Well, well, well. Looks like law school is cool again. According to numbers reported by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the amount of people applying to law school is up 8 percent, from 55,580 applicants to 60,401. This is the first significant increase in the law school applicant pool since 2010.
As reported by Law.com, this unexpected bounty has the unintended consequence of giant incoming classes:
“I’ve heard from a number of schools that this year they are worried about, not under-enrollment, but over-enrollment,” said LSAC president Kellye Testy. “Because the demand was so strong, some schools are finding that they may have had higher yield rates than they had in prior years, and they may have larger classes than they aimed for.”
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The best part is not only are there more applicants, they’re smarter too (or at least they score better on standardized tests). Applicants scoring between 175 and 180 on the LSAT increased 60 percent, applicants with LSAT scores in the 170 to 174 range were up 13 percent, and those with test scores between 165 and 169 were up 27 percent.
Law schools still need to be careful to make sure their class sizes match the available jobs for graduates, otherwise we’ll see a dip in the entry-level employment rate:
“The job market is looking good,” Testy said. “But that means we need to hold steady more than growing wildly. Overall, it’s good news. But we want to make sure we’re really being thoughtful about matching the enrollment side with the employment opportunity side.”
The bounty of qualified applicants looks to be more than a one-off glitch — the number of people taking the LSAT in June and July was up 30 percent over last year’s test takers.
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But there’s even more good news from the world of legal academia — beginning in 2020, the LSAT will be offered 10 times a year (it’s currently offered six times a year) and there’s a digital version of the test coming in 2019. After years of advocating for changes to the LSAT system, this is great for wannabe lawyers who need some flexibility in their test-taking. I guess change is possible… when someone is coming after your lunch.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. 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).