Re: Extracurricular activities

[midatlmom]

<p>sallyawp</p>

<p>I believe that your figures and assumptions are not accurate. According to this article, there were less than 80,000 students who applied to law school last year. </p>

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The number of law-school applicants this year is down 11.5% from a year ago to 66,876, according to the Law School Admission Council Inc. The figure, which is a tally of applications for the fall 2011 class, is the lowest since 2001 at this stage of the process. The Council estimates that the application process is 86% complete, based on historical patterns.

</p>

<p>[Law</a> Schools Attract Far Fewer Students - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704396504576204692878631986.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_careers]Law”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704396504576204692878631986.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_careers)</p>

<p>Although it is possible that these students have a comparatively higher percentage of LSATs over 170 (because lower scorers just don’t apply), it is inconceivable that it is anywhere close to 10,000 applicants.</p>

[jonri]

<p>There’s no need to guess at the numbers; they are public info. </p>

<p>For the class entering in the fall of 2010, there were a total of 87,900 applicants to ABA accredited law schools, down considerably from the 2004 fall high of 100,600. Those 87,900 applicants submitted 600,100 applications–a new record. So, while fewer people are applying to LS, they are applying to more schools. 60,400 of the 87,900 who applied were admitted to at least one ABA accredited law school. Of those, 49,700 actually enrolled. </p>

<p>For the 2009-2010 cycle “68.2 percent of the total number of test takers took the LSAT just one time; 25.5 percent took the test twice; and approximately 6.3 percent took the LSAT more than twice.” (As you would expect, there were fewer people retaking the test at the highest end of the distribution, although 2 people with 180s did and neither repeated the score. The one person with a 179 who retook also got a lower score. The two with 178s split–one got a worse score; one got a better score.) </p>

<p>While 11.1% of LS applicants were African-American, only 7.2% of matriculants were. This compares to 9.8% of 2007-08 bachelors awarded. </p>

<p>6.1% of matriculants were Hispanic, NOT including Puerto Ricans. 1.6% were Puerto Rican. My hunch is the numbers were separated due to the existence of ABA accredited LSs in Puerto Rico. </p>

<p>65.0% of LS matriculants are white vs. 60.1% of applicants. </p>

<p>Something like 3.2 % of applicants–close to that anyway–self identified as being of 2 or more races. </p>

<p>Personally, my own view point is a bit different than either Sally’s or EMMs.</p>

<p>I think the “soft factors are pretty irrelevant” line is about 75/75 at MOST law schools. In other words, if BOTH your gpa and LSAT is above the 75th percentile, you’ll get in unless you mess up by getting horrible LORs or writing a PS which says “I am applying to LS because I want to make a lot of money.” But below that, I do think soft matters do matter. </p>

<p>Part of this is the fact that it’s the 25/75 range that matters now. Not all that long ago, it was the median LSAT that mattered. My math is lousy, so maybe I’m wrong, but I think that whether it accepts a student with gpa/LSAT a point or two above the median or a point or two below the median is NOT going to affect the LS’s ranking. So, my impression–which is just that, an impression; I don’t claim to be an expert on LS admissions–is that in choosing between applicants near the middle of the class stats wise, soft factors, including ECs, do matter. They don’t matter all of that much, but they do matter some.EMM’s analysis–that the admissions deans will accept the student with marginally higher numbers to improve the LS’s ranking is I THINk off base because if the choice doesn’t affect the 25%/75% range it isn’t going to affect the rankings. </p>

<p>PS. I typed this before reading the post above mine. Sorry for any duplication.</p>

[IvyPBear]

<p>sallyawp</p>

<p>You are obviously making the erroneous assumption that everyone who has taken the LSAT during the past three years will be competing for spots in one year’s class.</p>

<p>[LSATs</a> Administered June 2011 NOSEDIVED](<a href=“LSATs Administered June 2011 NOSEDIVED Forum - Top Law Schools”>LSATs Administered June 2011 NOSEDIVED Forum - Top Law Schools)</p>

<p>If you scroll down, you will see that for the 2011-2012 cycle, 435 students applied with 175+ on the LSAT (therefore probably even fewer with correspondingly high GPA) as of December 3. Granted, this number doesn’t include December and February test takers. This number should include all the June and October test takers as well as those who have taken the LSAT in previous years applying for the 2011-2012 cycle.</p>

