LSAC Data and Predicting Number of Applicants for Fall 2014, part 11

The LSAC reports that "As of 3/14/14, there are 299,104 fall 2014 applications submitted by 43,026 applicants. Applicants are down 10.3% and applications are down 10.7% from 2013.  Last year at this time, we had 81% of the preliminary final applicant count."  If this year's applicants follow last year's pattern, we'll have approximately 53,118 total applicants for the class entering in fall 2014.  Dan Filler has some historical data on the first year enrollment from 1964 to 2012 here.  I link to some more comprehensive data (going back to the 1940s) here. 

My last post in this series is here.

Comments

[Jojo]

43,000 applicants in Mid-March. I still don't see 53,000 total. We won't break 50,000 now.

We're post-Spring Break. Students aren't going to be putting in applications in April, as they're focused on the upcoming graduation, enjoying life as a Senior, and finals. I think that most of the already-grads were induced to apply last year. The Feb LSAT results were out as of 3/6. Those takers should be wrapped up in this week's data.

[anon]

Assume 50,000 applicants, and an enrollment rate of 65%. That means 32,500 enrollees.
Assume 200 ABA accredited law schools, and that the highest rated 100 schools fill an average of 250 first year seats.
Under these conditions, would there be 7,500 enrollees entering the 100 lower rated schools?
If so (this math must be wrong in some respect), how many law schools could continue with a first year class of 75?
In general, may a law school admit an incoming class of, e.g. 75 students, whose GPA/LSAT profile places them, at the 25th percentile, at a level far below a reasonable expectation of success in law school, on the bar, and in legal employment?

[vijay]

Are we being serious here? The schools will take 40,000 enrollees out of 50,000 applicants; hell, they will take all 50,000 applicants next year. However one hopes that some 10-15% of the admitted will get cold feet and not take on 150 K loans.

[Jojo]

Vijay,

Plenty of (the smart) applicants will not get into law school. A non trivial percentage are T-14 or bust types.

[Steven Freedman (KU Law)]

Two points:

1) At this rate there will be 53,118 applicants. If anything, that number will be slightly higher as there is a continuing trend of students applying later in the cycle.

2) @anon - I think by "enrollment rate", you are referring to the percentage of applicants who end up matriculating. That number has been increasing steadily the last few years, rising from 59% in 2007 to 67% last year. I think we're likely to see another increase in that percentage. Based on past data, 70% is probably a better estimate than 65%.

So, if the expected number of applicants is 53,118, and the "enrollment rate" is 70%, then we're likely we're likely to see about 37,000 attend law school this year, or 4,500 more than anon predicts. Using anon's school size numbers, that results in 25,000 enrollees for the top 100 schools, and 12,000 for the bottom 100. That's 120 per school. That's still going to pose issues for some, but it's a bit better than the 75 per school anon predict.

[Steven Freedman (KU Law)]

Update. I just checked the average class size for schools in the top 100. For 2016, 21,045 students enrolled at the top 100 law schools. Which means the top 100 schools averaged 210 students per school, not 250. Using this figure, there will be an estimated 15,955 enrollees in the bottom 100 schools. And that does not account for the fact that enrollment in the top 100 schools will likely decline by another 5-10%. Still does not change the fact that schools will be struggling to fill their classes, but it does suggest it won't be as dramatic as some fear (or hope for).

[JillyfromPhilly]

As the conversation shifts from raw applicant numbers to the percentage of those applicants likely to be admitted to at least one law school, a look back at admission rates over the past 10 years is instructive.

2004: 55.6%
2005: 58.6%
2006: 63.1%
2007: 66.1%
2008: 66.5%
2009: 67.4%
2010: 68.7%
2011: 71.1%
2012: 74.5%
2013: 76.9%
2014: ??.?%

I quickly ran the numbers from lsac.org if anyone cares to check my math.

One can only expect the admittance rate to further climb in 2014, based on the recent behavior of law schools to admit a greater percentage of applicants when faced with a declining pool. As the entrance statistics at a great number of schools reflect, law schools will gladly sacrifice student quality in order to keep enough money coming in to pay the admins' and profs' salaries, and keep the lights on.

Even with an accepted applicant rate of 80%, which appears likely, enrollment for the class starting in 2014 will be under 37,000 students. Those 37,000 students will be replacing the entering class from 2011, which started with 48,700 students. An almost 12,000 student drop in enrollment nationally will have a substantial impact on the bottom lines of many/most schools.

This coming year is when things become really interesting.

[anon]

Prof Freedman:
Let's accept your calculations as reasonable estimates.
You estimate 16,000 enrollees to be distributed among the 100 lower rated ABA accredited law schools. Fair enough.
Of course, some schools will enroll more than 160, which means some will enroll fewer. As the numbers you cited show, the "first" 100 law schools enrolled an average of 210, which seems reasonable, and many of the the "next" 100 schools will (must?) likely do the same.
So, let's move to the next questions. In general, may a law school admit an incoming class of, e.g. 160 students, whose GPA/LSAT profile places them, at the 25th percentile, or at the 50th percentile, at a level far below a reasonable expectation of success in law school, on the bar, and in legal employment? In other words, how deep into the applicant pool will school need to reach to fill these seats?
Unless we stipulate that anyone who applies can go to law school, there must be some recognition that law schools are responsible to ensure that every student has a reasonable opportunity to succeed in law school, on the bar exam, and in practice.
It seems we all know that remedial efforts are already necessary in many instances in order to improve the reading, writing and learning skills of many law school students. Will the current conditions increase the need for such efforts?

