Last week, Law School Transparency rolled out a new tool for prospective law school students to help guide application and enrollment decisions. While many students turn to U.S. News & World Report’s annual law school rankings, LST hopes that their Score Reports will reduce the influence of U.S. News by providing more detailed comparisons. Instead of comparing law schools based solely on traditional factors like LSAT scores and undergraduate grade-point averages, LST Score Reports sort schools according to employment outcomes, projected costs, and admissions stats.

Using LST’s Score Reports, prospective students can click on any state on the country map and receive a comprehensive chart that shows the relationship between regional law schools and employment percentages in that specific state. This way, students can essentially select where they want to land their future law career and see which schools will give them the best opportunity for employment.
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The Legal Skills Prof Blog is reporting that law school applications are in sharp decline from last year – this according to a report published on a password protected page of LSAC’s website.

The data in the report shows a 16.7% downturn in applications to law school, and a 15.3% downturn in applications to the American Bar Association. Simply put, there are fewer players in the “law school game”, a trend you should expect to see continue, at least in the short term.

The Law School Express, circa 2008

If I place myself in your shoes, oh law school hopeful, I think there are two important things to glean from this information. The first is quite obvious and good news for the law school applicant. Less competition for those coveted spots in the nation’s top law schools will certainly not hurt your chances.

I arrived at the second big takeaway by considering  why law school applications are declining.  The market of law school hopefuls is certainly reacting to the well publicized lack of job prospects that newly minted attorneys are facing today.

The staggering 16.7% downturn is compounded by the fact that there is a natural tendency for undergrads to flock to grad school during an economic downturn instead of testing the struggling job market. Read more

As prospective law school students, your LSAT score is one key piece to a larger admissions puzzle that you must put together.  I’m sure you’ve heard many times by now how important your LSAT score and undergraduate GPA are to your acceptance in to law school – but there still remains a bit of mystery surrounding certain aspects of the overall application.  Just what are admissions officers looking for in a prospective JD student?

This week, Manhattan LSAT is pleased to be teaming up with AdmissionsConsultants.com – an admissions consulting firm with admissions counseling experience that spans decades – to bring you an exclusive interview with Sara Zearfoss, Dean of Admissions at the University of Michigan Law School.

Here is an excerpt from their exclusive interview:

What do you consider the most important part of the application process?

The personal statement, far and away. There’s a strong perception among applicants that the make-or-break factors are LSAT and UGPA – but while those are unquestionably important indicators of academic ability, it is certainly true that many people with strong metrics are not admitted, and also true that people whose metrics are well below our medians do get admitted. What never happens, however, is that someone who writes a terrible personal statement gets admitted.

To read the full interview, please click HERE.