It’s Early Days, but the 2025 Application Cycle Is Off to a Robust Start
Every year by mid-October, LSAC begins publishing our interactive website for the current law school admission cycle. The website provides detailed information on the overall number of applicants and applications, and can be filtered and analyzed by geographic region, race/ethnicity, gender, LSAT score band, first-generation college status, and other criteria.
The site is updated daily, and serves as a resource for schools, prelaw advisors, students, and many others who are interested in understanding trends in law school admissions, and how the current cycle is shaping up.
In keeping with our standard practice, we have launched the interactive website for the 2025 admission cycle today. You can find it, updated daily, at https://report.lsac.org/VolumeSummary.aspx.
How to Read the Early 2025 Data
In looking at this year’s data, in particular the comparison with the prior year, it is important to recognize that last year’s admission cycle started slower than usual, in large part because a number of schools opened their applications later in order to review and update their admission processes and materials in response to the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on college admissions.
Last year’s slow start means that year-to-year comparisons at this early stage may overstate the growth in applicants. Last year’s cycle recovered pretty quickly once all schools had opened their applications, so we would expect to see more representative year-over-year data in a month or so.
Even with those caveats about the year-to-year comparability of the early applicant numbers, we see multiple signs that this year’s admission cycle is starting off on a very robust path.
High LSAT Test Taker Volumes
Test takers for the 2024 August, September, and October LSAT administrations were up 13% compared to the same three tests last year. And while we’re still several weeks away from the November LSAT, registrations are currently up 31% compared to this time prior to the November 2023 exam. This year’s November test is shaping up as one of the largest since we expanded to eight test administrations per year.
Large Increase in First Time Test Takers
Another metric that we watch closely is the number of first-time LSAT test takers, and how that number may be trending compared to previous years. Looking at the 2024 August and September tests, the number of first-time test takers is up 25% compared to the same two tests last year — an increase of nearly 5,000 first-time test takers.
High Turnout to LSAC Law School Forums
Beyond the huge surge in test takers, we are also seeing a significant increase in registrations and attendance at our Law School Forums, events hosted by LSAC to connect thousands of potential applicants directly with representatives from 100+ member law schools. We hold about a dozen of these forums each year, with in-person forums in major metropolitan areas across the country as well as several digital forums. We’re halfway through the forums for this admission cycle, and overall attendance is up about 23% compared to this time last year.
Big Increase in Credential Assembly Service Sign-Ups
Another indicator that we follow closely is the number of potential applicants who create LSAC Credential Assembly Service (CAS) accounts, which most law schools require in order to streamline the application and admission process. While it is still early in the cycle, we have seen a 25% year-over-year increase in the number of CAS accounts created between July 1 and September 30.
Large Number of Early Applicants
As noted earlier, year-over-year comparisons of applicant volumes between this year and last year aren’t particularly meaningful at this stage in the cycle, given the unusually slow start of last year’s cycle.
And even beyond the unique situation last year, we always urge people not to read too much into the applicant volume numbers when we begin publishing them in the fall. At this point, we typically have only about 15% of the total number of applicants and about 10% of the total number of applications. As we have seen in recent years, early trends can change dramatically.
With those cautions in mind, here are the very early, initial numbers for the 2025 cycle.
As of October 13, 9,894 prospective students have submitted at least one application for fall 2025 admission. The five-year comparison shows 2025 much higher than 2021, 2023, and 2024, and slightly higher than 2022, which started with extremely high numbers of early applicants who opted out of the overheated 2021 cycle. Currently, applicant volume for 2025 is about 24% higher than it was on this same date in 2023. As noted, we expect that percentage will come down over time.
Applicant Volume, Year to Date, 2021-2025
Looking at applications, we see the same trend. As of October 13, prospective students have submitted a total of 48,685 applications for fall 2025 admission. So far, 2025 is higher than 2021, 2023, and 2024, but lower than 2022. The early application volume for 2025 is 36% above last year; again, we expect that number will come down over time.
Application Volume, Year to Date, 2021-2025
Given LSAC’s mission to advance law and justice by promoting access, equity, and fairness in law school admission, we pay close attention to the diversity of the applicant pool and work hard to encourage all potential applicants to consider a career in law. Currently, at this early stage of the cycle, applicants of color are up 33% year-over-year, which is an encouraging trend. The proportions of men, women, and gender-diverse applicants show similar trends; currently, women applicants are up 23% year-over-year, men are up 25%, and gender-diverse applicants are up 19%. Applicants who are the first generation in their family to complete college are up 21% compared to this time last year.
Once again, it is very early in the 2025 application cycle, and the applicant volume data should be seen in the context of the slow start to last year’s cycle.
We will continue to monitor these and other trends in the testing and admission cycle, and provide periodic updates.