[Steven Freedman (KU Law)]

Anon - you ask some good questions. I can't speak for other law schools, but here at KU Law we will only admit candidates who we believe are likely to be successful at law school and on the bar exam.

[anon]

Prof Freedman:
Fair enough re: admission standards. These standards are necessary for a number of reasons.
Law schools owe a duty their students, who may take on ten if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to attend. The public expects law schools to act responsibly, and we have seen the terrible outcomes associated, in large part, with perceived failures in this respect. Any enforcement action to eliminate eligibility for student loans based on lack of reasonable expectation of success on the bar would be devastating to the already damaged reputation of US law schools.
Jilly points out that the percentage of applicants admitted to at least one law school has been steadily increasing, approaching 80%. We have data on the profile of the 20% who were not admitted. From that, it seems we can infer the profile of students who may be admitted by reason of any further increase. This would be an important data point.
Also, if you were able to calculate the number of students enrolled for the T100, can we also calculate the number of students enrolled at the next 100 for 2016? This also would be helpful.
Finally, it seems that lower first year class size, aside from obvious financial ramifications, will affect the upper division course profile as well. That is, for very important elective courses, enrollment is already tight. Will fewer upper division students will mean these courses will disappear for want of enrollment?

[PaulB]

Prof. Freeman is right that KU has been willing to let their class size decline significantly rather than sharply cut their admission standards. I'm pretty sure, though, that even most schools like KU have lower LSAT averages for their matrics than they did a couple of years ago.
What is beyond dispute, though, that a number of schools with previously decent U.S. News rankings have dramatically reduced their admission standards in order to maintain class size or at least reduce the decline. It's not just the Cooleys and Infilaws that have taken the express elevator to the bottom.

[anon]

PaulB
One of the "problems" with USNWR ratings now, it appears, is that it conceals the true nature of the admin in the unranked lowest tier? Not that there aren't other sources of information for the diligent, but is decline in these rankings even possible at this point?
Is it not in the law schools with the lowest "ranking" that competition for students will be most acute? Given the reasonable presumption that shenanigans are likely to be the worst in that tier (one hopes, at this late date, that no one will argue that there have been no shenanigans to date), and with no fear of any "ranking" drop, what is the to deter these schools from admitting almost all applicants?
At an 80% admit rate overall, and given the rates of admission at the T50 are not even close to that level, are we not nearing at some law schools an auto admit for any C+ student with a lower ranked undergrad degree who scored in the 25th percentile on the LSAT?
If so, a careful look at eligibility for federal loans must be undertaken immediately, to get ahead of this problem before it gets worse.

[Barry]

"Law schools owe a duty their students, who may take on ten if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to attend. The public expects law schools to act responsibly, and we have seen the terrible outcomes associated, in large part, with perceived failures in this respect. Any enforcement action to eliminate eligibility for student loans based on lack of reasonable expectation of success on the bar would be devastating to the already damaged reputation of US law schools. "

Well, no. Law schools have in general been quite deceptive on employment/salary statistics, and every week I see a law professor publishing an article extolling the 'versatility' of a law degree.

In terms of reputation, given a choice between unemployment and taking another hit, there are no law professors or schools will take the first.

[Anon123]

As others have said before, last year, many law schools did not start the full court press till late in the year. This year, many of the non T14 have had stepped up recruiting from the start of the year. In addition to the students who will not go to other than a T14, there are those who will only go to top say 50, in-state school, etc. As the admission rates goes up, the percent of those accepted who actually attend has gone from 89.8 in 2008 to 86.8 in 2014. What this tells me that if the student does not get the school and/or financial aid package he wants, he is not going. So as schools may increase admission percentage, it may not result in more students.

[anon]

Anon123
If your conclusion is correct, does this not exacerbate the problem for the unranked or lower ranked law schools?

[vijay]

JoJo:

It is possible that we overestimate applicants; most T-14 applicants have a fallback school like Texas or UCLA or Minnesota or GWU. Given that a very large number of applicants are liberal arts majors with high hopes for law school outcomes, I think law schools can easily enroll 40-42 K students. If there are any T-14 or bust applicants who simply do not enroll if they dont make into T-14, hurrah for them.

[JillyfromPhilly]

Anon123,

Interesting point. It does look like the percentage of accepted students that end up enrolling is trending a bit downward. If that trend continues, enrollment could fall even more than the "experts" are anticipating.

2004: 86.2%
2005: 85.7%
2006: 87.3%
2007: 88.5%
2008: 89.0%
2009: 88.4%
2010: 86.9%
2011: 87.2%
2012: 87.9%
2013: 86.9%

[ATLprof]

Anon @1:09PM asking about anon123 and low ranked schools,

It is a potential problem for them indirectly.

It is not a problem for them directly, because the students who are T-14 or bust are not and have never been their students.

It becomes an indirect problem for them in two ways. First, higher ranked schools who have smaller classes enrolled as first year students make up some of the enrollment shortfalls by admitting large numbers of transfers from low ranked schools (bottom of the rankings to top 25 school is now common in some places). Second, as schools are forced to lower their admissions standards, everyone starts capturing the top portions of the schools beneath them. This propagates down the rankings in a wave until it gets to the lower ranked schools who have very few options.