From Aspirations to Game Plan: LSAC and AALS Collaborate to Study What Undergrads Aspire to Do After Graduation—and What They’re Doing About It

Дата публикации: 12-05-2026 00:00:00

By Elizabeth Bodamer At LSAC, we often hear from future lawyers that the path to law school can be daunting — especially early on. “My journey to law school has been filled with trial and error,” one LSAT taker told us. “I started this journey alone in 2017, lacking the help, guidance, and knowledge needed. I made mistakes along the way but tried to learn as much as possible to achieve my goal of getting accepted into law school.”While making mistakes can be an important part of learning, too often those mistakes reflect a lack of access to timely, reliable guidance. To truly support students on the path to law school, LSAC and other stakeholders must better understand what students are thinking, feeling, and doing, especially at earlier stages of the journey. Strengthening this understanding is essential to reducing barriers, expanding opportunity, and ensuring that talent is not lost due to gaps in information or support.LSAC and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) are partnering on the recently-announced Before the JD II study, to examine undergraduate students’ decisions about their future careers and postgraduate education. This new study builds on the original Before the JD study , which was conducted by AALS almost a decade ago, at a time when law school application numbers were in decline.By contrast, applicant volumes have hit record highs in the past two admission cycles and are set to remain high for the current cycle; accordingly, the 2025 1L class was the largest since 2012.This study, though, is about more than legal education because it comes amid a period of social, economic, political, technological, and cultural change. We believe these findings will significantly contribute to broader conversations about how higher education fits that shifting landscape.[1] Students face varied academic experiences and disparate levels of access to resources and networks. How are their career aspirations affected by these differences? The answers to that question can give undergraduate institutions, employers, graduate programs, and stakeholders valuable insights to inform decisions on what they need to better allocate resources, support, and interventions to ensure student success.[2]Specifically, we envision producing actionable data that can be used by:  Undergraduate institutions to inform how they fund and staff their programs and campuses to best prepare students for success, strengthening the value of their education  Law and graduate program deans and faculty to explore how to better partner with undergraduate institutions to strengthen pathways to law and graduate school, and how to improve recruiting of new school classes   Higher education and career stakeholders, including pathway programs and prelaw, pre-professional, academic, and career advisors, to better inform how they can effectively support potential law and/or graduate students and bridge resources, information, and opportunity gaps in higher education   At its core, this study is grounded in LSAC’s mission to support students on their journey to law school and to strengthen the legal community. While we have learned a great deal about students who ultimately choose to pursue legal education, we are eager to learn more about the decision-making process and skills development that leads them there.[3]For example, across recent LSAT test takers, applicants, and 1L students, about one-third report first thinking about law school during college. This clearly identifies undergraduate education as a critical intervention point for supporting and developing students as they consider their next steps, whether that means entering the workforce or applying to law school.[4]We look forward to sharing the findings of the Before the JD II study by the end of 2027. [1] Among other shifts, changes have been made to the use of race in admissions decision-making; new federal loan limits take effect July 1, 2026; some institutions are freezing graduate program admission; and some universities are cutting back programs . [2] To learn more about the value of higher education and employment, read Aligning Education and Work: What Employers Say Higher Education Must Deliver (PDF) .[3] Learn more from LSAC’s Applied Research reports by checking out LSAC's Research Library. [4] For more information, check out these LSAC Applied Research reports on LSAT takers, applicants, and 1L students. 

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