“I see a lot of anxiety,” says Director of the Harvard Pre-Law Society Travis G. Good ’04, who is also a Crimson editor. “There are...people biting the bullet and applying now just to see if they’ll get in, especially advanced standing juniors. They’re anxious and uncertain, and they want to get it over with, especially with the unpredictable job market.”

Good cites the declining economy as a primary cause of the increase in applicants among Harvard students.

“People who were originally considering computer science, I-banking or consulting are applying to law school just to see if they’ll get in, treating that as a fall-back position,” says Good. “It’s a trend that will continue as long as the economy continues to under perform.”

Law school applicants who originally planned to enter the workforce immediately after graduation now find themselves facing a daunting admissions process.

“I can see how those students who are deciding on law school as a last resort will be very stressed,” said Gretchen R. Passe ’03, a senior who has already been accepted at Georgetown Law Center. “They often don’t have the application that shows they were interested in law school.”

Some students cite a decline of the dot-com mentality that tempted graduates to skip graduate school.

Law advisors say they are stressing the importance of taking time off after college for personal enrichment and to enhance the chance of gaining admission to a top law school.

“We’ve always urged people to take a year or two off, and given the competitiveness of this year, it makes even more sense,” says Binaifer T. Nowrojee ’93, the chair of the pre-law committee in Lowell House.

Not So Bad?

Despite record numbers of applications, though, some law school admissions deans remain skeptical about any major impact on their standards.

“I don’t notice any appreciable difference in the top cut of people who are applying here,” says James A. Thomas, associate dean of Yale Law School. “Our top is still as thick as it’s always been.”

According to the law school admissions grids, a record of Harvard College law school applicants, Yale has admitted roughly 20 percent of Harvard applicants throughout the last decade.

Officials at Harvard Law School (HLS) say they are reluctant to reveal estimates of the percentages of Harvard applicants who are admitted each year.

“It’s pretty hard to be much harder than we are, and I don’t expect dramatic changes,” says HLS Assistant Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid Joyce P. Curll ’65. “We’re already at a fairly astronomical level. ”

According to the law school admission grids, the number of Harvard applicants admitted by HLS has varied between 30 and almost 50 percent per year in the past decade.