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Welcome to Keeping Up to Data^SM, a space in which we discuss, analyze, and contextualize trends and perspectives in the current law school admission cycle.

SUSAN KRINSKY: Welcome back to Keeping Up to Data. I’m Susan Krinsky, executive vice president for operations at ��������^®, with a report on the beginning of the 2026 application cycle. And after that, I’m excited to be joined by Liz Bodamer, senior director of research at ��������, who will talk with us about a new study her team has completed.

With the new admission cycle ramping up, I want to talk a little bit about numbers today. As a quick reminder, the 2025 admission cycle was the largest since 2011, up 18% over the previous year, and it was also the most racially and ethnically diverse pool we’ve ever seen: 50% of applicants identified as individuals of color. So, what is the 2026 admission cycle looking like? Well, we started publishing the 2026 cycle data this past Monday, October 13. Although some schools opened their applications in early September, at ��������, we wait until now to start publishing the applicant and application data, so we have a reasonable amount of information and so we are certain that every school has started receiving applications.

Having said that — and I say this every year and will probably continue doing so for another couple of months — we all need to view this early data with caution and not assume that the trends we are seeing will continue, at least not at this rate. Right now, we probably have only about 15% of the final volumes, and the numbers we are seeing today are small enough that the composition of the pool and the percentage increase over last year could change a lot in the months ahead.

With that caveat in mind, here’s what we’re seeing, and I don’t think it’s going to be a big surprise to anyone. As of today, the number of applicants in total is up 37% compared to this time last year. Applications are up 29%. We continue to see very strong racial and ethnic diversity: Applicants of color are up 37% compared to last year, in line with the overall increase in applicants.

Black/African-American applicants are up 49% compared to this time last year. Applicants identifying as women are up 38%, men are up 36%, gender-diverse are up 14%, and those who choose not to say are up 42% — again, on a fairly small base. First-generation applicants are up 43%. I’ll say it once more: We don’t want anyone to assume too much based on these early numbers. There are reasons why these numbers could be inflated at this early moment in the cycle. Perhaps more schools are offering early-decision options, or perhaps more prospective law students are applying through those programs. Perhaps more schools are letting prospective applicants know that they’re going to start reviewing applications earlier.

But we often see an early surge of applicants in the first few months after a very competitive cycle, which then slows down. We saw that in 2022 after the big 2021 cycle, and we are certainly seeing some of that this year. All that said, we are also seeing a number of factors that indicate a real and continuing interest in legal education. Certainly, the current political and economic climate is attracting people who want to understand and get involved. In recent months, a day hasn’t gone by when important legal issues haven’t been in the news, so that’s something that would pretty clearly encourage people to apply to law school. Other indicators include high numbers of LSAT^® test takers, and particularly first-time test takers. The first three LSAT administrations of this testing cycle all saw increases compared to last year, and that’s on top of a very high base. The August LSAT had more than 26,000 test takers, up 18% over last year and up nearly 60% compared to August of 2023.

The September LSAT had about 23,000 test takers, up 24% from last year. The just-completed October LSAT had about 26,000 test takers, up 16% over last year. November is our largest administration, and four weeks before the test, we have over 47,000 registrants, 12% higher than last year at the same time. We don’t have first-time test taker numbers yet for the October LSAT, but we had nearly 27,500 first-time test takers for the August and September LSATs alone, which is a 13% increase compared to the same two tests last year. And we continue to see strong interest and attendance at our in-person Law School Forums, with both Atlanta and Miami up in attendance; Chicago slightly down; and New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco coming up, as well as a couple more digital forums. I should note that the LLM digital forum about a month ago, which largely attracts an international audience, did not experience an increase in attendance, nor did the in-person forum in Toronto.

As always, we will update all of the volume data every day, so anyone can check back frequently and monitor how the cycle is evolving. We’re also doing something new this year to make it even easier for people to track the trends of the admission cycle: We’re putting the key data points right on the ��������.org homepage. So, no more clicking half a dozen times to try to find the volume summary — just go to ��������.org, and the key data points will be right there with a convenient link to any additional detail.

