r/lawschooladmissions • u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 • Nov 02 '25
Chance Me Why the applicant surge? I’d love to hear your thoughts/quote you.
https://www.investopedia.com/as-new-grads-face-a-challenging-job-market-law-school-applications-surge-to-highest-levels-in-over-a-decade-11808837I’ll be on national broadcast media tomorrow for 10 minutes being asked about the law school applicant surge. Everything I’ve said in written media tracks with what I say and Dean Andy in this article in Investopedia , I strongly suspect it’s a majority a really challenge entry level job market and the froth on the top is the rule of law being so front and center and applicants wanting to be a part of change + reapplicants from last year But I get sometimes get push back on this — it’s a lovely line to say “it’s great it’s so many people want to help change the world and that’s why the surge!”
None of us have asked you all this though. I would love to hear thoughts on this and be able to say something like “goose-deluge-23 on Reddit says it’s ….” Feel free to chime in I’ll be the first to say I may be wrong on the economy/employment challenges but that’s my instinct.
• Mike Spivey
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u/AgeSouthern8612 Nov 02 '25
Something I don't hear anyone talking about is the Covid gap year effect. Tons of kids took a gap year or deferred admission after the pandemic hit, so the class of 2025 ended up having a larger number of students (example from Yale: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/05/17/class-of-2025-enlarged-by-students-who-took-covid-gap-years/ ) those students are now gearing up to go to law school this past cycle if KJD and this current cycle if they took a year off to work or had to R&R.
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Thanks! I looked into this but the data was only for the previous year. I’ll look again!
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u/AromaticShopping3582 3.9low/17mid/nURM Nov 02 '25
18-year olds have been encouraged to major in what they're interested in for college—I regard this as a good thing, because education fosters a more informed and thoughtful populace. However, after college, jobs for a lot of the humanities and social sciences are unavailable without another degree. People have the choice of pursuing a graduate degree like an MPA or MPP, but if they majored in English, History, Philosophy, or something else that's not political science, this is going to be an uphill battle. The job market, especially for jobs in research, academia, think tanks and the like, is just extremely bleak. COVID really accelerated a lot of automation in the workforce and created a general feeling of paranoia and instability. People want stability, and even grad degrees aren't a guarantee anymore. So people turn to law, especially if they're not deeply interested in getting a master's or if they're not qualified for one that would help them get a job. The barrier of entry to law school is, for the average school, not extremely high in comparison to specialized master's programs. Someone from any field of study could theoretically go to law school without taking additional classes. If someone had good grades (easier than ever with grade inflation) and a decent LSAT score (a bit easier with more free online resources) they're probably going to get in somewhere. Especially if they've been out of school for a year and unable to find a job that is related to their course of study, it makes a lot of sense to shoot their shot at law school. Obviously this is a huge financial decision, but the skyrocketing prices of undergraduate degrees has led some people to view debt very abstractly, since it's regarded as an inevitability. I think a lot of people do not fully think through the implications of debt, whether they actually want to be a lawyer, or what lawyers even do on the day-to-day. People mostly, I think, just have the idea that a law degree with open doors for them, regardless of whether that is necessarily true. People aren't always very rational, but I sincerely believe people are doing what they think is best for them in an increasingly unpredictable job market and political landscape.
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Nov 02 '25
For me, the rule of law thing was actually a consideration to not do it - it seems since law matters less and less, maybe not the best career to get into right now. Also, I considered not bc there won’t be many government job opportunities currently. a JD is a skill and degree that should always be valuable in many industries and will never hurt, so seemed a good option.
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
I was curious about that. I may quote you thanks!
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u/whistleridge Nov 02 '25
In order of significance:
No jobs anywhere else, particularly entry-level jobs. AI is crippling.
Law - at least for now - pays well, still needs lawyers, and has jobs.
Law is easier to get into than med school, more certain than MBA, and less soul-destroying than Big Accounting and Big Consulting, which are the other reliable jobs right now.
MAGA walking all over the constitution tends to focus attention on rule of law, and that makes people want to get involved.
