Revisiting the Market for Transfer Students Based upon the 2016 Standard 509 Reports

This blog posting updates my blog postings of December 2014 and December 2015 regarding what we know about the transfer market. With the release of the 2016 Standard 509 Reports, we know have three years of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF TRANSFERS – 2011-2016

The number of transfers dropped to 1749 in 2016, down from 1,979 in 2015, and from 2,187 in 2014 and 2,501 in 2013. The percentage of the previous fall’s entering class that engaged in the transfer market also dropped to 4.6%, the lowest it has been since 2011. In other words, there is no reason to believe the transfer market is “growing” as a general matter. It has been consistently in the 4.6% to 5.6% range for the last six years.

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Number of Transfers	2427	2438	2501	2187	1979	1749
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	52,500	48,700	44,500	39700	38600	37900
%   of Previous First-Year Total	4.6%	5%	5.6%	5.5%	5.2%	4.6%

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

The following two charts list the top 15 law schools participating in the transfer market in descending order in Summer 2014 (fall 2013 entering class), Summer 2015 (fall 2014 entering class), and Summer 2016 (fall 2015 entering class). One chart is based on “numbers” of transfers and the other chart is based on the number of transfer students as a percentage of the prior year’s first year class.

Note that in these two charts, the “repeat players” are bolded – those schools in the top 15 for all three years are in black, those schools in the top 15 for two of the three years are in blue.   Ten of the top 15 have been on the list all three years. The top six for 2016 have had pretty consistent transfers numbers for each of the last three years.

Largest Law Schools by Number of Transfers from 2013-2015

School	Number in 2014	School	Number in 2015		Number in 2016
Georgetown	113	Georgetown	110	Georgetown	111
George Wash.	97	George Wash.	109	George Wash	106
Arizona St.	66	Arizona St.	65	Arizona St.	66
Idaho	57	Harvard	55	Columbia	50
Cal. Berkeley	55	Emory	51	Emory	49
NYU	53	NYU	51	UCLA	43
Emory	50	Cal. Berkeley	49	Loyola Marymount	43
Columbia	46	Rutgers	45	NYU	43
American	44	Columbia	44	Florida	36
UCLA	44	Miami	44	Houston	36
Wash. Univ.	44	UCLA	43	Harvard	35
Texas	43	Texas	37	Cal. Berkeley	33
Minnesota	37	American	33	Miami	31
Northwestern	35	Florida St.	32	American	30
Harvard	33	Minnesota	31	Florida St.	30
	817		799		741
	37.4%		40.4%		42.3%

Largest Law Schools by Transfers as a Percentage of Previous First Year Class - 2014-2016

School	% 2014	School	% 2015	School	% 2016
Arizona State	51.6	Arizona State	45.5	Arizona State	30.3
Idaho	51.4	Emory	22.9	George Wash.	21.6
Washington Univ.	23.3	George Wash.	20.2	Emory	20.9
Emory	22.9	Miami	19.2	Georgetown	19.3
Georgetown	20.8	Georgetown	19	Florida St.	17.1
George Wash.	20.2	Cal. Berkeley	17.9	Houston	16.7
Cal. Berkeley	19.4	Florida St.	17	Loyola Marymount	16.0
Florida St.	18.2	Florida Int’l	16.7	Southern Cal	14.7
Rutgers – Camden	17.1	Minnesota	16.1	UCLA	14.7
Southern Cal.	17.1	Utah	16	UNLV	14.2
Minnesota	16.7	UNLV	14.3	Columbia	12.9
Utah	15.9	UCLA	13.7	SMU	12.0
Northwestern	15.3	Texas	12.3	Northwestern	11.8
UCLA	15	Chicago	12.1	Florida Int’l	11.8
Seton Hall	14.5	Rutgers	12.1	Florida	11.6

Interestingly, the number of law schools welcoming transfers representing more than 20% of their first-year class has fallen from nine in 2013 (not shown), to six in 2014, then to only three in 2015 and 2016.

Nonetheless, as shown in the following chart, we are continuing to see a modest increase in concentration in the transfer market between 2011 and 2016 as the ten law schools with the most students transferring in captured an increasing share of the transfer market, from 23.5% in 2011 to 33.3% in 2016. 

