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of 2019 admits opted to enroll, which left the school hour period, it tied the hands of people who were
with a larger-than-hoped-for 1L class. waiting to hear about scholarship offers from other
This year’s applicants were informed of that policy law schools, and it disadvantaged admits who didn’t
in their admissions letter and scholarship offers, the immediately have access to $600, they said.
school’s statement notes. They were again reminded “Applicants deserve a firm timeline from schools
of the rolling nature of the seat deposit deadline in to judiciously weigh their offers and plan and bud-
a March 19 message from the admissions director. get for deposits,” reads the blog post. “When a law
Then shortly before noon Tuesday, admitted stu- school fails to exercise proper enrollment manage-
dents were told a higher percentage of admitted ment, the burden to be reasonable in the midst of
students than expected were accepting those offers, chaos should not shift to the applicants.”
and that the school had already hit 67% of its avail- Notre Dame applicants took to social media
able spots for the fall class—earlier than anticipated. Wednesday to express frustration and disbelief that
The school intended to be transparent, according the school had basically closed the door on admitted
to the school’s statement, and in the next few hours students.
the admissions office sent two more messages say- “After all the time and effort you put into getting
ing the school had hit 80% then 90% of its maxi- to this point, it is not your responsibility to pay the
mum deposits. By the end of the day, deposits had price for the Notre Dame admissions committee’s
hit the maximum number and admitted students failure to properly plan out their class,” wrote one
who had not yet sent in their $600 deposits were es- person on Reddit who said they had been admit-
sentially shut out. They were given the option to fill ted to the school but had not submitted a deposit in
out a “continued interest form” saying they are still time to secure a spot. “For hundreds of years, pres-
interested in enrolling if a seat opens up. Applicants tigious law schools have found a way to keep their
who submit that form will be ahead of those who class size reasonable without resorting to the abso-
were placed on the school’s official wait list for any lute, horrific nonsense that the Notre Dame admis-
available seats. sions committee has resorted to.”
The school said Wednesday that it was not yet The Law School Admission Council on Thursday
clear how many admitted students have filled out declined to comment on the Notre Dame situation,
continued interest form, and did not disclose the saying it doesn’t weigh in on the practices and poli-
number of admitted students who did not submit cies of individual members schools. But a spokes-
seat deposits in time. (It’s unlikely that the majority man pointed to the organization’s voluntary “State-
of those students would end up attending anyway. ment of Good Admission and Financial Aid Practic-
Notre Dame offered admission to 700 applicants last es.” Included is a fairness guideline that says: “ Law
year and ended up with a class of 155 first-year stu- school admission offices should strive to maintain
dents, meaning slightly more than 22% of admitted and maximize fairness to all applicants. Applicants
students actually enrolled.) should have the freedom to explore as many oppor-
Requiring seat deposits in the spring is a common tunities to pursue legal education as they choose.”
practice in law school, intended to spur applicants Figures provided by Notre Dame suggest that the
to choose between schools and give admissions of- admissions office took a conservative approach this
fices a better sense of who is likely to show up on cycle. The school offered admission to 630 appli-
campus in the fall. But requiring admitted students cants—down from a norm of about 700. But interest
to make such an important decision within the span among those admitted students was high. The school
of a day is stressful and unfair, wrote Law School said it regularly waives the $600 seat deposit when it
Transparency Executive Director Kyle McEntee and poses a financial hardship for admitted students.
law school admissions consultant Sydney Mont- “The purpose of the deposit is for students take
gomery in a post on Above the Law that first made the decision seriously, not to be a financial hurdle,”
the situation public. It shut out admitted students reads the law school’s statement. “If students contact
who weren’t monitoring their email over that six-
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