Of nearly 1,887 applicants for the 2000 entering class, U.W. Law School enrolled 270, or 14 percent of the original applicant pool. Projections for fall 2001 entrants show that the applications count will run about the same, with 255 as the targeted enrollment for first-year students. "The quality of the pool is increasing," notes assistant dean of admissions Beth Kransberger. "And with that come harder decisions to make."

The median LSAT score for 2000 entrants was 159; the median has vacillated from 157 to 159 over the last five years. For 2000, the 25th percentile LSAT score was 157, which is at the 75th percentile nationally. In other words, "the bottom quarter of our class is in the top quarter nationally of all law school applicants," explains Alta Charo, faculty member and admissions committee chair. Admitted students' GPAs also have nudged slightly upward: a 3.43 median for 2000, compared to 3.4 in 1993.

Besides grades and LSAT scores, the admissions committee weighs letters of recommendation, the trend in grades over the student's undergraduate years, the time interval between college and application to law school (evidence shows that at least a year between correlates with a stronger law school performance), the quality of the applicant's undergraduate college, work, or graduate school experience, and the quality of the spontaneous essay included in the LSAT.

Wisconsin residents made up 61 percent of last fall's entrants, down from the roughly 70 percent level maintained from 1993 to 1997. By contrast, residents make up only about one-third of the applicant pool. The law school's goal is to keep in-state enrollees in the 60-70 percent range, balancing the desire to attract highly qualified out-of-state residents against the mission, as a public law school, to serve state residents.

The average age of all students is 26, "but 52 percent of our entering students have been out of school for from one to 30 years," Kransberger says. "We have a critical number of folks who are either earning their J.D. to supplement what they're doing, or using it to go in a completely different direction professionally." Of 270 first-year students in fall 2000, 23 already had masters or Ph.D. degrees. Plus, Charo says she's seen a steady growth over the past 10 years in students who might be considered "nontraditional" students. "These are people with biology, chemistry, and engineering degrees," she says, "and also people who have unusual experiences, such as working abroad, or being involved in international human rights work. I've also seen a steady increase in people with multiple language skills."

With annual in-state tuition at $7,437 per year for fall 2000, U.W. Law School remains one of the least expensive state public law schools, according to Kransberger. Even so, graduates leave with an average school loan debt of more than $50,000. That becomes an issue in recruiting top-notch in-state students, Charo says. "Less interesting and diverse schools sometimes are able to steal some of the best people out of Wisconsin," she explains, "because they have bigger endowment funds. Is the school as rigorous or interesting? No. Will you get as good an education? No. Will you go there? Yes, because you can graduate without debt."

Still, the law school strives to "retain the best and brightest of Wisconsin residents," Kransberger says, "because that's good for the state. In the last three years, we've made a concerted effort to grow our applicant pool. And we've also tried to grow our merit scholarship dollars to address the issue of affordability."