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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Law School Applications Down 18%

LSAC, Three-Year ABA Volume Comparison:

The following charts report ABA applicants and applications for each of the past three falls.

As of 08/08/13, there are 385,358 Fall 2013 applications submitted by 59,426 applicants. Applicants are down 12.3% and applications are down 17.9% from 2012.

Last year at this time, we had 100% of the preliminary final applicant count.

A line chart titled Fall ABA Applicants by Week. The horizontal axis represents months November through August. Along its vertical axis are numbers 0 through 100,000 indicating number of applicants. The line labeled Fall 2011 steadily rises from 19,728 in November to 71,889 in March, then begins to plateau from March until August ending at 78,769. The line labeled Fall 2012 steadily rises from 16,719 in November to 59,090 in March, then begins to plateau from March until August ending at 67,735. The line labeled Fall 2013 increases from 12,728 in November to 48,674 in March, then begins to plateau from March until August ending at 59,426.

Last year at this time, we had 100% of the preliminary final application count.

A line chart titled Fall ABA Applications by Week. The horizontal axis represents months November through August. Along its vertical axis are numbers 0 through 800,000 indicating number of applications. The line labeled Fall 2011 rises steadily from 124,716 in November to 494,669 in March, then plateaus gradually from March until August ending at 536,480. The line labeled Fall 2012 curves gently beginning with 107,415 in November, reaching 433,632 in March, then gradually plateauing to end in August at 469,507. The line labeled Fall 2013 increases from 77,985 in November to 342,993 in March, ending at 385,358 in August.

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Comments

Wouldn't it be nice if law schools closed and most lawyers just faded away like old criminals do.

Posted by: enubus | Aug 20, 2013 8:23:02 PM

LSAC's graphs are distracting in that the labels don't show up properly. They are trying to say the red line shows 2011 apps, the green line 2012 apps, and the blue line 2013 apps. But the way the labels appear instead suggest that the graph should be seen as reverse-chronological. This is not the fault of any blog that has been re-posting these graphs, just the responsibility of LSAC's designer. The three labels should have appeared on top of one another at the far right.

Posted by: Graphs | Aug 20, 2013 9:03:46 AM

This ship be sinking.

Posted by: Inigo Montoya, Esq. | Aug 20, 2013 5:17:44 AM