With the calendar inching towards August, law school admissions officers know that the summer is effectively over.

It’s only four weeks until classes start at many law schools, which means….

It’s only three weeks until the incoming law students arrive for orientation, which means….

It’s only two weeks until the returning law students come back for interviews for next summer’s jobs, which means….

Law school admissions officers basically have one week to clean up their workstations so as to continue the artful illusion that they are seasoned professionals.

This is also when their plans are truly coming together for the upcoming recruitment cycle. By this point of the summer:

• Schools should have their applications for the coming cycle ready to go in LSAC’s system for the September 1st open date.
• Updated language for a law school’s website should be written and approved by the school’s communications team.
• Brochures and other publications required for the upcoming travel season should be at the printers.

It’s basically “go time”!

And with that same sense of purpose and action, let’s take our usual lap around the world of law school admissions.

National LSAT Figures

When we last checked in on LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report three weeks ago, we noticed an interesting possibility—it appeared that the number of test takers in June actually decreased versus the June 2024 exam.

And how about that?

We’ve experienced a “hot streak” of increased year-over-year LSATs that began all the way back in October 2023. Every LSAT administration since then has seen an increased number of test takers versus the previous year’s test—more people took the October 2023 exam than the October 2022 exam, more people took the November 2023 exam than the November 2022 exam, etc. By the slimmest of margins—just 0.7%!—that hot streak is over!

But before we get too excited and start extrapolating that this surely means that we’re in a new world order where applications this year will go down:

• Even with that decline, the total number of LSAT test takers for the February, April, and June 2025 LSATs was still 5.4% greater than for the same exams in 2024.
• We’re two weeks away from the August LSAT, and registrations are 43% higher than last year.
• We’re writing this blog post on July 22nd, which is the registration deadline for the September LSAT. That’s usually the busiest day for registration activity … and we’re already far past last year’s registration numbers.

So while the hot streak is over, all signs continue to point towards applications for this coming year increasing a smidge over this past year (which itself saw the highest number of applications in 15 years).

Continued Waitlist/Admit Activity

And if that wasn’t exciting enough, we also had a minor flurry of waitlist activity at schools like Harvard, NYU, Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, Boston College, and UC Irvine among others. This isn’t unusual to see at this time of year—this seems to be when some deposited students who have been questioning whether or not they really want to go to law school finally realize “oh no, classes are starting in a month!” and they finally cancel their deposit. That’s why we’re seeing just one or two offers at each school rather than mass movements.

So on the one hand—hope is still alive. If you’re on a waitlist and would still attend if the school made you an offer of admission, now is as good a time as any to send that final letter of continued interest to the admissions office.

And on the other hand—it’s late. What we’re likely to see more of in the coming weeks are actions like what Berkeley (releasing their waitlist) and George Washington (offering deferred admission to select candidates from their waitlist) have done in recent days. Admissions officers know that they may have a handful of spots open up between now and orientation, and it’s best to pare down the waitlist roster to a number that’s realistic for this time of year. Don’t be surprised to see more of this kind of activity in the coming weeks.

This Week in The Shifting Landscape of Higher Education

It’s been about a month since we last checked in on our recurring feature and so much has changed! Then, we were talking about Harvard fighting the administration on the student visa front. This week, it’s about Harvard and the administration having their first day in court over federal funding cuts to various research projects at Harvard.

So, perhaps this is a “the more things change, the more they stay the same” situation.

The possible impact of this case on law school is a bit under the surface. Although we acknowledge that it’s challenging to remember all the twists and turns in the Harvard/Trump cases, let’s take a moment to remember that the real ignition switch to matters came in April when the Trump Administration wrote a letter to Harvard’s president which outlined a number of requirements that the administration would require of Harvard in order for the University to continue receiving federal financial support. Even the quickest of scans shows a great deal that has to do with admissions procedures and reporting, as well as faculty hiring and governance. Of particular note are the government’s continual requirements that Harvard open itself up to federal audits. So while this case is directly about federal funding for university research, these other matters regarding the First Amendment and the independence of institutions of higher ed are hovering in the background.

Meanwhile, another matter that is no longer “hovering” but is very much here is the passage and signing of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” earlier this month. Of particular note for graduate students are upcoming changes to federal student loan programs.

Currently, law students can use PLUS loans to meet the entire gap between their total cost of attendance and whatever self-help (e.g., savings, support from family) and financial aid (e.g., scholarships and grants) they had received. For example, Duke Law’s total cost of attendance for the 2025–2026 academic year is a little over $113,000. Let’s say that a rising 3L had just worked as a summer associate at a big law firm and saved $10,000 for the coming academic year. Meanwhile, they also received $30,000 per year in merit scholarship when they were admitted. If this student had no other savings or sources of income, they could borrow the remaining money in loans from the federal government—$20,500 in a Direct Unsubsidized Loan and $52,500 in a Direct PLUS Loan. But that’s about to change.

Law students beginning their studies after July 1, 2026, will find that they can only borrow up to $50,000 per year in PLUS loans. Thus, our hypothetical Duke Law student from the above example would find themselves $2,500 short of their budget. That may not be a big deal for that particular student because they can likely save that amount over the course of the year by trimming the edges of their budget—renting a cheaper apartment, getting a roommate, using public transportation, limiting how often they dine out, etc. But what about the incoming student next year who didn’t receive any merit scholarship from Duke Law at the time of admission? Duke’s tuition alone is $80,100. The combined total of the Direct Unsubsidized Loan ($20,500) and the newly restricted PLUS Loan ($50,000) leaves this student about $10,000 short. And that’s just tuition, not even considering living expenses. Oof.

The great question looming ahead for prospective law students is how admissions and financial aid offices will respond.

• Will it be to increase scholarship? But the Big Beautiful Bill also just introduced an increased tax on university endowments.
• Will it be to lower tuition? But one of the great laws of nature is that tuition always increases. A tuition decrease would be like finding out that we’re about to have a one-day holiday from gravity.
• Will colleges and universities try to fill the gap with other loan programs—either their own or through preferred lenders? This was actually the system in place through the early 2000s but was eventually done away with since various attorneys general deemed that “having preferred lenders” was akin to illegally encouraging students to take their business to certain banks over others. This open letter to the NYU community in 2007 from their Associate Provost of Enrollment Management sums up a lot of the issues that were at hand. But this is the path that Harvard Law has already taken … and a quick perusal shows that their preferred lenders are offering lower interest rates than the Department of Education, no origination fees, and an annual limit that aligns with HLS’s total cost of attendance. On the surface, this seems like a pretty good deal.

Given the uncertainty of matters, our main advice for the moment for this year’s applicants is to consider adding an additional target or safety school (or two! or three!) to their application list. While we’re loath to encourage applicants to apply to more schools than is necessary, it would probably be best to have more options across a broad range of possible financial aid brackets.

And since this was a particularly heavy segment, we’re going to end with a gif of snoozing otters holding paws. You gotta cleanse the palette somehow!

7Sage Events

Our next Admissions AMA class is on July 22nd. As a reminder that you can check out our past sessions via our Class Library—just enter “Admissions” into the search bar.

Looking ahead to next month—because it’s never too early!—Kamil Brown will host a class on preparing for law fairs and LSAC Forums on August 21st.

And in a stunning coincidence, our most recent Admissions Podcast was on that very topic! If you want to hear more about what law school admissions officers are hoping to get from law fairs, be sure to check it out on Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you stream your podcasts!