Law Schools

Super Smarties Applying To Law School In Droves

A law school application cycle like no other.

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We’ve been talking for a while about the boom of law school applications this year. Whether it’s because of the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the murder of George Floyd, the election cycle, or a combination of all of these, tons of people applied this most recent application cycle. And that’s been a real problem for law schools — overenrollment is suddenly a thing many law schools are sweating.

But with the start of the fall semester nearly upon us, we can truly assess what happened. And yowsers, there was a 13 percent increase in the number of applicants over last year! That’s the largest year-over-year increase in law school applications since 2002.

As reported by Reuters, the applicant pool hasn’t reached the heights of the early aughts, but it is still quite robust:

In total, 71,048 people applied to American Bar Association-accredited law schools this cycle, up from 62,964 at this point in 2020. That’s still significantly lower than the historic high of 100,601 applicants in 2004, but it’s by far the largest national applicant pool of the past decade.

And what’s really notable is that the applicants that really crushed the LSAT — the 175 to 180 band — more than doubled year-over-year, from 732 last year to 1,487 this cycle. That’s surprising, right? Well, turns out you aren’t the only one shocked by the stellar qualifications of this batch of wannabe lawyers:

“This was the cycle that surprised everyone,” said Mike Spivey of Spivey Consulting, whose firm assists clients in the law school admissions process. “In some cycles, applicants are surprised. In some cycles, law schools are surprised. But no one was able to anticipate the incredible spike of high LSAT scores.”

And don’t think that next year’s application cycle will be back to normal. Because law schools, ahem, encouraged, folks to defer enrollment and some people are just trying again after not getting into the school of their choosing, Spivey predicts another wild cycle next year:

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“You’re going to see a competitive cycle early on,” he said. “And I think schools are going to go incredibly slowly in admit decision-making. They got burned this year.”

That seems a pretty safe bet.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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