So, the 2026 admission cycle is off and running. Again, it’s very early days, so these figures should be viewed with caution due to the small sample size, but I think the directional message is clear: There is intense interest in law school, and for those of us who care about legal education and the rule of law, that’s a very positive sign.

Over the past year, ��������’s Applied Research team has been hard at work looking at test takers, at applicants, and taking a very close look at the data from the fall 2024 entering class. We have released several research reports on that class, including a full profile of those students, how they are paying for law school, and now, most recently, a report looking at a decades-old issue: law student attrition. The report is titled “2024 1L Class: Persistence in the First Year of Law School,” and it is available on our website, ��������.org. Our research team took a deep dive not only on why law students choose to leave law school, but also why they choose to stay and tough it out. Among the key takeaways are: About one in five 1Ls report feeling like they don’t belong, aren’t accepted, and/or aren’t comfortable in law school. This rate is highest among minoritized students, especially women of color, also gender-diverse students, and first-generation students.

More than 40% of 1Ls thought about leaving during their first year. It won’t surprise any of us to learn that most of that thinking happened during the first semester of the 1L year. Major trigger points were during the first six weeks, during their first final exams, and after receiving their first-semester grades. Twenty-four percent of people in the study agreed with the statement, “People would be surprised if I succeed.” I find it interesting and concerning that it would be that high. Joining me today is Liz Bodamer, senior director of research at ��������. Liz not only led this research but is also very close to this area, because she was one of the many tens of thousands of law school students who persevered and graduated from law school — and, indeed, then went on to obtain a Ph.D. in sociology. Liz, welcome back to the Keeping Up to Data podcast.

LIZ BODAMER: Thank you, Susan. Happy to be here.

SUSAN: You wrote a wonderfully informative blog about this research in which you say, “I remember staring at my studio apartment wall the night before my big legal research and writing assignment was due, crying and asking myself, ‘Is law school for me? Can I really do this?’” Did you see a lot of yourself as you were working with this persistence data?

LIZ: Oh, yes. So, I should note before diving in a little bit more that we are very fortunate to have a great team of applied researchers who lead these projects. Dr. Annie Russian, our applied research scientist, worked on this specific report, and so, as the data was analyzed, so much of what the 2024 1L class shared with us resonated with me, from their honesty about their thoughts of leaving law school, to when those thoughts were prominent, to why they persist. It felt like I was reliving my first year of law school through data, through their stories.

Susan, these stories are not widely shared in the first year. Depending on the school and first-year culture, it can sometimes feel like a shark tank. You just can’t be vulnerable, and you definitely cannot bleed. However, it does not have to be this way. Education is a human experience. It is through sharing our stories that we can cultivate community, which can fuel this persistence. Therefore, I anticipate that this report will resonate with so many others outside of myself, including current law students, attorneys, and law school deans, faculty, and staff.

SUSAN: We’ve seen a lot of data about attrition rates, which the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar reports as between 4% and 6% over the past five years, and reasons why students decide to leave law school, but not much about the reasons why they stay. Can you talk us through what you found with respect to how and why today’s law students persist through the challenges they face in the first year?

LIZ: So, Susan, despite the pressure, be it academic, financial, or health — and by “health” we mean mental or physical health — students report that they persist because of what we call their community and their “why.” Specifically, 74% said that they persist because of their support network outside of law school; 69% said it was because of the commitment they made to themselves; and 59% said they stayed motivated, driven, by thinking about the privilege of a legal education. And so, it’s this last one that really resonated with me, along with another reason that 37% of 1Ls selected, which was that they persist by thinking about the sacrifices their support system made. Law school, Susan, was extremely transformative for me. It completely changed my trajectory of my life and that of my family.

When I look at law students today and what helps them persist, I think about all the late nights in my studio apartment that I stayed up preparing for class. I remember how, after my very last first-semester final exam, I went home and I just melted, just melted into my notes, into the note cards and the highlighted textbooks that were just scattered everywhere. I had done it. I had done it by remembering the callused hands, that smell of sweat and dirt, the face of exhaustion on my parents’ faces when I was growing up. The image of me in a law school classroom was a privilege and a dream no one before me ever thought possible. Overall, the reasons why people persist are found embedded in their everyday life: the people in their “why.” Therefore, when we think about retention in law school, we need to think about it holistically.