Top Ten Law Schools as a Percentage of All Transfers

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Total Transfers	2427	2438	2501	2187	1979	1749
Transfers to 10 Law Schools with Most Transfers	570	587	724	625	623	583
Transfers to 10 Law Schools with Most Transfers as % of Total Transfers	23.5%	24.1%	28.9%	28.6%	31.5%	33.3%

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL MARKETS

Starting in 2014, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar began collecting and requiring law schools with more than twelve transfers in to report not only the number of students who have transferred in, but also the law schools from which they came (indicating the number from each law school) along with the 75%, 50% and 25% first-year, law school GPAs of the students who transferred in. This allows us to look at where students are coming from and are going to and to look at the first-year GPA profile of students transferring in to different law schools. The following chart focuses on the ten law schools that have been among the top-15 in terms of transfers in for each of the last three years, presented in descending USNews ranking. It indicates the extent to which these law schools were attracting transfers from their geographic region and also identifies the law school(s) that provided the largest number of transfers to each listed law school in 2016 as well as the percentage of transfers that came from that school.

Percentage of Transfers from Within Geographic Region 2014-2016 and Top Feeder School(s) for 2016 at the Ten Law Schools Among the Top-15 for Transfers in 2014, 2015 and 2016

School	# of Transfers 2014/2015/2016	Region	Regional # of Transfers 14/15/16	Regional % of Transfers 14/15/16	School from Which Largest Number of Transfers Came in 2016	#/% of Transfers from Largest School 2016
Harvard	33/55/35	NE	6/15/13	18/27/37	GWU	3/9%
Columbia	46/44/50	NE	19/19/24	41/43/48	Fordham	6/13%
NYU	50/51/43	NE	20/15/16	40/29/37	Fordham/GWU	6/14%
Berkeley	55/49/33	CA	43/29/22	78/59/67	Santa Clara	5/15%
Georgetown	113/110/111	Mid-Atl	49/43/36	43/39/32	John Marshall	10/9%
UCLA	44/43/43	CA	31/26/25	70/60/58	Pepperdine/GWU	7/16%
Emory	53/51/49	SE	40/31/25	75/61/51	Atlanta’s   John Marshall	11/22%
GWU	97/109/106	Mid-Atl	78/70/77	80/64/73	American	51/48%
Arizona St.	66/65/66	SW	51/48/57	77/74/86	Arizona Summit	48/73%
American	44/33/30	Mid-Atl	14/6/10	32/18/33	Univ. Dist. Col.	6/20%

For these top 10 law schools for transfer students in 2016, five law schools (Berkeley, UCLA, Emory, George Washington and Arizona State) obtained most of their transfers (51% or more) from within the geographic region within which the law school is located during each of the last three years. On the other hand, five law schools (Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown and American) had fewer than 49% of their transfers from within the region in which they are located in each of the last three years. 

Moreover, two of the ten law schools had a significant percentage of their transfers from one particular feeder school.  For George Washington, roughly 48% of its transfers came from American University, while for Arizona State, 73% of its transfers came from Arizona Summit.

The chart below shows the tiers of law schools from which these 10 law schools in the transfer market received their transfer students.  Five of the ten law schools that consistently have high numbers of transfers are ranked in the top 15 in USNews, while nine of the ten are ranked in the top 25. Only five had 75% or more of their transfers from schools ranked between 1 and 99 in the USNews rankings – Harvard, Columbia, NYU, UCLA and George Washington.  Two additional schools, Berkeley and Georgetown, had at least 50% of their transfers from law schools ranked between 1 and 99.  The remaining two law schools ranked in the top 25 in USNews (Emory and Arizona State), along with American, had at least half of their transfer students from law schools ranked 100 or lower, with two of those law schools (Arizona State and American) having 85% or more of their transfers from law schools ranked 100 or lower. 

 Percentage of Transfers from Different Tiers of School(s) for 2014, 2015 and 2016 at the Ten Law Schools Among the Top-15 for Transfers in 2014, 2015 and 2016

(Bolded data indicates the modal response for each law school.)