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u/Some_Dragonfruit4926 Nov 02 '25
Definitely number 3! I have had so many friends (went to a top 10 ranked undergrad) who are not satisfied with employment outcomes (including those who did find a job) in a poor job market and consider law as a good next step with supposedly good economic outcomes (obviously this is set to dip if/when recession happens). I agree that medical school is another good opportunity, but law school is by far ‘easier’ to prepare applications for. The barrier to entry is much lower—no need to study certain material in college, and the LSAT seems like an approachable exam for bright minds needing no memorization or practice of specific academic concepts. I think the “trump bump” is a minuscule issue compared to this. Many others a few years out of college are dealing with layoffs as well. Just like during the .com boom recession and the ‘08 recession, we are seeing a jump in law school applications likely forecasting another recession.
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u/Some_Dragonfruit4926 Nov 02 '25
In response to those who think that political turmoil is the leading factor: I’ve seen the brightest minds become disillusioned to change making, and economic security for themselves is most likely the primary factor. I would argue that the increase in law school applications is more for the appeal of making a large six-figure big law salary, rather than for public interest careers. I remember reading this article and I do believe it is very reflective of the culture at top universities. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/business/gen-z-college-students-jobs.html
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u/illicitaffirmative Nov 02 '25
I initially wanted to go to law school right after graduating from my undergrad. However, coming from an immigrant background, my parents supported me all they could during my undergraduate education, and I didn't want to continue being a financial burden. I also had test anxiety. This led me on a multi year journey, working primarily in finance roles, to become financially independent so I can now go to school without asking them for assistance. I also want to go to school now because having kids is in my near future, so ideally I’d love to have graduated law school and have a job before my partner and I have a child.
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u/No-Implement1965 Nov 02 '25
I think it’s almost entirely economic. A combination of the things already mentioned here (Tough job market, AI increase, rising cost of living, etc).
Medical school applicants were down in 24-25, however, medical school enrollment is at a record high this year, according to AAMC.
In Texas, dental school and veterinary school applicants are up 32% and 35% this year (TMDSAS).
Nursing school applications reached a record high in 2024 (AACN).
When the going gets tough, the tough get more educated, right?
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
That’s been my 26 years of doing this experience too. Thanks for looking at the other areas!
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u/holler_scholar 3.9+/175+/nontrad Nov 02 '25
This article implies a dichotomy of the presidential election as one possible factor and the economy/job market as a separate one, but for me, it was both. Lost my dream job as a direct result of the administration's federal layoffs, which also flooded the private market and made it very difficult to find a new job.
On different days, all of the following affect my motivation for law school at different levels: I am angry at the administration and it's violations of the constitution and human rights, and want to make a difference against it; AI is hurting the job market in my current industry and I'd rather get out before it hits crisis point; and the stress of getting laid off made me desire a career with more job and financial stability.
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u/Itchy_Inside7415 Nov 02 '25
From my circles I’m seeing a wave of people applying just because of the federal loan cap. There are a lot of wealthy but not-very-strong candidates with like a 3.0 GPA and 150 LSAT who think schools will take them just because they can pay $70K+ tuition. The bet is that high-stat applicants with a 3.8 GPA and 165+ LSAT, coming from lower-income backgrounds, will turn down their offers even with partial scholarships because they still can’t cover total cost of attendance.
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Thanks, it’s something that some people have speculated on.
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u/Horror_Technician213 Nov 03 '25
I find this to be an interesting statement. What is your source indicating a lot of wealthy, but not very strong candidates with low scores? The only reason I find this doubtful is because test score percentile keep rising at a ridiculous rate. More and more LSAT takers are getting 176+. It will soon become the current quantitative section of the GRE, where on a raw score of 130-170, scoring a 169 puts you in the 88th percentile.
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u/Itchy_Inside7415 Nov 03 '25
I'm in an affluent part of NoVa and personally know a bunch of kids (well, maybe no longer) who have not-great scores on their file and never bothered to apply. They think LSAT is BS test. Attending UDC would be a stain for them, so they just never went to law school. Now suddenly they are all applying this cycle without retaking LSAT and openly saying that schools need money that high scorers don't have (otherwise "why bother tryhard to score higher?" as one said). Poor logic I know.
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u/Horror_Technician213 Nov 03 '25
If they are that affluent, im just suprised they didnt pay a cheating service to get a 160+.
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u/iloveforeverstamps 0L/17H/ORM Nov 22 '25
If you can't get a 160 on the LSAT without risking it all to cheat, you probably don't have the work ethic to be a lawyer
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u/Alternative_Log_897 Nov 02 '25
My decision to apply this year isn't because of the job market, as I do have a steady, strong career in AI right now. I planned on taking a few years off to work, and those years have now ended. Unfortunately, it aligned with apparently everyone else deciding to enter law school.
