This year the American Bar Association released the results of their 509 Reporting Requirement on all ABA accredited law schools covering students who were part of the 2015 entering class. For the first time in several years, Law schools actually saw a rise to their full time program. This year, Applications rose by around 10,000, while the number of offers decreased by around 4,000. What does this mean for future applicants? There may be some more competition as there are more applicants, but less offers compared to last year. Below you can see how trends have changed for T14 schools and more. *Important Note* in the graphs below, the reporting year is the year that the data was reported, and the reporting was for the prior calendar year. As such 2016 reporting, is for the 2015 entering full-time class.

Changes & Trends to Entrance Statistics to the Full Time Program

From the chart above, you can see how the number of applications rose from 322,607 last year, to 331,628 this year, while the number of offers dropped. Also, when comparing the number of Matriculants (those individuals who actually were accepted to law school), it is likely that there was more competition for 2015’s year’s class.

T14 Schools

Yale Law School

The number 1 ranked law school program by U.S. News, Yale’s full time program saw a steady amount compared to last year as far as the number of applicants are concerned. If you applied to Yale, there was a 9% chance of receiving an offer, of those that received an offer, 81% accepted. Yale law school admissions has a wealth of information available on their website (resources here), you can also check out a book on Yale Law school admissions through Amazon published by a Yale Law Grad.

Harvard Law School

Ranked number 2, Harvard saw an increase to the number of applications this year, with nearly 250 more than last year. Like Yale, they also only made offers to 908 individuals, of which 563 accepted. As such, of those that applied to Harvard, the school made offers to 17% of individuals, of which 62% accepted. One resource to check out is the Harvard law School Admissions blog, giving you a chance to meet the Harvard Admissions Team. Also, Harvard Law students published a book available through Amazon on getting into Harvard strategy (here)

Stanford School of Law

This year Stanford saw a slight decline to the number of applications than last year (following an overall trend of receiving between 3,800-4,000 applications each year). Of the 3,821 individuals that applied, Stanford made offers to 409 (an 11% offer rate) and 44% of those individuals accepted and became part of the entering full time class. You can check out a full guide to their application process here.

Columbia University Law School

This year Columbia received 5,877 applications and made offers to 1,224 (a whopping 21% offer rate), however, unlike the Harvard, Yale & Stanford, Columbia only saw 391 individuals convert (32%, but still a rise from the previous year). You can see what life would be like at Columbia by checking out their website here.

Chicago School of Law

Chicago School of Law saw a sizable increase to the number of applicants to 4,380, but only extended offers to 906 individuals (21%), of those 185 converted (20%).

New York University School of Law

NYU this year saw an increase of over 500 applications, each year however, the number of offers they make fairly consistent, similar to others, the number of students that convert are around 23%.

University of Pennsylvania School of Law

This year, 5,593 individuals applied to the University of Pennsylvania, with the school making formal offers to 951 (17% of applicants) of which 25% converted to the full time program.

Duke University School of Law

Duke saw an increase to the overall number of applicants, but it was not enough to increase the number of offers and declined by 95. For the 2015 entering class, if you applied, there was a 20% chance of receiving an offer), likewise only 2% of those receiving an offer decided to accept and become a full time student.

UC Berkeley

U.C. Berkley increased the number of offers made for the 2015 entering class, and notably has continued a trend of increasing the number of offers each year, despite the number of applications being significantly lower compared to 2011. For the 2015 class, there was a 25% chance of receiving an offer, and of those 23% accepted.

University of Virginia School of Law

University of Virginia saw an increase to the number of applications as well as offers, but declined in the overall entering class. Similar to the previous year, the school made offers to 20% of the applicants with 31% of those accepting.

Michigan University School of Law

Michigan University, saw more applications than since the 2010 entering class with 5,076 applications. The school made offers to 24% of those applicants, of which 25% accepted.

Northwestern

Northwestern saw a significant jump up to 4,625 applications, but notably did not increase the number of offers being made, instead offering to only 18% of applicants.

Cornell

Since the 2011 reporting year, Cornell has remained consistent with the number of applications it receives each year. The largest thing to note is that the Cornell lowered the number of offers, making it more difficult to get into the school (24% of applicants received offers).

Georgetown

Georgetown saw the largest number of applicants for the 2015 entering class with 8,481 individuals applying to the school. Likewise, the school increased the number of offers to 2,240, or 26% of applicants.

How to Maximize Your Chances of Getting Into the School of Your Choice

If you are applying to law school, there is a host of articles that can help you see your chances. The above is limited to just the T14 schools. Note, there will be a big resource published on the site soon, that I will be excited to share (sign up to receive updates on it). Below are a few resources to check out if you are looking to overcome a lower GPA while applying to law school:

Additionally, there are a few resources you can read online including Ann Levine’s Law School Admission’s game available here through Amazon.