SUSAN: Attrition rates, of course, are very important to schools. Liz, how can schools use this data to develop programs or resources, especially for students who may be struggling in that first semester of law school?

LIZ: So, Susan, on the first day of law school, my torts professor told us that life does not stop when we enter the law school building. It doesn’t stop when we’re sitting in the classroom taking notes. And this is true in all forms. On one hand, he was telling us to not stop living our lives — that we should pause and surprise our mom on her birthday, or that we can peel away ourselves from the textbooks to have dinner with friends. On the other hand, those words resonate with me now because for many, many law schools, the law school experience is often thought about in a vacuum. If students are having a hard time, let’s say, understanding the “Hairy Hand” case — I am sure there are many 1Ls right now that already read that case — but if they were struggling with it, [they might think] it must be because they just don’t have what it takes to be successful in law school.

However, life doesn’t stop when you’re reading cases. Life is experienced through legal education, and life is experienced based on your access to resources and opportunities leading up to that point and throughout law school. Therefore, I know many law schools — so, student affairs offices, career services offices, and others — dedicate so much of their time to finding ways to build support structures in the first year and beyond. So, for example, some will have a full-year program to ensure that each first-year law student has an upper-class student to turn to for help and a small group of peers to navigate with in this transitionary year. In other schools, they build out structured programming to provide students with what they need, when they need it — for example, by providing outlining support when it’s actually time to outline. Others have financial emergency funds for students, food banks. Many are starting to embed therapists in the school to ensure that everyone has access to mental health services.

Lastly, there are some innovative faculty members out there teaching law differently, where students don’t fear being called as a form of having to prove themselves, but as a way in which they can safely and routinely make mistakes, because that is where the learning happens. Legal education is education. So how are we meeting students where they are based on not just their academic skills, but how they actually experienced the skills-development process? And this, Susan, is echoed by the 2024 1Ls, who told us they need guidance when it comes to a healthy work-life balance, time management, and financial aid to be successful beyond the first year. So the big takeaway here is that these programs and resources, they should not be one-off solutions. Rather, from this report, schools should be thinking about how to strategically build infrastructure that is a part of the law school experience for everyone to cultivate their growth.

SUSAN: One data point that stood out is that about 20% of 1Ls reported feeling that they didn’t belong in law school, with an even higher rate among minoritized, gender-diverse, first-gen students, and women. Could you guide us on how we should interpret that finding?

LIZ: Of course. So, law school academic attrition is the highest in the first year, as you noted earlier. To address attrition in law school, we need to ask what is driving academic attrition — recognizing that the answer is not as simple as students’ abilities, while also understanding that there are disparities in student retention. There is growing literature out there on belonging in higher education and legal education by Dr. Mary Murphy, Professor Victor Quintanilla, Dr. Meera Deo, just to name a couple. And it’s not surprising that many students do not feel like they belong in law school, or that there are days that they feel like they do and there are days where they feel that they don’t. The question is why. It is the environment, the culture, the interactions, and the added layers of stress and pressures disproportionately experienced by some students more than others.

Now, the question is, why should we even care about belonging? Research established that belonging is predictive of law school satisfaction and academic performance. Dr. Russian, in this report, found that first-year law students who thought about leaving law school report belonging uncertainty. So, they experience belonging uncertainty at a rate 24% higher than their peers who report never thinking about leaving law school. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the same students experiencing belonging uncertainty in their first year are also disproportionately represented in the first-year law school academic attrition. So, I encourage everyone to explore the report to learn more about this. And so, overall, these insights can be used by schools to understand that retention, learning outcomes, and even graduation, they all stem from meeting students where they are based on not just their academic skills, but how they experience the skills-development process in the law school environment.

SUSAN: Thank you, Liz, for that extremely informative report. We look forward to future reports from your team.

LIZ: Thank you, Susan, for having me, and I look forward to joining you again in the future.

SUSAN: To our listeners, thank you for joining us at Keeping Up to Data. We look forward to your joining our next episode. Until next time, stay well.

Thank you for joining us. Keeping Up to Data^SM is a production of ��������. If you want to learn more about the current law school admission cycle and the latest trends and news, visit us at ��������.org.

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