Ah, Orientation Week!

Incoming students getting lost on campus, trying to find their way from the parking lots that ring the perimeter of campus to the law school that’s a half mile away at the heart of the university.

Faculty remembering that it’s time to put on a coat and tie again after a summer of shorts and flip-flops.

Admissions officers checking in the new students, handing everyone pre-printed “My name is” stickers, waiting for the first event to start, and then seeing if there are any name tags left over (i.e., “Did we have any “no show” students and do we have to contact someone from our waitlist?!”).

It’ll be a busy week across many law schools, and admissions officers will be right at the heart of matters. Once (or maybe if? Hopefully?) the class arrives in one piece, the door will close on the 2024–2025 admissions cycle … only to open on the 2025–2026 cycle once applications open on September 1st.

So as our readers from this past year begin to arrive at their new academic homes and our AdComm friends settle down from their adrenaline highs after the class arrives in one piece, let’s check in on this past week’s news and events from the world of law school admissions.

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Updated Class Profiles

In last week’s blog, we promised you updated class profiles once orientation programs began this week. And this year’s prize for the first top school to publish their class profile goes to….

The University of North Carolina School of Law!

And how did UNC Law get the jump on the competition? By starting classes a week earlier than most law schools. That’s a pretty solid strategy for winning!

[We also have to pause here to note that the UNC Law academic calendar indicates that they will celebrate the following on September 22:

The “1,” of course, implies that there must be a number of Magic Days that is greater than that … which a brief scroll down the calendar to November confirms:

A quick Google search for “UNC Law, magic day” revealed nothing, much like a magician not divulging their secrets. To say that we’re intrigued would be an understatement!

Is this how UNC Law has risen up the US News rankings the past few years? Through the dark arts?

This blog will surely investigate matters further!]

But asides aside, what we came for here is the cold hard data. To wit:

• UNC Law noted a 32% increase in applications this past year.
• They quoted an admit rate of 11%. Last year, it was 15.18% according to their ABA 509 Report.
• They’re reporting a median GPA of 3.89 and LSAT of 168, versus last year’s 3.85 and 167, respectively.

It’s just one school and we don’t want to draw too many conclusions from one sample size, but we expect to see many more schools outside the T14 raise their stats. The applicant pool this past year was simply too big and had stats that were too high to think otherwise.

But why are we limiting this prediction to just the non-T14s? Because the stats for the T14s are effectively already so high that there’s little further space to improve upon matters. Additionally, we didn’t see clear indications from any T14s’ lsd.law profiles that they were trying to boost their stats. But with orientations in full swing this week at other law schools, we should have more information by this time next week!

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National LSAT Numbers

But it’s not all fun and games about last year’s numbers when we can start focusing on this year’s numbers via LSAC’s LSAT Registrants and Test Taker Volumes report!

Another week closer to the September LSAT, another tiny decline in registrations. Last week, registrations dropped 0.8% down to 31,569. This week, that rate “accelerated” all the way up to 2.5%, but that’s still rather low considering the test is in just two weeks. We usually see more registrants getting cold feet and rescheduling their exams by this stage of the process.

And meanwhile, the October registration deadline is this week, and we’re poised to zoom past last year’s numbers.

But there’s a curveball on the horizon regarding future LSATs….

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LSAC Suspending Online LSATs in China

On Monday, LSAC announced that they were suspending online LSATs in mainland China after the October iteration. Per their press release, this action comes after LSAC has become “increasingly concerned about organized efforts by individuals and companies in mainland China to promote test misconduct.”

But the real whammy is this—for those living in mainland China, LSAC does not offer an alternative to the online LSAT. Presumably, any prospective law applicant would have to travel outside the mainland (i.e., Hong Kong) or travel to a location where they are able to take the test in person.

While China is the biggest market for prospective law students based outside the United States, the total population of non-American law students at American law schools isn’t substantial. For example, the ABA 509 reports for the enrolling classes of 2021–2023 at American law schools show that 2,594 non-US citizens enrolled at American law schools as first-year students during that period. During that same time period, 78,150 total people enrolled as first-year law students. That gives us an international percentage of just 3.3%. Making it more challenging for people to take the LSAT in China will bring those numbers down, but not so far down as to change any school’s admissions process. The bigger issue on this front remains….

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This Week in The Shifting Landscape of Higher Education

… how the American government treats international students and if that will encourage some folks from not even submitting applications in the first place.

To that end, the big news this week in this particular subset of higher ed was the State Department’s announcement that they had revoked over 6,000 student visas from present holders. The administration argues that this action was taken against visa holders who had overstayed the terms of their visa, who had committed crimes, and who supported terrorism. But as the linked Washington Post article notes, the government did not explain how many visas were revoked because of convictions versus allegations/accusations. Regardless, the likely outcome is that fewer graduate students will consider attending American institutions in the current climate. We’ll keep an eye on this when LSAC starts publishing 2025–2026 application information via their Current Volume Summaries report in October.

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7Sage Events

Our next Admissions AMA will take place on August 20th. As a reminder that you can check out our past sessions via our Class Library—just enter “Admissions” into the search bar.

Kamil Brown will host a class on August 21st on preparing for law fairs and LSAC Forums.

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 22nd at 12PM Eastern.

Our next Deans’ Roundtable will be on Tuesday, August 26th. Tajira McCoy and her panelists of various deans and directors of admission will debrief on this past year’s admissions cycle and will look ahead to the 2025–2026 cycle. Are they done reading all their applications yet from last year? Are they planning on getting any rest before this year’s cycle starts? Tune in to find out (and be ready to ask a few questions, too!).

Our most recent law school admissions podcast dropped last week and has a breakdown of the One Big Beautiful Bill’s ramifications for law school admissions. And if that content isn’t uplifting enough, we also try to read the tea leaves of the Columbia University consent to predict what may happen for the admissions processes at other universities who reach similar agreements with the federal government. Our next podcast episode is coming up 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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