Keeping Up to Data: May 2025

Welcome to the Keeping Up to Data^SM podcast, a space in which we discuss, analyze, and contextualize trends and perspectives in the current law school admission cycle by taking a deeper dive into the most up-to-date data and making sense of the complicated world of legal education.

SUSAN KRINSKY: Welcome back to Keeping Up to Data. I’m Susan Krinsky, interim president and CEO at LSAC^®, with an update, now that the 2025 application cycle is winding down, and an interview with our favorite psychometrician, Anna Topczewski, LSAC’s director of assessment sciences, who will talk with us about how things have been going with this newest version of the LSAT. But first, some numbers.

We’re about 90% of the way through the cycle, based on last year’s percentages of applications submitted at this time, as compared to the number eventually submitted. As of April 30, we are seeing 19.5% more applicants than at this time last year, and those applicants have submitted 22.9% more applications than had been submitted at this time last year.

You’ll recall that at the start of the application cycle, the increases over the prior year were much larger. That was in part because in the previous year — that is, fall 2023 — the cycle had a slow start due to a number of schools opening their applications a little later than usual. And that was likely because they wanted to review and update their admission processes and materials in response to the July 2023 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on college admissions.

As we predicted, once we were further into the current year’s cycle, the increases started to moderate, because the 2023 cycle had hit its stride by then and we were, at that point, looking at a more normal comparison. So, the almost 20% increase in applicants and the almost 23% increase in applications that we are seeing now is likely pretty close to where we will end up. And that is the highest volume we’ve seen in the past five years, including the very strong 2021 cycle. In fact, this is the highest volume we’ve seen in 11 years. Women continue to outnumber men in the applicant pool, at about 55% of the pool, and applicants of color account for almost 49% of the applicant pool. Notably, the increases in several of the racial and ethnic subgroups exceed the overall applicant increase of 19.5%. For example, Native American and Alaska Native are up 24%, and African-American applicants are up 27%.

We’re going to talk a lot more about the LSAT and test takers when Anna Topczewski joins us in a moment. But starting in February 2024 — that is, over a year ago — we started to see significant increases in test takers. Last April and June, for example, the increases were in the 30% to 35% range over the previous year. During the current cycle, which started in August of 2024, test takers have been up for every administration, overall about 12% for the year so far, with one more LSAT administration to go in June. We will open registration for the 2025-26 cycle in a few weeks, and individuals can at that time start registering for the eight test administrations beginning in August 2025. Naturally, we will continue to monitor these and other trends in the testing and admission cycle and provide regular updates.

Now, as promised, I’m delighted to welcome back to Keeping Up to Data Anna Topczewski, LSAC’s director of assessment sciences. Anna has joined us before to help us understand all kinds of things related to the LSAT. Hi, Anna. It’s great to have you back.

ANNA TOPCZEWSKI: Thank you, Susan. And it’s great to be here.

SUSAN: Anna, we are so fortunate that you are the director of assessment sciences at LSAC. But could you remind us what that means?

ANNA: It means that I have the privilege of leading a brilliant team of hardworking individuals whose job it is to ensure that we are measuring the skills of the LSAT. We are a team that, after each administration, we’re analyzing all the data to ensure that scores are fair, valid, and reliable. We’re making sure that the questions are the appropriate difficulty and we are the ones making sure that when someone takes the LSAT, that their score means the same thing no matter when or where they take the test. We know how important these scores are, and we know that we need to get this right 100% of the time.

SUSAN: So, I just got through recapping the volume statistics for the current cycle. Applicants are up 19.9% year over year. Applications are up even more, 22.9%. Are you surprised by those numbers? And what do you think is driving them?

ANNA: Well, I think we’re all a little bit surprised. Last year ended up being a fairly strong year for applications, so a 20% increase over last year is noteworthy. That said, there were some early signs. We saw a surge in test takers starting in February 2024, six to seven months before the start of the current application cycle. And that momentum has continued this entire testing year. The number of individuals taking the test in February, April, and June timeframes tends to be a bellwether for the next application cycle. And our Applied Research team does some incredible work surveying tens of thousands of test takers. So, we have some good insights into why individuals are considering law.

SUSAN: And what are those insights? Why are individuals interested in applying to law school?

