16.9% Decrease In October Test Takers(Detailed Stats Inside)

Law School Admissions LSAT Prep and Discussion Forum
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That is all. Carry on.
http://www.lsac.org/LSACResources/Data/lsats-administered.asp

October test takers decreased by 16.9%.
December test takers decreased by 14.9%.
February test takers decreased by 13.7%.
June 2012 test takers decreased by 5.9%.

Decrease in applicants, contrary to common assumption, are fueled a lot more from the top scorers than from the bottom. The only exception is the 175+ (noticeably smaller decline than the other groups but that is to be expected since that group experienced a huge decline last year. The average decrease over the last 2 years for the 175+ will show that they decreased proportionately more than the overall decline.
http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/law-school-applicant-numbers.html

Click on the actual LSAC link to see a breakdown of applicants by LSAT score.

Here is a summary of law school applicants by highest LSAT score.

2

Praise Young Based God.

3

This might be an epic cycle!

4

Wow. Good news for everybody applying. That’s the lowest October Test Count since 2000-2001.

5

Holy shit, this is great news.

6

very nice. i excite

7

Probably the most n00b question I’ve ever asked. And yes, I realize I could conduct a lengthy search to discover the answer to this question; but because I’m lazy at the moment: why is this awesome?

8

Potentially less competition for schools you want to get into so you got a better shot.

Potentially.

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:sunglasses:

10

I’m very curious as to how this cycle will play out for schools which already cut their incoming class size last cycle to offset the drop in applicants.

11

Awesome news if it makes the medians go down and/or makes it generally easier to get in places.

12

Hoping that this turns out well. I have a suspicion people might be taking the test fewer times because of the cost though, along with the bad press.

13

That chart is crazy. There havent been drops this big since the mid-90s and not through an extended period like we’ve had since Oct 2010

14

This is making me more optimistic for the cycle… my hopes better not get crushed lol

15

Fewer retakes is also a positive, given the vast percentage of retakers who score higher than the 1st time. It’s not as good as a smaller applicant pool, but would still help.

16

Either way, gonna make those top scores look even more attractive to schools.

17

Guys, this isn’t just great for this cycle (although I’m super pumped), it’s great for our eventual employment prospects too. Hopefully it doesn’t rise again before we’re all trying to find a freakin job. Woo!

18

I did a really sloppy analysis that makes way too many assumptions, but it’s still fun to look at:

78,900 applicants last year, decreased 9.9% from the year previous.
~19% drop in June takers this year, and 16.9% drop in October takers this year.

Let’s assume another ~10% drop in applicants. That brings us to roughly 70,000 applicants.

170 is the top 2.5% of score takers, so if we apply the same bands to the applicants, then 1750 applicants have a 170+.

Apply the same logic to people with a 173+ (99th percentile), and we come to 700 candidates.

Take out splitters, and that 700 number drops significantly for applicants to the T6 schools.

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Please continue into the next cycle when I will actually be applying. Or at least don’t start having the huge increases again.