	# of Trans 14/15/16	Top 50 # --------- % 14/15/16		51-99 # ------- % 14/15/16		100-200 # ------- % 14/15/16
Harvard	33/55/35	23/41/28	70/75/80	10/13/7	30/24/20	0/1/0	0/2/0
Columbia	46/44/50	29/30/33	63/68/67	14/10/16	30/23/33	3/4/1	7/9/2
NYU	50/51/43	41/40/35	82/78/81	7/10/8	14/20	2/1/0	4/2/0
Berkeley	55/49/33	17/15/11	31/31/33	27/26/8	49/53/24	11/8/14	20/16/42
Georgetown	113/110/111	27/30/32	24/27/29	38/30/41	34/27/37	48/50/38	42/45/34
UCLA	44/43/43	15/15/18	34/35/41	23/23/21	52/53/49	6/5/4	14/12/10
Emory	53/51/49	3/5/3	6/10/6	7/8/17	13/16/35	43/38/29	81/75/59
GWU	97/109/106	13/21/15	13/19/14	73/63/68	75/58/64	11/25/23	11/23/22
Arizona St.	66/65/66	4/0/3	6/0/5	5/6/7	8/9/11	57/59/56	86/91/85
American	44/33/30	2/0/0	5/0/0	14/1/2	32/3/7	28/32/28	64/97/93

If one focuses just on the reported GPAs from these ten schools, one quickly sees that the six law schools ranked in the USNews top-20 have a 50th GPA for transfers in 2016 that is a 3.6 or above (except for UCLA at 3.56), and a 25^th GPA of 3.52 and above (except for NYU at 3.41). Once you drop out of the top-20, however, the other four law schools have a 75^th GPA that drops below 3.5, a 50^th GPA that drops below 3.3, and a 25^th GPA that drops below 3.05 for three of the four law schools. Harvard clearly is accepting transfers who could have been admitted to Harvard in the first instance. While they make a less compelling case, Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Georgetown and UCLA likely are accepting transfers whose entering credentials largely would have made them possible candidates for acceptance at those law schools. By contrast, Emory, George Washington, Arizona State and American are welcoming as transfers students whose entering credentials likely are sufficiently distinct from each of those law schools’ entering class credentials that the transfers they are admitting would not have been admitted as first-year students in the prior year.

First-Year Law School 75^th/50^th/25^th GPA of Transfers at the Ten Law Schools Among the Top-15 for Transfers in 2014, 2015 and 2016

	GPA 75th	GPA 50th	GPA 25th
	14/15/16	14/15/16	14/15/16
Harvard	3.95/3.98/4.0	3.9/3.92/3.94	3.83/3.85/3.88
Columbia	3.81/3.82/3.84	3.75/3.76/3.71	3.69/3.66/3.6
NYU	3.74/3.76/3.72	3.62/3.68/3	3.47/3.52/3.41
Berkeley	3.9/3.87/3.92	3.75/3.81/3.8	3.68/3.69/3.75
Georgetown	3.77/3.77/3.76	3.67/3.66/3.63	3.55/3.59/3.54
UCLA	3.73/3.7/3.67	3.58/3.58/3.56	3.44/3.46/3.52
Emory	3.42/3.45/3.41	3.27/3.3/3.16	2.93/3.06/3.02
GWU	3.53/3.46/3.45	3.35/3.32/3.26	3.21/3.15/3.14
Arizona St.	3.51/3.5/3.4	3.23/3.17/3.09	2.97/2.95/2.96
American	3.25/3.04/3.17	2.94/2.89/2.99	2.78/2.74/2.81

STILL MANY UNKNOWNS

As I noted in each of the last two years, the more detailed transfer data that law schools are now required to publish should be very helpful to prospective law students and pre-law advisors, and to current law students who are considering transferring.  The more detailed data give them a better idea of what transfer opportunities might be available depending upon where they go to law school (or are presently enrolled as a first-year student).

Even with this more granular data now available, however, there still are a significant number of unknowns relating to transfer students, regarding gender and ethnicity of transfer students and regarding performance of transfers students at their new law school (both academically and in terms of bar passage and employment).