Law School Apps by Month Forum

[bceagles182]

Does anyone have data (school specific or otherwise) that denotes the approximate percentage of applications that come into schools by specific dates or months?

Like say, 50% of applications are submitted by January 1st or something of that sort?

[nick637]

No hard sources, but i remember reading like an average school recieves half of its applications during the final week or something outrageous like that.

[melaniec]

Yeaa I can't remember where I saw this, but I saw a line graph denoting the number of apps per month or week or something, and as above poster said, there's a huge surge right before deadlines.

[bceagles182]

I feel like this would be useful information for anyone applying late if it exists.

I would assume that top schools probably receive a higher % earlier in their cycle than other schools since they are reaches or targets whereas the lower schools may be viewed as safties. That's very general though and I'm wondering if we have any data to shed more light on the situation.

[parker09]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =2&t=98137

I know there's another graph out there (a line graph) that shows something similar.

If you just want to know whether or not you're actually "late": No, you are not alone. ("you" being anyone who is wondering, not the accusatory pointing-you-specifically-out you)

However, if you're wondering whether or not it's worse to apply late/affects your chances of getting in, then knowing the # of apps by month (or whatever time period) in itself doesn't tell you whether those 50% who apply after December or whatever have worse chances simply because of when they submitted than do those who applied earlier. That would be a more complicated analysis that would have to take into account acceptance rate at different points in the cycle, separated out by stats... and I haven't seen this being done so far. Though I suppose you could just look on LSN for your own particular stats for each school and see if you see any patterns from previous years.

[IHaveDietMoxie]

if only lsn had a timeline function

[parker09]

if only lsn had a timeline function

Yeah, totally.
You can sort by decision date or any of the other dates, but it's kind of a pain since at least half the users don't fill out more than half the dates, and then of course it's everyone. I don't understand why you can't search --> applications to narrow it down to your stats, then sort in ascending/descending by dates... freakin' goes back to all applications.

The only thing I can think of is if you put in a narrow enough range of LSAT/GPA (like within +/- 1 LSAT pt or .1 GPA), then there hopefully aren't that many apps from the previous year, and you can sort of eyeball the dates and look for any sort of pattern. Then again, prob not a big enough sample size to really come to any conclusions.

[eandy]

if only lsn had a timeline function

Yeah, totally.
You can sort by decision date or any of the other dates, but it's kind of a pain since at least half the users don't fill out more than half the dates, and then of course it's everyone. I don't understand why you can't search --> applications to narrow it down to your stats, then sort in ascending/descending by dates... freakin' goes back to all applications.

The only thing I can think of is if you put in a narrow enough range of LSAT/GPA (like within +/- 1 LSAT pt or .1 GPA), then there hopefully aren't that many apps from the previous year, and you can sort of eyeball the dates and look for any sort of pattern. Then again, prob not a big enough sample size to really come to any conclusions.

You can search by your stats and then sort by dates.
http://search.lawschoolnumbers.com/applications/

[Vincent Vega]

I feel like this would be useful information for anyone applying late if it exists.

I would assume that top schools probably receive a higher % earlier in their cycle than other schools since they are reaches or targets whereas the lower schools may be viewed as safties. That's very general though and I'm wondering if we have any data to shed more light on the situation.

One man's lowest safety is another man's highest reach. It's all about perspective.