For those considering whether or not to go to law school, now may be a good time to apply.
For the second straight year, the number of applicants to law schools across the country declined. When compared to fall 2006, there were 7,100 fewer applicants than in fall 2005.
In addition, preliminary numbers for fall 2007 show further declines of 4.3 percent, leading some to believe that this year will be the third straight year of fewer applicants.
According to Kaplan, a test preparation company, these declines point to better odds of admission for law school applicants.
“If you are thinking about law school, now is a great time to apply,” said Steve Marietti, director of Pre-Law Programs for Kaplan.
According to a Kaplan survey of 190 American Bar Association-approved law schools across the country, nearly half of those surveyed reported seeing declines in the number of applicants.
However, Wendy Margolis, director of communications for the Law School Admission Council ““ the non-profit organization responsible for administering the LSAT ““ said she doesn’t believe there is a readily apparent reason for these declines.
“A lot depends on the economy, how easy it is to get jobs, how much debt people incur during their undergraduate education. There are just so many things, that we don’t have a definitive answer” as to why the number of applicants has declined.
Margolis also suggested that changes in the number of applicants to other professional schools may also contribute to the declining law school numbers.
For example, the number of applicants to medical schools over the past several years has steadily been on the rise, according to statistics kept by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Despite the declining number of law school applicants, 79 percent of the law schools surveyed by Kaplan reported that the shrinking applicant pool has no effect upon the competitiveness of their admissions process.
This may be because of increased efforts to put together better application packets by potential applicants, Marietti said.
At the UCLA School of Law, which, unlike many other schools experienced an increase of 11.5 percent in its number of applicants, the median LSAT score of students who enrolled went up one point to 167, and the median GPA increased to 3.72.
However, Robert Schwartz, assistant dean for admissions at the law school, emphasized that these are just numbers.
“We consider many factors in making admissions decisions, and we look well beyond the numbers in many cases. Applicants should remember that the median is simply the midpoint,” he said.
But even the numbers game may have just gotten easier for those considering law school as a future option.
This is because the American Bar Association recently voted to ask schools to report the highest LSAT scores of their applicants instead of the average scores.
This could lead law schools to reconsider how they evaluate applications because they now have to report their data to the bar association differently, Marietti said.
According to the survey, approximately 83 percent of schools now evaluate the highest LSAT score of applicants.
However, this may or may not be due to the change in policy by the bar association.
“The ABA changed what they are collecting, but that does not necessarily translate to a change in what schools are requiring. Though there may be a perception that schools are admitting differently, this is not necessarily true,” Margolis said.
Despite any changes, some agree that students should not use this as an opportunity to write off their first LSAT attempt.
“Schools continue to see all of a student’s LSAT scores. This isn’t a case where the new score writes over the old score,” Marietti said.
Schwartz said he agreed.
“I think that people should prepare for the LSAT as if they are taking it once, but if their performance on that test falls short of how they were expecting to do and they think they could do better, then they should absolutely take the test again,” he said.