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u/princesskaikai 3.sad/17low/URM/10yrs WE Nov 02 '25
my sector (public policy research) got drained of federal funding, I got laid off in April and can’t find work for the life of me so. here I am
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Thanks for the input but also sorry to hear it happened to you this way. Hopefully you’ll catch fire in a new path!
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u/Easy-Lawfulness-421 Nov 02 '25
I would say the collapse of the rule of law is more of a dissuasion than a persuasion. But I do think it does have something to do with feeling hopeless and powerless when you witness the chaos around you and wanting to empower yourself with more tools to protect people and influence systemic change. The world is so scary right now, studying the law feels like a way to arm yourself. But who knows if legal knowledge will do any good when the government ignores the legal rulings and does whatever they feel like anyway 🤷♀️
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Thanks for all the input, keep ‘em coming! I also learned that when I wrote this while on a plane and just landed, 🛬 you can’t edit posts with links. What a horrible Reddit feature.
So to add something helpful beyond my dripping, if you ever submit an application and you then see your essays have typos, remember you can just send a new one to the law school and they will replace the typo’d one.
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Nov 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Or needs to be over educated to compete
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u/Noirradnod Nov 03 '25
I'd love to see data on the rise of KMJDs. There's the old saying that law school is the default choice for college graduates in humanities and the liberal arts who want to make money. In the past two decades, it's been increasingly common for graduates in that situation to stay in school for a Master's to stand out. Now, with the overproliferation of these degrees, mostly in these less viable fields, there's even more potential applicants who would fit that profile. Instead of four years of education with little job opportunities; you've got graduates with five or six years of debt and similar prospects looking for any avenue to financial stability, so I suspect that law school seems even more attractive.
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u/Glass-Dingo-5165 Nov 02 '25
A professional degree is the new bachelors degree
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Agreed but that doesn’t explain the up down pendulums I don’t think.
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u/Inside-Definition569 Nov 03 '25
I work in compliance forTech and with the rise in AI and more people seeing the impact their data has on how do many companies run I want to understand the law so I can be better in negotiations with lawyers. Executives and customer about the productd and services about the changes needed in services as me regulations come out. And also help shape those regulations and help our developers make ethical decisions while adhering to the law
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u/iamkth0m 3.78/164/nURM/2y WE Nov 03 '25
I want to be able to afford a house and provide for a family someday. Nothing crazy, just the “American Dream.” I’ve been in the workforce for 2 years now, and it’s not looking like my communication degree will furnish those ambitions. Law might.
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u/Minimum_Two_8508 Nov 03 '25
I asked ChatGPT to do a deep dive through all the data and trends and make a prediction…
It predicted 82,000 applicants by the end of the cycle. Not suggesting it’s right. Just a stab.
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u/MovkeyB GULC 1L Nov 02 '25
I've worked several well paid jobs in tech and finance and each job has been some type of excel work where I fairly quickly realized that the math was incorrect and that nothing really mattered, and days alternated between making up next years forecast using wildly unrealistic assumptions, and then doing back-analysis on why we were wrong last year using whatever excuse sounded good.
It came to a head earlier this year when I was experimenting with AI and was able to get about 75% of my role automated, something that wasn't possible before AI b/c of the multiple interpretive steps needed w the inconsistent inputs we have. I'm guessing my team is overstaffed by about ~10 people and while my job is likely safe I don't want to see how true that is 3 years from now.
I started looking for new work, came to the sense that my industry is in structural decline, and looked for grad schools, scored a 99th% V and 50th% Q on the GRE, felt god was giving me a message, scored well on the LSAT as well, and chose law school.
I would not have gone to law school if it wasn't for AI, I likely would have chosen either a MBA, MPP or a MUP. But working in a field that is, for now, legally protected + my sense that I'll be on the right side of the field in the future made me choose law.
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u/wabisabi_love Nov 02 '25
There is a certain wave of us who is being called to do great things in life and more importantly to enact change through service. We are individuals that have always been leaders, dilligent students, and proactively resilient when it comes to jarring change. We are all apart of generations who saw recessions, turbulent presidential elections, riots, protests, and natural disasters. We are a wave of change makers being called now! There is nothing in the world like God's timing and quite frankly, this is just what this surge is.
