Seniors applying to law school this year found that getting in was much more difficult than they expected.

Across the nation, more students applied to law schools this year than in past years, with many law schools reporting record numbers of applications, admissions officials say.

Stanford Law School Assistant Director of Admissions Margery Savoye says that most law schools nationwide saw a surge in interest. "Everybody's up, good schools, bad schools, public institutions and private institutions," Savoye says.

Harvard Law School this year received more applications than it has since 1982. Approximately 7000 students applied to the Law School this year, up from 5000 last year, according to N. June Thompson, director of placement and assistant director of admissions. The Law School generally accepts 800 students in an effort to generate a first-year class of 540 students, Thompson says.

Not only were there more applicants, but many of them were of a higher caliber, some admissions officers say.

The number of would-be law students who had high grades in college and top scores on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) has risen disproportionately, making the applicant pool especially strong and competitive, some officials say.

"The number of people with 42 or above on the [LSAT] test had increased 32 percent for us," says Richard I. Badger, assistant dean and dean of students at the University of Chicago Law School. The highest possible score on the LSAT is 48.

For Harvard seniors applying to law schools, the surge in applications led to stiffer competition for the available slots, says Dina Rakoff, pre-law adviser for Harvard's Office of Career Services (OCS).

"There have been some surprises," Rakoff says. "People have been put on hold or turned down, people whom we would have expected to get accepted."

Although applications are up everywhere, officials say that no one is sure why so many more people are interested in law school and applied this year.

"One possible guess is that the investment banking world does not look as attractive as the year before," says Harvard Law School Dean James Vorenberg '49. "Perhaps the possibility of being a lawyer for the government looks like a more interesting possibility. Some people say it is because of [the television show] L.A. Law. The honest answer at the moment is that we don't know."

Savoye attributed the rise in Stanford applications to the same factors, saying, "L.A. Law, [the stock market crash on] October 19 and all of the interest in the Bork and Ginsburg [Supreme Court confirmation] hearings made students more interested in the legal profession."

Badger, however, says, "No one is in a position to draw a causal relationship. There's no way to know."