ANNA: What our Applied Research team has found is that the No. 1 reason people in the current cycle are pursuing law school is to help others. The No. 2 reason is to advocate for social justice. And the third reason is financial stability. Interestingly, that reason of helping others was up 30% year over year. People feel even more strongly about helping others through law. The No. 2 reason, advocating for social justice, that was up 20% year over year. People feel even more urgency to advocate for justice or causes they believe in. And the third reason, financial stability, that one was worded a little bit differently in prior surveys, so we don’t have a fair comparison of this year to year. But preliminary analysis revealed that about one in four test takers in this cycle are saying financial stability is one of their top three reasons for wanting to pursue a career in law. Bottom line, test takers view law as a vehicle for good, justice, impact, and stability. They are in pursuit of a promising, stable, long-term career.

SUSAN: We announced last year that we would be making a change to the LSAT beginning with the August 2024 test administration. Specifically, we removed the Analytical Reasoning section, popularly known as “logic games,” and replaced it with an additional Logical Reasoning section. There’s been some speculation that the changes to the LSAT could be driving some of the increase in applicants. What does the data tell you about that?

ANNA: What I think is really at the heart of the increase in applications goes back to our Applied Research insight into why people are considering law: helping others, advocating for social justice, and financial stability. Individuals applying to law school are saying these things now more than last year. And that, I believe, is why we are seeing more applications. Is it the test? No.

SUSAN: So, bottom line, you don’t think the change in the LSAT has driven increases in test takers or in applicants. Tell me more about the increases in applicant and test taker volume.

ANNA: It’s important to think about the progression of individuals from test takers to applicants. Again, going back to my earlier statement that test takers are the bellwether for applicants, we saw a surge in the number of test takers starting in February 2024. And this continued. February, April, and June 2024 test takers were up 29% compared to the year before. What we also know is that these individuals tend to be the shifting point of individuals who apply the current cycle, vs. the upcoming cycle. So, the surge in applicants this year isn’t really surprising given the test taker volumes we saw in February, April, and June of 2024.

SUSAN: And what are you seeing in the results from this cycle’s LSAT administrations? Is it going as you expected it would? Have there been any surprises?

ANNA: I would say so far, so good when it comes to the LSAT. It’s important to note that this LSAT has 100% of the content as the previous version. Analytical Reasoning was removed, and an additional Logical Reasoning section was added. There’s nothing new. We are testing the same critical thinking skills that are so important to success in law school. Logical Reasoning and Analytical Reasoning both measured reasoning skills. How these sections did so was different. We did so many analyses before we made the change, so we are very confident that the reliability and predictive validity of the test would be maintained.

SUSAN: What do you mean by reliability? What is it?

ANNA: Think of reliability as hitting the same spot on the dartboard over and over again. If someone sat down and took multiple versions of the LSAT, we expect them to get similar scores repeatedly, absent of some dramatic change, like they weren’t feeling well the first time, or they didn’t prepare for the test the first time and did prepare thereafter. That is reliability. And tests with a reliability of 0.90 or above are considered highly reliable. The LSAT has always had a reliability coefficient of 0.90 or above, this year and previous years.

SUSAN: And what about predictive validity? What is that?

ANNA: Going back to the dartboard example, validity is hitting that bull’s-eye. The LSAT is intended to predict how well people do in their first year of law school. That is hitting our bull’s-eye. And it turns out the LSAT does a good job at predicting how matriculants do in their first year of law school.

SUSAN: So, the natural next question is, what is the predictive validity of the current LSAT?

ANNA: My answer is that we need the first-year law school GPA of people who took the current LSAT in order to answer that. Those people who took the current LSAT are now just getting accepted to law school. Many will start this fall and complete their first year next spring; then we can run those analyses. But we are confident, from the research already completed before the change, the LSAT will continue to be highly predictive of success in law school.

SUSAN: At the same time as we are seeing a big increase in overall test takers and applicants, we’re also seeing increases in applicants with high test scores. For example, applicants with scores of 165 and above are up 32% compared to last year. Some people are speculating that the change in the test format is partly responsible. They say, "Well, the LSAT is easier." Are you seeing any evidence of that?

ANNA: I have heard that speculation, too. I can assure you that the LSAT is every bit as hard as it was before. Obviously, we removed the Analytical Reasoning section, but the remaining questions did not change. We pretest every LSAT question with thousands of test takers under actual test conditions, so we know the difficulty of every question and every section. And we know that one test form can vary slightly in difficulty from another. So, for decades, we have been using equating to fine-tune exactly how many questions a test taker needs to get right on a particular form to get a given score.

