In a recent post we chronicled some of the recent goings-on in the law school and legal arenas. There’s more up for discussion this week, as LSAC released more concrete data on LSAT testing numbers and applications to ABA law schools. Of most intrigue is the breakdown of application volume changes according to LSAT scores. Here’s the data released by LSAC:
It’s been a rough few months for the legal industry. Law schools have taken a beating for their inflated costs and potentially inflated post-graduation employment figures. Additionally, the number of LSAT test-takers seems to have fallen significantly. Here’s a quick round-up of the latest big stories on law school:
Law School Jobs Data
The first lawsuit pitting law school graduates against law schools over the potentially fraudulent representation of post-graduate employment numbers has recently been concluded (not guilty, surprise-surprise), but the furor and fallout doesn’t seem likely to abate any time soon. More lawsuits seem imminent. However, it also seems the lawsuits and disillusionment have begun to spur change. Many law schools are modifying the graduate jobs data they supply, and The American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is taking steps to improve the data they release. While these are the first baby steps, the hope is that they will continue, providing greater transparency and insight for prospective law students. For more, check out this article.
Is the Law School Tuition Bubble About to Burst?
Early indications from U.S. News and World Report 2012-13 data indicate that law school tuition rates – which have been rising astronomically in the last decade – may finally be headed in the other direction, which is good news for aspiring lawyers. Hopefully the trend continues, and leads to similar downturns for other graduate programs and undergraduate education. To read a thorough analysis of the latest information, click here.
To see the numbers directly from USNWR, click here.
“Legal diplomas are apparently losing luster.”
This is the first line of a recent New York Times article on law schools. Part of the evidence presented in the article was a precipitous drop in LSAT administrations. We found this odd, so we checked out the data ourselves. Here’s a snapshot of official numbers from LSATs given over the last 25 years that led the Times to speculate that “The decline reflects a spreading view that the legal market in the United States is in terrible shape”:
Upon first glance, the decrease in LSAT administrations from 2010 to 2012 is pretty shocking. What is questionable, however, is the assertion that the legal profession has somehow become less attractive. That assertion requires an assumption that there is a direct correlation between LSAT administration numbers and the attractiveness or health of the law profession. We could spend days (and many thousands of words) deconstructing this one fallacy…but we won’t. I think you get the picture. Of more interest to us is interpreting these statistics.
Our contention is that while the LSAT numbers are down, this doesn’t say the law degree is any less valuable. In fact, given the drop, it may be even more valuable. Here’s why:
A more extensive look at the table reveals the current numbers might have been inflated in the first place. Notice the incongruous jump in administrations from 2001-2003: 33.4%!
Notice as well the relatively sizable jump from 2008 to 2010 of nearly 20% that immediately preceded the latest decline. Between those two increases alone you’re looking at over a 50% jump in test administrations from the 2000 numbers. Do you know what both of those two periods had in common? That’s right, relatively significant economic recessions.
Going back farther, one sees a similar jump from 1988-91, after, you guessed it, another recession (from the famed “Black Monday” of 1987). But these increases gradually came back down over the next decade. The inflated numbers spawned by the downturn of the early 2000′s didn’t have a real chance to tick back down (as they did after the 1987 recession) because we bumped right into another one a few years later. Consequently, the preposterously inflated LSAT administration numbers of the early 2000′s recession were further bloated by the late 2000′s recession increase. If anything, it seems like the law industry has a realistic normal rate of around 100,000 LSAT administrations per year for the last two-plus decades, which recessions periodically inflate. The most recent data seems to indicate that we’re simply going back to that norm, which means a normal valuation of the law degree.
What Does This Mean to You?
If you’re considering a career in law it would be smart to start thinking like a LSAT test-taker (and probably a lawyer) and looking for the assumptions in arguments you find in articles published about this trend. It would also be smart to start considering your application plan, including LSAT test prep.
If you were trying to score 100% on your typical high school or college exam, you’d need to do two things: 1) answer all of the questions, and 2) answer all of those questions correctly. The logic of that is not lost on most people. Unfortunately, many people preparing to take the LSAT walk into that test with similar logic, often to disastrous results.
Let’s be clear about something: the LSAT is not your run-of-the-mill school test. It relies on a whole host of different paradigms by which the game needs to be played. Chief among those paradigms is how one goes about achieving the score one wants. And if we apply the logic of doing well on school tests to the LSAT, we’ll be doing ourselves and our score a disservice.
Often, the key to doing better on the LSAT does not mean doing more questions. It means doing fewer. One thing should be clarified here before we move on: what we talk about when we talk about “doing questions” (yes, that’s a Raymond Carver allusion) is time invested on questions. It does not speak to entering an answer for every question (which you should ALWAYS do). Often, spending more time on fewer questions results in a higher total number of raw score points, which means a higher scaled score.
Let’s take a look at a couple hypothetical test-takers, and talk about why we might observe what we do.
Image by Zillafag
In this installment of our new (and ongoing) series of study tips, we bring more cognitive neuroscience (Ooooh! SAT vocabulary makes everything sound big and fancy, but cognitive neuroscience simply means the study of how we think) to bear with distributed learning.
In this edition of our ongoing study tips, we introduce you to the testing effect, another handy (and scientifically proven, read about a study here) method for improving your study habits and information retention.
Over and over I read blogs and hear comments about how evil standardized tests are and how they are designed to “trick,” “fool,” and “trap” test-takers. I say that’s hogwash and poppycock!
It’s the invention of the test prep industry so they can sell you their “miracle cures.” This isn’t to say that all test preparation companies take this line. A few companies, Bell Curves among them, pride themselves on providing test prep that speaks to the knowledge, insights, and strategies needed to conquer the test, rather than play into the notion that these tests are designed to trick test-takers. My gripe with the other, more popular position is that it seems designed to make the test out to be a big scary mysterious unknowable boogie man designed to jump out of the dark and bop the unwary, and thus force test-takers to get help from someone else to defeat the unknown and unknowable. However, if the test is just a test, a test of content, a test of information, a test of factoids presented in a very particular way, then you might be able to prepare on your own. It’s got to be easier to sell a course or tutor if “only SAT experts” have the key to this very special lock.
Don’t believe the hype!
The following post is from Lawrence Watkins’ blog. It’s very insightful.
Last week, CNN aired a special entitled “Black in America – Part 2″ profiling the lives of different African-Americans all around the nation. I watched with anticipation as the CNN crew was profiling an organization in which I am affiliated, Management Leadership for Tomorrow. MLT is a program that helps aspiring minority business school applicants attain their dream of attending a top notch business school. Out of all the underrepresented minorities at Cornell’s business school, well over half went through the rigorous MLT program.
