I'm a charts-and-graphs kind of guy. Always have been. I like looking at data and trying to make sense of it.
For example, I watch the LSAC numbers with bated breath. It's a sickness, I know. But I do love the stories the data tell. For instance, did you know that the average lemming files seven applications to law school? I didn't either, till I did my own informal analysis of LSAC's data.
Yep, even with declining applicants, the slope is consistent (with R-squared values above 0.98), and 2015 appears to be right on track with prior years. In fact, I don't know why "Applications" are tracked, other than it's just "another data point". I'm more concerned with how many actual applicants there are, not how many applications they file. Anybody with time to spare can apply to seven (or 9, or 12, or 3) law schools; what I want to know is how many souls are taking the plunge, and why.
This is why Matt Leichter is a man after my own heart. He has been faithfully recording applicant and application data for years (as LSAC only ever shows the most recent three), doing data analysis of all kinds along the way, and in my book he's a hero for it. Especially when applicants have been declining for several years running, to the point where LSAC publishes the following chart:
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If I squint at this right, it would appear than even though applicants are down 9% compared to last year, the bottom has really come at last because the 2015 line is right on top of the 2014 line! Amirite? I don't think the line thickness respresents a 10% swing, but who cares? This would imply that 2015 isn't actually worse than 2014, actual numbers be damned! Number-crunching maniacs like Ted Seto, Ben Barros and Steve Diamond will be thrilled!Thankfully, Leichter's chart is more precise:
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Oh, there is that pesky little 9% decline over last year...! Plain as day. With seven prior-year's-worth of context. There must have been an honest mistake in chart scaling over at LSAC, or something.
If this is any indication about chart scaling and truth in advertising (remember this one?), here's to another year of the Cartel hoping that lawyers and lawyer-wanna-bes can't do math.
"with baited breath"
ReplyDeleteThe word you want there is "bated" (as in, your breath has been abated). The expression is unrelated to bait (which would be kind of gross).
Just sayin'. Love your work!
Whoops, either that or I went fishing recently. Thanks for reading!
DeleteYes, Matt Leichter is a hero. It took a number of dedicated people to build enough infrastructure to undermine the scam.
ReplyDeleteI always like to see statistics presented properly. People like Steve Diamond and Brian Leiter seem compelled to yank statistics out of their natural context, mostly because context is the enemy of their own shameful, self-serving, ad-hoc arguments.
Has anyone ever noticed that when LSAC or a law school makes a "mistake" in reporting, it always covers up how bad things really are?
ReplyDeleteCommenters over at TFL noticed the poor charting as well.
ReplyDeleteThen a commenter chimed in with "But-But-But-December-LSAT-takers-are-up-for-the-first-time-in-17-test-administrations!!!"
To which comment someone explained, "December 2013 had significant cancellations due to weather (especially in the northeast)... Assuming that 250 takers scheduled for December 2013 were given a deferment until the February 2014 administration, that would conform to... 18th consecutive....".
http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/01/lsac-data-and-predicting-number-of-applicants-for-fall-2015-part-3.html#comments
The intro to the charts states that applications/applicants are down. The charts are both screwy: look at the applications one. It's got a bottom y axis at -100,000. Fix it at 0, guys.
ReplyDeleteI also think the Dec. LSATs are up because last year there was such bad weather that a lot people were deterred. That pushed people to take the test in Feb. '14 (causing it to go up yoy) and made Dec. 14 look better yoy.
We're getting close to bottoming out. But even when we do, we'll still have 2 years of lower incoming classes relative to graduating classes. Plenty of room to snuff out some horrible schools.
So December 2014 is up from December 2013, but (Oct+Dec) 2014 is still down from the previous year. That's why an honest graph still shows such a steady decline in applicants. Am I right about that?
DeleteWhat I take away from this story is that an honest graph reveals the law school predators to be suffering a serious shortage of prey. Starting in the spring of 2012, and then throughout the Fall 2013 admissions cycle, the bottom fell out of the market for faux-prestigious law degrees.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite happy that numbers are continuing to drop. Even though the declines are easily predictable and less dramatic, they may be enough to convince even the worst scammers that the glory days are never coming back. From now on, outside the top 25 or so law schools, there will be no easy money, no cushy administrative jobs, and very few hires on the academic track. The pyramid scheme in which elite schools attract the smartest students by promising them academic careers at lesser schools appears to be tumbling down.
Hmm, yes, law professors seem to suddenly spend an inordinate amount of time closely watching and measuring the decline of their industry. Statisticians everywhere. A plague of experts on your house.
ReplyDeleteThose public monies that flow to the professoriate, they tell us, for the hollowed purpose of carrying on that noble western tradition of scholarship (without which we'd descend into chaos today) now flow to finance blog posts, prognostication, monitoring the internet for scurrilous libels of the unwashed masses. Telling.
The renaissance is just around the corner! Demand, demand for lawyers as far as the eye can see! Consider yourselves refuted! If Diamond, et al are so confident, and their critics so laughably wrong, why are the shouting? Why all the rebutting? Why the blog posts? Why waste one's time?
Get back to the legal scholarship, boys, where you're so badly needed.
Yes, without Brian Leiter's scholarship, the world would descend into chaos. On the other hand, the world is already in terrible shape, and Leiter relishes his daily condemnations of everything and everyone. And on the third hand (we're in mutant territory by now) Leiter is like a bull in a china shop, creating his won chaos wherever he goes.
DeleteI'm not sure if the world can afford Brian Leiter's "scholarship." And no one should ever go into debt to pay for his decadent, disorderly, destructive life.
Already a number of law skules practice what amounts to open admissions. New England Law School (the one with the pretentious vertical bar in its name) admits 89% of its generally mediocre applicant pool. Some law skules even award "scholarships" on the basis of LSAT scores well below the fiftieth percentile.
ReplyDeleteI exaggerate only slightly when I say that the only criterion for admission at many law skules is the ability to pay, usually with student loans that are in effect granted by the admissions office.
Old Guy
Why do people think matriculant and/or applicant counts are bottoming out? Looks like the decline has been steady and linear these past two years.
ReplyDeleteWell, the 2015 figures are mostly projections, so it's a bit more uncertain than that.
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