Looking Ahead — 2022 Cycle

[BAccT77 0]

I’m sure by now most have viewed the number of applications at different schools across the country and noticed numbers are up. People seem fearful that this year’s cycle will be more competitive than usual because of this, and I guess only time will tell on that front based off of the accepted, waitlisted, and rejected applications that’ll be discovered in the coming months.

The pandemic is kind of spiralling out of control, at least in Ontario, and the workplace closures, job losses, and other extraneous factors that are resultant from the ever-increasing case numbers made me think about the 2022 cycle. Will we be seeing and saying the same stuff about the 2022 cycle as we are right now about the 2021 cycle (higher application numbers than usual, schools stating the cycle is notably competitive)? Obviously it’s too early to know for sure, but what are some people thinking right now about the 2022 cycle?

Edited January 14 by BAccT77

[NoContest 43]

If you want pure speculation from someone grossly unqualified to answer your question, then the answer is 100% yes!

As you can see from my expertly crafted table below, applications increased for a few years after the last global financial meltdown. 

Year	Applicants		Applications
2008-2009	6392		22985
2009-2010	6357		23167
2010-2011	7310		26697
2011-2012	7748		28483
2012-2013	7801		28816
2013-2014	7425		28639
2014-2015	6829		25982
2015-2016	6705		24812
2016-2017	6705		24356
2017-2018	6666		24358

[BAccT77 0]

2 hours ago, NoContest said:

If you want pure speculation from someone grossly unqualified to answer your question, then the answer is 100% yes!

As you can see from my expertly crafted table below, applications increased for a few years after the last global financial meltdown. 

Year	Applicants		Applications
2008-2009	6392		22985
2009-2010	6357		23167
2010-2011	7310		26697
2011-2012	7748		28483
2012-2013	7801		28816
2013-2014	7425		28639
2014-2015	6829		25982
2015-2016	6705		24812
2016-2017	6705		24356
2017-2018	6666		24358

Yeah I suspect it’ll follow the same trend, but it’s always nice to hope for a different outcome 😢 

[SNAILS 170]

Question: Will the 2022 cycle be exceptionally competitive?

I'm going to say "no" for two reasons:

(1) You are associating an exceptionally competitive cycle with an increased number of applicants. However, the "accepted" threads on this forum indicate people with fairly typical stats getting into law school. This evidence will be more reliable as we get more acceptances posted here over the next 3 months (And, yes, I know that responses to acceptances threads may not be representative of the non-forum-posting law school applicants).

(2) I expect the COVID vaccine will return employment rates back to pre-COVID levels, thus reducing the law school applicants who are seeking post graduate education due to unemployment. 

[SNAILS 170]

19 hours ago, NoContest said:

If you want pure speculation from someone grossly unqualified to answer your question, then the answer is 100% yes!

As you can see from my expertly crafted table below, applications increased for a few years after the last global financial meltdown. 

Year	Applicants		Applications
2008-2009	6392		22985
2009-2010	6357		23167
2010-2011	7310		26697
2011-2012	7748		28483
2012-2013	7801		28816
2013-2014	7425		28639
2014-2015	6829		25982
2015-2016	6705		24812
2016-2017	6705		24356
2017-2018	6666		24358

Are these stats for Canada or just Ontario? 

If it's for Ontario, we have also had the recent additions of Ryerson (2019?) and Lakehead (2008?), as well as the increased class sizes at U of O.

And I think there are more law school seats available in western Canada than there were ten years ago, are there not?

[NoContest 43]

4 hours ago, SNAILS said:

Are these stats for Canada or just Ontario? 

If it's for Ontario, we have also had the recent additions of Ryerson (2019?) and Lakehead (2008?), as well as the increased class sizes at U of O.

And I think there are more law school seats available in western Canada than there were ten years ago, are there not?

The numbers come from the LSAC volume summaries from those specific years (PDF files at the bottom of the page). https://www.lsac.org/data-research/data/current-volume-summaries-region-raceethnicity-gender-identity-lsat-score
I haven’t found a good description of how the LSAC gets their Canadian data. I imagine it excludes applicants to civil law schools. 

You’re right in that there are more seats now across the country. I dug out this data to answer the question, will applicant numbers be up again next year? And for how long? Based on what we saw after the Great Recession the answer seems to be yes. This years cycle is the first cycle since  2013-2014 cycle to break 7000 applicants. If you look at the famous LSAC 3/5 year summary charts it is a clear outlier (https://report.lsac.org/ThreeYearComparison.aspx). I think based on what we saw in the 2010-2013 cycles, next cycle will probably also have more than 7000 applicants. 

Answering the question of if the cycle will be more competitive is trickier. If one was very motivated I suppose you could go look at the medians for all those years at your school(s) of interest and see what effect the increase had. Adding Ryerson to the mix certainly will help put downward pressure on medians. I also read somewhere that Quebec medical schools increased the number of first year spots starting next year. If this true for other provinces, I wonder if it will alleviate some pressure from the law school application pool. Perhaps this is less of a trend in the ROC but I suspect there’s a good number of applicants in QC that apply to both programs (with law being their second choice).

Edited January 16 by NoContest
Fixed URL to LSAC reports