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Increases in law school applicant pool and those with high LSAT scores likely, professor says

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It’s likely that the 2018 law school applicant pool will be the largest this year since the 2011-12 admissions cycle, and it appears that there will be a significant increase of applicants with LSAT scores of at least 165, Jerry Organ writes at TaxProf Blog.



A professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, Organ’s data is from the Law School Admission Council’s Current Volume Report, which runs through late January. In the last several years, almost 80 percent of applicants with LSAT scores of at least 165 had submitted their law school applications by January, Organ writes.

He notes that it’s possible that there will be more than 8,100 applicants with LSAT scores at 165 or higher this year—an increase of almost 25 percent compared to the 2016-17 admissions cycle.

“And if we continue to see roughly 83 percent of the applicants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher turn into matriculants, the number of matriculants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher also may increase to roughly 6,750 [roughly 1,000 more this year compared to the 2016-17 admissions cycle (and) an increase of over 18 percent],” he writes.

A significant number of those applicants would probably attend top-25 law schools, which could mean that those schools will see a modest enrollment increase for the 2018 first-year class.

“This also may mean that top-25 law schools will not be admitting as many students with LSATs of less than 165 (155-164), which should mean more of these students will be available to help fill out the entering classes at law schools ranked from 25-100,” Organ writes. “This may mean that some of these law schools ranked from 25-100 will be able to strengthen their entering class profile a little bit and/or increase enrollment a little bit.”