A recent study by education company Kaplan Test Prep has found that more students were encouraged to apply to law schools as a result of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Boston University’s School of Law has seen a spike in the number of applicants in recent years and a greater demonstrated interest in the field of immigration law since the election.
In a survey of 573 pre-law students from across the country, 32 percent reported that the 2016 election results influenced their decisions to become lawyers.
These results shed light on why there has been such a large increase in law school applicants recently, said Jeff Thomas, executive director of pre-law programs at Kaplan Test Prep. While the study did not specifically investigate which areas of law students were most interested in, many noted an interest in immigration policy.
Law school applications have not shown such a dramatic increase anytime in the past eight to 10 years, Thomas said. However, most law schools do not intend to admit more students to reflect this increase.
“The fact that we’re seeing this large bump in the number of applicants means that students are going to need to do even more work to make sure their application is fully competitive when they go to apply,” Thomas said.
The competition will make it even more important for students to focus on academics during their undergraduate years, Thomas said.
“If you’re looking to go to law school, make sure you’re going for the right reason — that you go because you want to be a lawyer,” Thomas said, “but then do everything in your power to put together a super compelling application, inclusive of a high undergraduate GPA and a terrific LSAT score.”
Thomas said this new pool of politically-driven applicants won’t necessarily cause law schools to redesign their courses either, since many law schools have already begun the process of focusing their curriculum on practical experience rather than just theory.
“Law schools have made a lot of changes to their course loads — the experiential opportunities that students have available to them in law schools — to make them more practice-ready upon graduation,” Thomas said.
Ryan Strassman, a second-year law student, said he doesn’t think the school needs to make any changes to accommodate a more politically-driven applicant pool.
“I think if you were coming to law school as a reflection of the 2016 election, it’s because you’d want to change something about how the election went on or limit the impact of what happened,” Strassman said. “Theoretically, the law school is already teaching you how to operate within government or how to operate within the political sphere.”
Second-year law student Yi Su said she sees how the election could affect other students’ decisions to apply to law school, but it did not have any bearing on hers.
“I didn’t really pay attention to the election because I’m a foreign student,” Su said, “so that doesn’t make any change for me.”
LAW Dean Maureen O’Rourke said BU had already been witnessing an upward trend in law school applications even before the 2016 election, but that it has seen increased interest in specific concentrations since.
“Certainly, we have seen an uptick in applicants who are interested in studying immigration law,” O’Rourke said, “and that may be related to the well-publicized court battles around the executive orders issued shortly after the inauguration.”
O’Rourke also noted an increased interest in constitutional law and other areas of law pertaining to the system of checks and balances.
Thomas said that although students noted an interest in immigration policy, these interests tend to change in law school.
“Once they get to law school, they’re exposed to so many more areas of law than they even initially considered,” Thomas said, “so really this might be the thrust that gets them to law school in the first place, but interests might change while they’re there.”
First-year law student Elaine Ortyl said she had already decided to apply to law school before the election, but she was further inspired to continue her study of law after the election of Donald Trump, a sentiment she feels many other law students share.
“I think that it definitely is going to be reflected nationwide, especially just seeing social media and just the public uproar over a lot of different policies,” Ortyl said. “I definitely feel that a lot of people feel the need to take a bigger interest in law and government and that will continue.”
While the law school does not plan to increase class sizes, O’Rourke said they have increased the number of training sessions regarding immigration law and political identity to reflect student interests.
“We have an extraordinarily broad and deep curriculum,” O’Rourke said, “so what we see is more of a rearrangement of enrollment as student interest shifts than a need to add a large number of classes.”
