With Labor Day on the horizon and many first-year classes arrived for orientation, law school AdComms are spending their first week or two of the academic year in one of the brief “lull periods” of the admissions year.

The aforementioned first-year class has arrived. Unless a 1L student unexpectedly decides to leave after classes have started, the last task AdComms have for this cohort is to report the class’s stats and profile to the American Bar Association (and ideally publish said stats on their website—more on this below).

And regarding the next cohort, well, admissions officers should be in a position where they don’t need to do anything right now but they should be ready to leap into action soon. For example, most law school applications open on September 1st … but there’s nothing left for admissions officers to do about that process since they had to submit their apps to LSAC at the beginning of the summer. And admissions officers know that law fairs are on the horizon … but they’ve likely made their first few rounds of hotel and airplane reservations, have already sent all their brochures to the printing presses, and so … it’s just a waiting game until the 2025–2026 admissions cycle opens with a bang next week.

But while our AdComm friends enjoy one final chance to breathe before their lives become a blur of flight layovers, lost rental car reservations, and hurried searches for the nearest Starbucks (for both caffeine and free WIFI), we have a lot to chew on! So let’s take our weekly look at the news and headlines from around the world of law school admissions.

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Updated Class Profiles

With orientation programs concluded at many law schools, we are seeing more and more schools publishing their incoming class profiles and we’re learning a lot! At the broadest level:

• The schools that were already at the top of the LSAT charts didn’t really move their medians. Whether it’s Cornell staying at a 173 or Michigan continuing at a 171 (you have to scroll all the way through their FAQs to the “I have an LSAT of X, and a GPA of Y. What are my chances of admission?” question in the Admissions Procedure section), we have yet to see a T14 increase their LSAT median. This is likely for the simple reason that—even though applications increased 22% nationally and even though that increase was disproportionately represented among those with a 170+ LSAT—there just weren’t enough “super high” scores for everyone (or anyone) in this range to move that stat. However….
• The schools in the next tier down were able to boost their LSATs by a point. We noted last week that UNC Law had published that their incoming LSAT moved from a 168 to a 169. They’re joined by schools like Vanderbilt Law (169 to 170), Boston College Law (167 to 168), and Washington & Lee Law (from 166 to 167). But…
• The real action can be found even further down the rungs. Schools whose medians were below 165 were really able to take advantage of the wave of high stats. William and Mary Law (164 to 166) and St. John’s Law (162 to 164) were able to boost their medians by two points apiece, and plucky St. Thomas Law in Minnesota (Go Tommies!) by three points up to a 159.

Movements of this nature are highly unusual in all but the most perfect of storms—situations like “the dean wanted to shrink the class size by 25% and was willing to increase the scholarship budget by 30% in order to boost the stats” or “let’s really bump the LSAT up as high as we can and it’s alright if our GPA takes a little bit of a hit.” But to boost the LSAT by more than a point … and bump up GPAs … and maintain class size or increase it a touch? That means that this was the perfect storm.

We recognize that it’s all well and cool to reflect on the storm that just hit us, but it’s probably more relevant for our readers to ask the logical follow-up—so what’s the weather looking like for the coming year?

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National LSAT Numbers

And that’s where we have to recognize that this week’s blog is coming at a crucial time in the LSAT calendar:

• LSAC will start releasing August results on Wednesday. This will let us know if August 2025’s test had increased numbers of takers.
• We’re a week away from the September LSAT, and the pre-test count of registrants will be important.
• The October LSAT registration deadline just passed.

So the key question as we check in on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report is … how painful is the news?

Answer? “Eyelash on your contact lens.”

We’re starting to see a bit more last-minute movement on the September LSAT. Two weeks ago, September registrations dipped by a miniscule 0.8%. Last week, it was a 2.5% decline. This week, it’s 6.1%, and that’s a very normal number to see a week before an LSAT. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a decline of 10% this week since the most common time for LSAT takers to question their life decisions is right before the test. But we would need a decline of 35% to go all the way down to last year’s numbers… and that’s just not likely to happen.

And meanwhile, let’s turn to the exploding fireworks factory otherwise known as the “October LSAT Registration Deadline.” If the week before a test is when we see the largest decline in registrants, it also holds true that the days before the registration deadline are when we are most likely to see numbers float into the stratosphere. In the case of the October LSAT, registrations increased by a little over 8,000 or 25% in the 24 hours between last week’s blog (written on Tuesday) and the deadline to register for the October LSAT (Wednesday evening). While these numbers will surely come down in the coming weeks, that’s a large enough cushion over last year’s numbers that we can confidently say that the October LSAT’s numbers will at worst be on par with last year.

Add it all up and what do we get? Indications for another big year for apps.

And what’s the best thing you can do? Be realistic with yourself about the national conditions (since there’s nothing you can do about that) and then be sure to make an admissions timeline that fits your conditions (since you can control that). If you are one of the teeming masses registered for the October LSAT, you may want to consider what you can do now to help accelerate your app submissions in October/November. Can you finalize your résumé now? Reach out to your recommenders and get those squared away? Get at least a few rounds of your personal statement drafted and reviewed? Each of these activities is a smaller part of the larger process known as “applying to law school,” but taking care of them now will buy you time later.

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National Recruitment Events

Just like pumpkin spice appearing at coffee shops, Labor Day means the arrival of this feature to our admissions blog!

There will be just one event the week after Labor Day, but it’s one of our faves:

• Thursday, September 4th: MINK Law Fair

Did you know that a group of mink is called a “company”? But that it’s rare to see a company of mink because the critters tend to be solitary, only seen in family groups when raising young? And that the best name for any law fair is a mnemonic device for Missouri/Iowa/Nebraska/Kansas?

More events should find naming inspiration from the Mustelidae family!

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7Sage Events

In non-Mustelidae news, our next Admissions AMA will take place on August 27th with an additional session on September 3rd.

Ethan Madore has started hosting weekly classes on Fridays called The Admissions Game, wherein he breaks down how law schools evaluate applicants. You can join the next session on August 29th at 12 PM Eastern.

And with the August LSAT score release on Wednesday, August 27th, we will have rounds of “What Does My Score Mean?” classes available at 12 PM and 4 PM Eastern.

Our most recent law school admissions podcast dropped on Monday and will walk new applicants through the ins and outs of the upcoming admissions cycle. Be sure to check it out on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts!

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