So, on one form that is slightly harder on average, you need to get 56 questions right to get a 160. Another form that’s slightly easier, you might need to get 57 questions right to get a 160. Equating ensures that individuals with the same skill level receive the same LSAT score, even if they take different test forms, so that the difficulty of receiving a particular LSAT score is the same. Bottom line, the LSAT is not easier. The test still requires the same skill level to receive the same LSAT score.

SUSAN: Anna, tell me more about the populations we’re looking at.

ANNA: There are two important things to keep in mind. First, it’s important to recognize the difference between test takers and applicants. An increase in the percentage of applicants with high scores does not necessarily mean we’re seeing the same increase in test takers. We know that individuals with higher scores apply at higher rates than individuals with lower scores. So, we really need to separate what we are seeing with test takers from what we are seeing with applicants. Trends and patterns are not always one and the same. Second, it’s important to recognize that applicants for this cycle are made up of test takers from a number of testing years. In fact, more than a third of the applicants this year took the LSAT before this testing year. And this one-third is what we have seen for years. So, that is one more indication that the LSAT is not driving the surge in applicants or the increase in higher-scoring applicants.

SUSAN: Are there any apples-to-apples comparisons? What about repeaters, people who took the LSAT before and after this change? How do their results compare to repeaters before this change?

ANNA: That is a great question, and this data is quite fun. The short answer is that we see no difference between repeaters who took different versions of the test. Old to old, new to new, old to new — these all look the same. In fact, I’ve been in a room full of assessment experts, and I showed them a graph of these repeater comparisons, and I deliberately left off the labels so they couldn’t tell which was which. And I asked anyone, "Can you tell me what is what?" It’s impossible to tell. The results are virtually identical. Repeaters are just one more indication that the new LSAT is not easier.

SUSAN: So, what explains the increased number of applicants with high scores?

ANNA: Well, it looks like there are a couple of things going on. First, there are cyclical swings in not just how many people take the LSAT and go to law school; there are cyclical swings in exactly who is taking the LSAT and thinking about law school. Back in February 2024, we saw a big increase in the test taker numbers. We also started to see an uptick in scores. Remember, this was six months before we changed the test format. Starting in February 2024, we saw a high percentage of people scoring 165 or above. The changes weren’t big, but the combination of an increase in test takers plus even a modest increase in scores resulted in an increase of higher scores. And, of course, people with higher scores are more likely to apply.

We don’t know exactly why a more skilled subset of the overall population started to get more interested in law school, but we are seeing insights from our Applied Research team through our test taker surveys. Test takers view law as a vehicle for good, justice, impact, and stability. They’re in pursuit of a promising, stable, long-term career. And given some of the uncertainties that are affecting other sectors, some highly skilled people who might have gone into other careers may now be looking into law.

SUSAN: So, I think you were saying that we do have a slightly different population applying to law school. Is there anything else that might be contributing to more high-scoring applicants?

ANNA: Yes, test takers appear to be preparing more. Again, going back to our Applied Research survey, test takers are asked about their preparation for the LSAT. And we compared this year to previous years. Here are a few findings: This year’s test takers are taking 16% more complete timed practice exams; 38% more partial exams, untimed exams, or problem sets; spending 13% more weeks preparing for the LSAT; and spending 18% more hours per week preparing for the LSAT. Those are some pretty big shifts. And that means test takers are coming to their LSAT better prepared, and therefore doing their best work at demonstrating their skills.

SUSAN: Anything else you’d like to share, Anna?

ANNA: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all the other ways that LSAC supports our test takers. There is LawHub^®, with so many free resources, where individuals can take practice LSATs in an authentic test taking environment. LSAC also launched Strategy Booster this past year, and it is offered to every test taker. Strategy Booster provides guidance on how to prepare for your test, so you feel ready and confident. Another important program is Plus, Guided Journey, which supports participants at every step of a law school application journey, from LSAT preparation to building application materials, learning about law school, and making decisions about their future, all while honing their individual strengths and cultivating a deep sense of community. I really cannot say enough positive things about LawHub, Strategy Booster, and Plus, Guided Journey. All of these things and more that we do show how committed we are to supporting individuals in every way we can.

SUSAN: Anna, thank you so much for joining us today and for your expert and important data-based insights.

ANNA: And thank you, Susan, for having me.

SUSAN: I want to thank Anna Topczewski again for a very interesting conversation. 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 LSAC. If you want to learn more about the current law school admission cycle and the latest trends and news, visit us at LSAC.org.

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