More on the LSAT "Trump Bump"

In September 2017, a National Jurist article asked: “Will there be more law students because of Trump?”

Nearly a year ago, when Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States, pundits believed that there would likely be a “Trump Bump” in terms of Law School Admission Test (LSAT) takers. That is, they predicted more students going to law school in response to policies resulting from a Trump White House.

But their prediction was mostly speculative at the time.

Fast forward a year's worth of LSAT administrations since the presidential election, and it does appear that LSAT administrations are seeing the foreshadowed “Trump Bump.”

Since Trump took office, there have been four LSAT administrations: December 2016, February 2017, June 2017 and September/October 2017.

The Law School Admission Council, the entity that oversees the LSAT, reported a 7.6% increase in LSAT takers on the December 2016 exam compared to the December 2015 exam (31,340 students in 2016 versus 29,115 in 2015), and a 5.4% increase in LSAT takers on the February 2017 exam over the previous February exam (21,400 students in 2017 versus 20,301 in 2016). More than 27,600 students took the July 2017 exam, which represented a 19.8% increase over the previous July administration (27,606 students in 2017 versus 23,0511 in 2016).

And earlier this month, LSAC announced that the September/October 2017 exam saw an increase of more than 10% over the September/October 2016 exam (37,146 students in 2017 versus 33,563 in 2016).

In total, there has been a 10.8% increase in students taking the LSAT in the four exam administrations since the November 2016 presidential election (117,492 students) compared to the four exam administrations before the election (106,030 students).

All this is good news for law schools since a bigger applicant pool gives schools better odds for admitting more qualified applicants.