What's With the Application Decline Disparity in Pittsburgh?

The Pittsburgh Tribune has run its own story about the law school applications decline, which would be unremarkable except that buried deep a the bottom I found something interesting about the two local Pittsburgh schools:

Charmaine McCall, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid at the Pitt School of Law, said applications are down about 13 percent...

At Duquesne, Law School Dean Ken Gormley said applications declined "a couple of percentage points." The school's evening division might have helped keep the decline from being more dramatic, he said.

Both are located in Pittsburgh, and it's indisputable that Pitt is the more prestigious school. From lawschoolnumbers:

• Pitt = 158-161 LSAT (25-75); +5% bar passage.
• Duquesne = 151-154 LSAT (25-75); -11% bar passage.

So why would the application drop be steeper at Pitt than at Duquesne? If you're the Perez Hilton of the legal blogging community, you might try to finding a way to label applicants lazy. Or it also may be true that the Duquesne dean is lying; it's not like there isn't a track record of law school administrators glossing over statistics.

But what if the difference in declines is legitimate? That, despite Pitt being a "better" law school, less people want to go there?

Here is a rather quickly-drawn, late-night-can't-sleep hypothesis: Duquesne, as its dean noted, has an evening program that it advertises prominently. Pitt, so far as I can tell has no evening program. What if the dean was being refreshingly transparent and that evening applications are remaining constant while full-time day division applicants are actually dropping more than the reported 11.6% nationwide?

It makes sense on some level. Current undergraduates and other academics with no particular connection to the law are the weakest applicants in terms of desire; they merely want a job, and frankly any good career option would do. But working professionals already have a job. Many of them work in the legal sector and may be banking on their connections to spring back into the field as an attorney once they get their license. And in any event, if they maintain a full-time job while attending night school, the fear of unemployment shouldn't be expected to obstruct the applicant hell-bent on a J.D.

It's just a thought, but I find it an interesting one at that. If it's true and the gifted undergraduates are turning from the law while the harried professionals continue enrolling in the 2nd- and 3rd-tier programs that have evening divisions, I'm sure that reality will worry quite a few of the T-14 mandarins, especially if those evening students are using their current connections to secure work after graduation.

This would be a very interesting trend if true. Will possibly have to look into this further.