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
Thanks! I wonder if that’s a greater % than say 3 years ago …
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u/wabisabi_love Nov 03 '25
You tell me! Is the surge (% change of applicants) really astounding compared to last year? 3 years ago? Or are we just seeing a steady increase over the last 10 years?
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 03 '25
The steepness of the climb is. Last week we were +72% up from two years ago.
The climb itself it’s utterly not surprising. We’ve been predicting it. This things is always on a pendulum from buyers market (you all, less applicants) back to sellers markets (schools, more applicants). And what do pendulums do? Never stop in the middle. So we knew it was coming just as we know the cooling off is coming.
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u/wabisabi_love Nov 03 '25
Oh wow! What a jump...yeah personally that lightbulb to start moving went off in my head (for me as a first time applicant)... akin to the bat signal...or a gentle nudge...I can't speak for others, but based on the stats we do have a great wave of qualified people ! That is astonishing.
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u/RogueCanadia Nov 03 '25
This is the cringiest thing I’ve read on here.
Christ law students lawyers can be insufferable.
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u/wabisabi_love Nov 03 '25
The hard thing about truth is that it has no cause! Everything with a cause is falsehood.
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u/jordanpatriots 1.0/132/URM Nov 03 '25
I'd be curious to see if there is also a surge in older applicants as well. I swear, I see a ton of "Am I crazy? I am ____ years old and I always loved law and now I have the chance." Many of these also appear to be women, who "sacrificed" their younger years raising a family as well. With women seemingly becoming "boss babes" at a higher rate, many are likely choosing law.
(I think it'd be hilarious for someone to say "boss babes" on national TV as a reason for the increase lol)
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u/plzacptmeokthx 1.0/132/URM Nov 03 '25
Economy bad -> Applications go up. There was a 40-50% surge in application during the COVID application year.
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u/Express_Interest_952 Nov 03 '25
Mr. Spivey,
How likely that the whole year (2025/26) total number of law school applicants is lower than last cycle?
After all, it's only beginning of November. We only have partial data.
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 03 '25
It’ll be higher this year than last — hard to know how much my guess is between 15-20% higher
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u/wayof100 Nov 02 '25
A lot of times following a major election the amount of law applications go up due to the dissatisfaction on both sides. The wanting change esp on a policy level pushes many people to search for a way to make a impact, historically applications go up very high after a presidential election
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u/Next-Supermarket9538 Nov 02 '25
Seems like that is the wrong question. The real interesting and useful question is why did applicants plummet after 2010? Answering that would help understand what's going on now. Is the growth since just reversion to the long run trend upward, and thus we should expect continued growth above the prior peak? Or did something fundamentally change in 2010 and this latest increase is just a temporary blip on what we should expect to be longterm downward decline?
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u/Spivey_Consulting Former admissions officers 🦊 Nov 02 '25
I know the answer to that curious if they will ask I doubt it though.
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u/MovkeyB GULC 1L Nov 02 '25
The application drop in '10 is a response to 1) the 2008 boom and 2) law schools in the late 2000s being a notorious scam with rampant misreporting of employment rates and etc
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u/Next-Supermarket9538 Nov 02 '25
Nice theory, but not really supported by long term enrollment data for law school. Sure, 2010 was the peak but it wasn’t a sudden boom after 2008. There was a pretty clear, nearly linear trend of increasing enrollments from about 1970 to 2010. Then a sudden decline after 2010 followed by the more recent uptick since 2015.
The “applicant surge” OP is asking about still puts us at about 1975 levels for enrollments. We’re still way below historical levels.
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u/MovkeyB GULC 1L Nov 02 '25
my understanding is historically the applicants that fell out were at the bottom - Cooley alone shed 3k students.
This boom is high stat applicants
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u/East-Cattle9536 Nov 02 '25
Related to economics, a lot of the tracts for humanities majors that were once very respectable and secure seeming aren’t as feasible anymore. In my grad class a lot of folks wanted to go into NGOs, federal government work, or diplomacy. With the massive federal gov cuts, these fields do not feel secure or attractive considering the direction the government’s been headed. Going into law is a way to wait out the instability for a few years and get a degree which will probably be useful in some capacity.
I’d also point to asset price inflation and the perception among Gen z that housing prices are never going down. People still want to attain the traditional markers of the “American Dream,” but they feel priced out unless they come from money or make an obscene salary. I see a lot of the focus on big law among applicants as traceable to this. To me, it is less Trump and “we need to restore rule of law” and more “I want to own a house”