After the Annual Meeting, a look at some available data reports
Ninety-five percent of our application count is in, and so are the final test-taker numbers for the 2018-2019 testing year. How does the data compare to last year? Join LSAC’s Vice President and Chief of Staff and Director of Enrollment Management Susan Krinsky as she brings you up to date. Listen for the latest on the June LSAT, administered this week to coincide with the debut of LSAT Writing, and the upcoming July test, which marks the launch of the Digital LSAT. Also learn about the rich and varied data resources available at the click of your fingertips via lsac.org and ACES, and stay tuned for details on how you can get involved with LSAC governance.
Transcript
Hi. This is Susan Krinsky at LSAC, and it’s time for the June edition of Keeping Up To Data. We’re just back from the 2019 Annual Meeting, and if you were able to attend, I hope you found the sessions informative and the conference itself rewarding.
With 95% of our application count in, applicant volume is up 3.5% over last year, although applications are down 1.6%. 87 schools are showing application volume increases, 108 show decreases, and 7 show no change as compared to last year.
The June administration of the LSAT took place at the beginning of this week, on June 3. We had between 18 and 19,000 registrants for that test. We’ll have the final test-taker number in a few weeks. As you probably recall, this was the first test for which the writing sample — now known as LSAT Writing — is separated from the multiple-choice test. Candidates who took the June test were able to take LSAT Writing beginning the same afternoon and up to 12 months later — but remember that without a writing sample from an earlier test, or from this one, score reports cannot be released to schools. Test takers have been and will continue to be reminded of this.
As for the upcoming July test, we had received over 26,000 registrations by the morning of June 4. The July test will be administered both digitally and as a traditional paper-and-pencil test, with approximately 50 percent of test takers in each modality. The test content is the same for all test takers. Test takers won’t know until they arrive at the test center whether they will take the Digital LSAT or the paper-and-pencil test. However, for the July test ONLY, they WILL get to see their scores before deciding whether to cancel them, and if they decide to cancel, they will be able to take the LSAT again, without paying an additional fee, through the April 2020 test.
Looking back over the just-concluded testing year, there were 138,597 LSATs taken in 2018-19, reflecting a 7.3% increase over the previous year, when 129,165 tests were taken. In other words, 9,432 more tests were administered in 2018-19. Of the tests administered, a smaller percentage were administered to first-time test takers in 2018-19 as compared to the year before (57% versus 61%); however, because there were more tests administered in 2018-19, the absolute number of first-time test takers did increase by a few hundred — to 78,691.
I’m going to talk now about data reports that are available to you. If you’re just getting started and are looking for useful data, there are several places you should start. First, on lsac.org. Without signing in, you can go to Data & Research, and then to the Data Library, and find current volume reports, current LSAT testing year volumes, ABA statistics, and several other useful reports.
If you log in as a member school and head to the Data Library, you will find dozens of reports on applicants, admitted applicants, matriculants, diversity, the LSAT, LLMs, and more. Many of these reports provide historical data. It’s well worth the time to spend at least a few minutes getting familiar with what’s available in the Data Library.
Next, in ACES2 (and of course, in the successor to ACES2), you will find many report options. Go to the Reports tab, and in the Subject field, click on LSAC Data. You’ll then see a list of end-of-year reports that you can run, most of which provide five years of data and allow you some filtering options. Just choose one, and run it. You’ll see how easy it is, and if you do this often, you’ll have a much better sense of what’s available.
On another subject, if you are interested in serving on one of LSAC’s governance committees, subcommittees, or work groups, the deadline to submit a Statement of Interest is Monday, June 10. Go to www.lsac.org/volunteer for details and instructions.
As always, we’d love to hear from you with questions or suggestions. Just write to us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Susan Krinsky at LSAC.