This week’s focus is on law school applicants who are not applying this cycle, but are beginning to think about applying for fall 2016 or fall 2017 admission. These applicants would be submitting their applications starting in October 2015 and October 2016, respectively.

As regular readers of this blog know, I think it’s never too early to start thinking about the admissions process. In this week’s post, we will highlight the first steps an applicant can take in beginning the application process: brainstorming a list of potential law schools.

There are several criteria you should consider as you narrow your list of prospective schools from the more than 200 law schools approved by the American Bar Association to 30 or so potential schools. I generally recommend that students apply to 10 to 15 schools. So once you have created a larger, preliminary list, you will later want to further narrow the list to only include the schools to which you will ultimately submit applications.

Get [advice on applying to the right number of law schools.]

1. Evaluate your current undergraduate GPA and LSAT score: These numbers are the most important criteria in terms of estimating chances of admission at a given school. When submitting applications is still a year or two away, many future applicants have incomplete GPAs and many have not yet taken the LSAT. In this situation, you should try to get a ballpark sense of the ranges you expect for each of those important numbers.

If you are out of college, your GPA will not change. If you are still in college, your GPA may change but you’re still likely in a position where at least half your undergraduate grades have already been submitted. This should allow you to get a pretty good sense of where you will be when you graduate.

I encourage future applicants to be cautiously optimistic when estimating their final GPAs. Plan on being strategic in increasing your GPA by taking courses that are on the easier side or play to your strengths, but don’t expect to get straight A’s.

Regarding the LSAT, if you haven’t taken the test already, you’ll have a difficult time getting a sense of where you’ll end up scoring.

Absent either or both of these concrete numbers, I recommend choosing approximately 10 schools from each of three tiers of law schools: schools ranked in the top 20, schools ranked in the top 21-50 and schools ranked below the top 50. This will give you a group from which to make your decision regardless of your final LSAT and GPA results.

2. Determine your desired school location: This can be a significantly restricting factor for future applicants who know where they want to live and practice law after graduating. If you know you want to practice law in Arizona, your best bet is to apply to some combination of top-tier schools whose graduates are competitive for jobs across the country as well as schools in Arizona that have strong alumni networks in-state.

If you know you want to practice law in a specific state, you may also create a list from schools entirely in that state. Some states, however, such as Connecticut, draw heavily from schools from the Boston and New York areas. For smaller states with fewer law schools, look to any bordering states as well when compiling your list.

Applicants who do not have a strong geographical preference have much more latitude and should think about other geographical factors, such as whether they want to live in a city or a smaller town during law school. It’s also important to consider what kind of clinical or extracurricular work you want to engage in during law school.

These factors will often help you understand which schools you should look into further and which schools are not worth your time further pursuing.

3. Ponder your career goals: A final criterion to consider is the type of law you wish to practice. Many schools have particularly strong programs in certain areas of law, and if you know you want to practice that area, you should compile a list of schools that focus on that area.

Find out [ways to craft a successful application to a top law school.]

For example, an applicant who knows that she wants to do tax law should strongly consider Georgetown University and New York University, because they have two of the strongest programs in the country. In addition, understanding the most common career paths of recent graduates will help you further narrow your search.

If you don’t know what type of law you’re planning on practicing, your best bet is to compile a list that includes schools that have solid broader programs. This would include programs like corporate law, clinical law and public interest law, as these are not as focused on a single practice area like tax or environmental law.

Remember that you should begin by casting a wide net. Trying to explore a huge number of schools in greater depth can be overwhelming, but narrowing your initial list to approximately 30 schools enables you to do some meaningful preliminary research on each school.