Law school applications drop nearly 18 percent, benefiting students seeking financial aid
Law school applications for the fall of 2013 have dropped 17.9 percent and applicants are down 12.3 percent.
Smaller applicant pools are a boon for prospective students negotiating for better financial aid, Fortune reports. As of Aug. 8, there were 385,358 fall 2013 applications submitted by 59,426 applicants to ABA-approved law schools. TaxProf Blog notes the lower numbers released by the Law School Admission Council.
Law schools are responding by extending application deadlines, cutting class sizes and faculty, and offering more financial aid to win students, Fortune says. “Students with solid but not spectacular test scores are reporting that they have full-tuition offers from schools like Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and Vanderbilt Law School—which are just shy of $50,000 a year for tuition,” the story says.
Law schools have boosted their financial aid from $721 million in 2007 to nearly $1 billion last year, Fortune says.
Mark Kettlewell told the publication he negotiated for his full-tuition scholarship at Washington University law school. He also said the school announced at a welcoming session that its professors have donated pay hikes for the coming year to the scholarship fund.
Prior coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Law-school applicants drop for third year in a row”
