Roadmap to Enrolling Diverse Law School Classes - Volume 3: Assessing Recruitment Efforts

Law schools expend extensive resources on initiatives aimed at engaging prospective students from underrepresented backgrounds. Still, many law schools struggle to admit and matriculate critical masses of underrepresented students. Efforts are vital, but they must be tied to results. Assessing the impact of efforts to increase diversity is critical to achieving diversity goals and to ensuring that resources are expended efficiently.

Law school recruitment takes many forms, for instance, recruiting students prior to admission with the hope that they will apply and recruiting students after they have been offered admission with the hope that they will enroll. These efforts take place over extended periods of time, sometimes years, and can involve extensive coordination, effort and expense.

Below are examples of recruitment strategies and activities that law schools commonly undertake:

• Admission/scholarship interviews
• Application fee waivers
• Decision letters (e.g., admission offer, scholarship awards)
• General correspondence: emails, letters, phone calls
• Information sessions
• Law school fair participation
• Open house events (for prospects and/or admitted applicants)
• Outreach by students and alumni
• Scholarships and grants
• Travel/visit stipends

The purpose of this third volume of the Roadmap to Enrolling Diverse Law School Classes series is to provide law schools with methods for assessing the quality and effectiveness of recruitment efforts aimed at increasing the enrollment of underrepresented students.