After years of dwindling interest in their field, law schools nationwide may see finally see more applicants this coming cycle, a recent study from Kaplan Test Prep has found. In the telephonic survey, approximately 88 percent of law school admissions officers from 120 schools predicted a rise in the number of applicants, according to Kaplan’s Sept. 22 press release.

Jeff Thomas, executive director of pre-law programs at Kaplan, said that these survey results are a cause for optimism, considering the historic drop in the number of law school applicants over the last few years.

“The number of applications for law school has been something that has been very closely watched,” Thomas said. He added that last year was the smallest incoming class of first-year students in 40 years.

When the recession hit in 2008, Thomas said, new college graduates struggled to find good, well-paying jobs. Instead, many decided to apply to law school to wait out the market. When this class of lawyers graduated, there was an excess of new attorneys in the workplace, again making it difficult to find jobs.

“People [started] seeing, ‘Oh look, all these new lawyers are having a really hard time finding jobs. Maybe now is not the time for me to go to law school,’” Thomas said. “So that’s why we started seeing the decline in applicants year after year after year as the legal marketplace [and] job marketplace sort of reshuffled a little.”

While there may be an increase in applications, however, it does not mean it would necessarily be a big one.

“I don’t necessarily think ‘spike’ means a big spike,” said Alicia Meehan, director of admissions at the Boston University School of Law. “I think people more likely think there will be a slight increase, and that’s a good sign compared to the decreases we had experienced before that.”

Hannah Chapel, a third-year law student at BU, graduated from Northwestern University in 2009, right in the middle of the recession.

“When I graduated from college … a lot of people went to law school because I think they didn’t know what else to do,” Chapel said.

According to the Law School Admission Council, in the 2013-2014 application cycle, 226 BU students applied to law school. The 2009-2010 cycle saw 417, illustrating the aforementioned big drop in applicants, said Kaplan spokesman Russell Schafer, in an email.

While this decline has plagued law schools throughout the United States, BU’s law school was not affected last year. In fact, 4,263 applications were received for the 2014-2015 application cycle — an increase from the year before.

Meehan believes the numbers will increase again this year.

“I am an optimist and based on the test-taker volume, we’re a very strong law school in a desirable city,” she said.

If the number of applications does rise, though, it does not mean that there will also be an increase in the number of acceptances.

“We’re already a very competitive law school that’s consistently ranked usually in the top 30, usually by U.S. News & World Report,” Meehan said. “So if our application volume increases [and] if the quality of applicants also increases, then we would likely become more competitive.”

With this proposed increase in applicants, Thomas said, this upcoming cycle will be much more competitive. And while law schools initially compensated for the spike in applicants by increasing their class sizes, it is unlikely that this will occur again for fear of oversupplying attorneys.

“It will be important for students to make sure they are putting together their very competitive and compelling applications with a high GPA [and] high LSAT score,” Thomas said, “because it’ll [be] a little bit tougher this year than last year to get noticed.”

With BU’s competitive nature in mind, Meehan added that the school’s faculty and programs are the main reasons why the School of Law is top-tier.

“Every year, our faculty is consistently ranked, usually by students, as the top one or two law faculties nationwide,” she said. “That’s usually by the Princeton Review. We’re consistently ranked top ten by U.S. News in healthcare law, intellectual property law and tax law.”

For anyone considering applying to law school, however, Thomas advised that applicants should focus more on themselves and their abilities than these statistics.

“One, if you’re planning to go to law school, don’t let facts sway you,” he said. “Two, be introspective about your decision to go. And three, put together a very compelling application.”