[sallyawp]

<p>Just to clarify, I stated in my post that the pool of potential (the key word here being “potential”) applicants is approximately 10,000 people. I never said that that many people actually apply to law school in any given cycle. </p>

<p>I only assumed for the sake of argument that the pool of potential applicants includes those who have taken the LSAT in the previous three years. In fact, not all of them will ever apply to law school and applicants may include people who took the LSAT up to five years prior to the date of a given cycle. I also stated that test takers “may” apply – they also may not. </p>

<p>As I sit here in an airport waiting for a long-delayed flight home from a business trip, I cannot find the data, but I have seen reports over the years that the applicants to law schools are often not representative of the entire spectrum of LSAT scores. In other words, those who do poorly on the LSAT more frequently fail to apply to law school at all. Those who do well on the LSAT are more likely to apply.</p>

<p>Everyone on this board seems to have a fantastic time trying to try to cut others to shreds, which is why I rarely take the time to post here anymore. That said, have at it. If you want to believe that top law schools are ignoring personal statements, letters of recommendation, resumes and other information about most of their candidates for admission, that is up to each of you. I’ve been told differently over the years by those who are making those decisions, and I have been convinced that the speakers are telling the truth. </p>

<p>There are plenty of applicants who don’t have the numbers to be placed automatically in the admit pile, but who have numbers good enough to not to be outright rejected either. Do the math and make whatever assumptions you choose. These “maybes” have to show something more in their applications to merit jumping into the admitted students pile.</p>

[midatlmom]

<p>Sallyawp–</p>

<p>I certainly don’t mean to cut you to pieces and I’m sorry if this post somehow upsets you, but you did not in fact say that the “pool of potential . . . applicants is approximately 10,000 people.” What you in fact said is the pool of applicants contains as many as 10,000 applicants who have scored 170 and over, trying to make the point that there are so many applicants with high scores that law schools must look at soft factors to distinguish between them. Here is your language:</p>

<p>

Approximately 3% of all test takers will obtain a 170 or higher on the LSAT. Therefore, there are approximately 10,000 potential applicants in that pool.</p>

<p>The fact remains that because applicants typically apply to more than one T14 law school, there are many, many more applicants with high LSAT scores that put them “in the range” than there are spots in the T14. Some applicants will be admitted to every law school to which they apply. Some will fail to be admitted anywhere. The difference is in the personal statement, letters of recommendation and resume."

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<p>Although I certainly cannot refute your main point (having no knowledge of law schools admissions process), I think that the number of high LSAT applicants is obviously far fewer in a given year than you posit. I tend to agree with jonri–that soft factors only matter for a certain percentage of applicants and I also believe that that percentage is far lower than most law schools (which claim that the whole process is “holistic”) would have you believe.</p>

[Rock1234]

<p>For what it’s worth, the following is a quote from Anne Ivey’s book, the Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions. Ivey is a former admissions officer from the University of Chicago Law School, currently ranked #5 by USNWR. </p>

<p>“Law school admissions at the top schools is largely a numbers game. Obviously
it’s not just the numbers that matter, otherwise schools wouldn’t have
to spend precious resources on human beings to help them make admissions
decisions. Instead, they could feed your numbers into a computer, let some
algorithm of weighted sums do its work, and shoot out admission and rejection
emails from some spreadsheet. So the non-numbers elements still matter,
but relatively speaking, the numbers matter a lot more, and they certainly matter
more than admissions officers like to admit publicly” page 14</p>

<p>Ivey goes on to explain that non-URMs who are below a school’s 25th percentiles are generally rejected regardless of their softs, and that those above a school’s 75th percentiles are accepted unless there’s a glaring flaw in their application. Softs are only really important for those near the 50th percentile. Ivey’s analysis seems to be validated by lawschoolnumbers.com, which shows that (most) law schools tend to accept or reject applicants with great consistency as regards LSAT/GPA combinations.</p>

<p>To OP: The fact that you worked 25 hours per week (assuming you did this during the school year as well as summer) should really help explain to admissions officers why you don’t have more extracurriculars. I’m as much an amateur at predicting admissions outcomes as just about everyone on this site, but I’d be seriously shocked if you can’t get into a T-14 school with a 170+ LSAT.</p>