Current Volume Description

The following is some descriptive information regarding the applicant and application volumes reported in the Current Volume Summary by Region, Race/Ethnicity, and LSAT Score.

Data are for applicants and applications to all academic terms.

Because ABA applicant and application counts are derived from law school report requests made via ACES² or Unite, any problems associated with this data from an individual law school will be included in the current volume counts until the underlying problem is corrected by the school.

Regional applicant counts represent the total number of candidates from each region (based on the candidate’s state of permanent residence) who have applied to at least one ABA law school. Applicants who have no state of permanent residence on our files or whose permanent residence is outside the United States are included in the “other” category of the regional counts, as well as in the total applicant count.

Regional application counts represent the total number of applications to all ABA law schools in each region.

The comparison of these counts from this year to last year may be impacted by a number of factors, such as changes in law school application deadlines or policies, changes in the timing of processing report requests to LSAC, increased usage of electronic applications, etc. Early in the year, when the total volumes are relatively low, minor changes in these factors may have a significant impact in the percent changes between years. A count of the number of ABA schools showing an application difference of 40% or more is reported as a measure, in part, of this volatility. As the application year progresses we should expect to see fewer and fewer schools falling into this category, indicating that the volatility caused by these factors is being reduced as total volumes increase.

Current Volume Summary Regions

Note: Applicants counted in the “Other” Region are from outside the United States or have not provided a U.S. Permanent State of Residence.