i.e., law schools that have been in the top 15 for the past three years — are bolded. Below, we’ve listed the top 5 law schools for the past three years.
To see the list of the top 15 law schools that have accepted the most transfer students in the past three years, check out Professor Organ’s findings at The Legal Whiteboard.
How many transfer students has your law school accepted in recent years? Check out your school’s most recent Standard 509 Report to see — and while you’re taking a look at the details, you can find out which schools those students transferred in from.
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Revisiting the Market for Transfer Students Based upon the 2016 Standard 509 Reports [Legal Whiteboard]
Faced with dwindling admissions, some law schools seek out overachieving 1Ls [ABA Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. She’d love to hear from you, so feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.