LSAC and Predicting Law School Applicants for 2016-17, Part 20

The LSAC is now reporting that "As of 04/22/16, there are 328,011 applications submitted by 50,537 applicants for the 2016–2017 academic year. Applicants are up 1.4% and applications are up 1.7% from 2015–2016.  Last year at this time, we had 90% of the preliminary final applicant count."

The last post in this series is here.

Comments

[anon]

Number of applicants, each year, for the last ten years (starting with 2006):

88,700 84,000 83,400 86,600 87,900 78,500 67,900 59,400 55,700 54,500

That's a yuge decline, no?

Relatively speaking, how much impact does a 1.4% increase have?

Are we simply establishing the "new normal" or are some out there actually predicting a return to the volume just ten years ago?

And, for those advocates of the "bad economy, numbers increase: good economy, numbers decrease" theory, are you still making that case?

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

Automotive sales for April are up 4%.

[anon]

Captain

As many have observed, you are like the guy who keeps fa.ting on the plane.

It probably is gratifying to you to read my comment, as your intent clearly is to provoke outrage, but, really, we get it: you've proved that all practitioners are boorish a holes.

Brilliant gambit, Captain, but really really stale and tiresome at this point. Can't you take "well done" for an answer, and adopt a different persona?

Perhaps, this time, you can adopt your own persona, and demonstrate your unfathomable brilliance in your own voice.

[[M][@][c][K]]

Whether this is the new normal depends on (a) the impact of the measures that law schools have been engaging in to bring in warm bodies, i.e.,:

• heavy tuition discounting;
• lowering admission criteria;
• to the point of engaging in near open admissions (in some cases):
• shaking every conceivable tree for matriculants;
• pro law school propaganda such as the Million Dollar Law Degree™

to support the current level of applications and matriculants, and (b), the extent to which those measures can be sustained in the medium and longterm, given their high cost, the impact on bar passage rates, the increasing focus on student debt and likely reforms of the student loan system and federal financial aid, and debunking of the million dollar story.

There is at least anecdotal evidence that the cost is beginning to bite on host institutions, solid evidence of plunging bar outcomes and growing controversy over student loan debt. Action on any one of these could cause a further decline in applications/matriculations. My own sense is that the situation is not stable, that this is a temporary stall in falling applications that will end when the extraordinary measures law schools are taking end.

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

anon,

Thank you for that. I have an idea for opening a chain of law schools. Walmart and Meijer have spaces for rent next to the gutter protector booth and nails saloon. We can call it Law Mart. Catch shoppers as they swing by with their Hostess Ding Dongs and Cheetos. Boost admissions....move iron BABY!!!!!!