Law Schools

Chaos Reigns: Notre Dame Law School Tells Non-Wealthy Students ‘Thanks, But No Thanks’

Nothing like this has ever happened before.

By Kyle McEntee and Sydney Montgomery  
on

In the midst of a global pandemic that already has people on edge about their future and an application cycle that has been like no other, Notre Dame Law School turned their admissions process into a pressure cooker.

Last night, that pressure cooker exploded.

Notre Dame makes application decisions on a rolling basis instead of a pre-selected date. Once an applicant is admitted, the school requires two deposits to confirm enrollment. Law schools have used this process (more or less) without incident for decades.

Most law schools ask applicants to deposit by a certain date, traditionally mid-April to early May. Notre Dame’s first deadline was April 15 and required a $600 non-refundable deposit. Notre Dame’s offer letter, however, increased the pressure with an unusual warning. The school informed applicants that they had until the deadline or “when we reach our maximum number of deposits.”

Mike Spivey, a veteran law school admissions consultant and former law school administrator, told us that this warning was “unprecedented” and that he had never seen anything like it. Sarah Zearfoss, senior assistant dean at the University of Michigan Law School, called the warning “insane” and “unhinged.”

For the applicants who received a scholarship offer, pressure mounted with a second warning.

While most law schools frown on double-depositing (holding seats at more than one law school), Notre Dame warned scholarship recipients that they may lose their scholarship offer if the applicant also deposits at another school.

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In fairness to other admitted students considering the Law School who have not yet received an award, we ask that you not hold active seat deposits at other law schools if you accept our offer of admission and scholarship. We reserve the right to withdraw the scholarship offer of any student who violates this request. Please note that you may remain on the waitlists of other law schools if you accept our offer of admission and scholarship.

In other words, if you want to come to our school at the price we’re offering, you’d better send us a non-refundable deposit now.

In isolation, asking applicants not to double-deposit may be a reasonable request, although reasonable minds differ. (We won’t debate this here.) But in the context of an offer that expires at an unknown time — which, again, is unprecedented — this request creates mounting pressure to make a career-defining choice without full consideration.

The pressure manifested immediately. Applicants worried that their offer would explode while they weighed and waited on other offers. Notre Dame responded on March 19 with an email to all admitted applicants in an attempt to “assuage some fears.”

According to the director of admissions, the school added the warning after they over-enrolled their incoming class in the fall of 2019. Notre Dame stressed, however, that 2019 was only the second time in 20 years that had happened and that admitted applicants shouldn’t really worry because it was so unlikely to happen a third time. Even if it did happen again, it was unlikely to be more than a day or two before the April 15 deadline.

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However, this did not assuage fears. By now, prelaw advisors started to vaguely describe how one top law school was upending precedent on at least one prelaw advisor listserv and at least one prelaw advisor webinar. (They were vague out of fear of retribution.) Applicants on social media expressed outrage and unease.

On April 6, that unlikely possibility became a reality.

This week, admitted applicants are in conversations with friends, family, and advisors trying to finalize scholarship offers and choose where to begin their legal career. This year has already been especially stressful for applicants. Law school applications increased 32%, causing many schools to delay admissions decisions and increase waitlist sizes.

While the larger waitlists are unpopular with prelaw students, they are generally a reasonable strategy by law schools that do not want to over-enroll. Schools that end up with more students than intended often offer incentives to convince students to defer to the next year. Notre Dame chose a different path with its warning-laden offer. Yesterday, their pressure-cooked admissions process exposed fundamental inequity and disregard for student agency when the school withdrew its admission offers.

At 11:50 a.m., Notre Dame emailed admitted applicants that they had reached 67% of their maximum number of deposits, “a level that we typically reach just two or three days before the deposit deadline.” They told applicants that they would reach out again when they hit 80% and then again at 90%. Further, if the school reached the maximum number of deposits, they would inform all remaining admitted applicants that they had been moved to the waitlist.

Understandably, people panicked.

At 5:04 p.m., Notre Dame emailed admitted applicants that they were at 80% capacity.

By 5:56 p.m., Notre Dame had reached 100% capacity and turned off their deposit form. Anyone who hadn’t deposited yet, and who didn’t check their email over this six-hour period, was now waitlisted.

Students work hard on applications. The application process is expensive, and where you go to law school (and how much you pay) can affect your career trajectory for decades. Notre Dame should not have expected admitted applicants to make this decision as if participating in a fast-paced auction. Worse, this situation favors the applicants who had $600 accessible and were fine paying the deposit to keep their options open. No doubt, many of those same applicants will withdraw their deposits if they hear back from another school, receive a more generous scholarship offer later this month, or simply change their minds.

Meanwhile, applicants who did not have reliable internet, were working, or were paralyzed by the unexpected choice in front of them had their offer rescinded. Even if an applicant knew that Notre Dame was the school they wanted to attend, some applicants just could not drop $600 at a moment’s notice. These students earned their spot and may have been saving up for the deposit and waiting for family, friends, or a future paycheck.

For lower-income applicants, especially applicants who may be tapped out financially from LSAT preparation, exam fees, and school application fees, the deposit (and in some cases a second deposit) is just one more hurdle. You can’t pay your law school seat deposit from loans or scholarship money.

Exploding offers cannot become the norm. The law school admissions process will be untenable if applicants worry that every offer has an unpredictable expiration date. Further, these offers penalize applicants who can’t make $600 appear after a string of emails over the course of six hours. And to be clear: it is completely normal to not be able to come up with $600 in six hours.

This entire situation is optional and avoidable. Not every law school requires a financial deposit to save a spot. Applicants deserve a firm timeline from schools to judiciously weigh their offers and plan and budget for deposits. When a law school fails to exercise proper enrollment management, the burden to be reasonable in the midst of chaos should not shift to the applicants.

Kyle McEntee is the executive director of Law School Transparency, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to make entry to the legal profession more transparent, affordable, and fair. You can follow him on Twitter @kpmcentee and @LSTupdates.

Sydney Montgomery is the founder of S. Montgomery Admissions Consulting, a consulting company specializing in working with first-generation and minority law school applicants. She recently published a free guide to applying to law school. You can follow Sydney on Instagram @smontgomeryconsulting.

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