Law school applications are up across the country, with nearly 20% more applicants competing for a seat in the class of 2028. But law school leaders and deans aren’t quite sure why.

More residents in the Northeast, Mid-south, and Pacific Northwest regions are applying to law school, according to data gathered and updated daily by the Law School Admissions council, with the highest number of applicants in the country coming from the northeast, defined as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.

Meanwhile, Law schools based in the Northeast and in the Mid-south, defined by the LSAC as Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, are seeing the lion’s share of applications, with schools in both regions collectively seeing over 60,000 applications. Total application numbers across the country are up by 23.5% as of February 6, The LSAC also notes that by this time last year, data gathered accounted for 64% of total applicants and 67% of total application volume.