Notre Dame Law is ditching binding early admissions. Will others follow? - Reuters.com

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• Summary

• More than a third of the top 30-ranked U.S. law schools have binding early decision programs
• Candidates who accept early offers must withdraw their applications to other schools

(Reuters) - The University of Notre Dame Law School has ended its early decision admissions program, in a move experts say other law schools may follow amid ongoing uncertainty about the national applicant pool and concerns about access and equity.

The Indiana law school, ranked No. 25 by U.S. News & World Report, said Wednesday that it eliminated its program that enabled candidates to apply and receive a decision early if they agreed to withdraw their applications to other schools upon acceptance.

Notre Dame officials said the early decision program advantaged wealthier students and created added anxiety for applicants, and that scrapping it would promote diversity and equity.

A law school spokesperson did not respond to requests for further comment.

More than a third of the law schools ranked in U.S. News’ top 30 offer binding early decision programs, though Yale, Stanford and Harvard do not. The programs came into favor about 15 years ago as a way for law schools to lock in strong candidates early and avoid scholarship negotiations with students juggling multiple offers, according to law school admissions consultant Mike Spivey.

Fellow admissions consultant Anna Ivey called early decision programs a drag on efforts to expand access to legal education, noting that less-privileged applicants benefit from more time to compare offers and line up financial aid. “It works to the advantage of people who don’t have to care about price tag,” she said.

Notre Dame appears to be the first to end binding early decisions in recent years, though Duke Law School last year ended a similar but non-binding “priority track” program that guaranteed early applicants a decision by a certain time.

Spivey said that getting rid of binding early decision programs makes practical sense for law schools, citing volatility in Law School Admission Test scores and the fluctuating size of the applicant pool since the start of the pandemic. Those uncertainties have made it more difficult for admissions offices to manage new classes, he said.

Notre Dame was criticized in the spring of 2021 when it warned admitted students that it had received a higher-than-expected number of deposits, and spots in the incoming class would be allocated on a first-pay, first-served basis ahead of the deposit deadline. Many other schools also ended up with unusually large 1L classes in the fall of 2021 because the national applicant pool spiked 13% and scores on the shorter, remote LSAT skewed higher than usual.

“I’m not surprised a law school would do this,” Spivey said of Notre Dame ending early decision. “You want your early decision program to favor the law school.”

Read more:

Law school applicant pool shrinks after blockbuster 2021

Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Karen Sloan

Thomson Reuters

Karen Sloan reports on law firms, law schools, and the business of law. Reach her at karen.sloan@thomsonreuters.com

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