“Where Can I Get In?” -- Updated March 2005

For most law school applicants, the search at this stage focuses on which law schools will take you. The starting point of this search is necessarily numerical.

Fortunately, this search has become easier than in the past.  Both the ABA/LSAC Guide to Law Schools and the USNews rankings now include the 75th and 25th percentile gpa and LSAT score for the entering class. If your own gpa and LSAT are above the 75th %ile numbers, you have an excellent chance of admission to that school.  (The top three schools -- Yale, Harvard, and Stanford -- are exceptions to this rule; these schools have virtually NO presumptive admit number.)  If one of your numbers is at the 75th %ile and the other at the 25th, you have a reasonable chance, and are not wasting your time applying. If both of your numbers are near the 25th %ile, you have no chance of gaining admission unless you have something else significant to offer the law school.

Many of you will use these numbers to generate false hope, or will see them as creating needless despair. The “secret” of law school admissions, as any admissions officer will tell you, is that the numbers are a starting point, not a final decision. The trick is to figure out why some people are accepted and others rejected.

Law schools attempt to tell you about the other factors they consider significant. By reading their catalogs and the admissions information they publish in the Official Guide, you can make some good guesses about your personal chance of admissions. Another good source of info is this web site. Read the sections on the Admissions Process, Diversity, and Academic Factors to see whether you can offer the law schools the “something more” that makes the difference between acceptance and rejection.

With the above caveats, I’m including the chart below of Grade/LSAT ratios (GLR’S), and the probable presumptive admit and deny numbers. For schools that did not give index formulas in the current LSDAS handout, I used old formulas where available. If a school has not published an index formula since 1997, I used the average GLR of 10. The single exception is Harvard. I used the GLR of 20 mentioned in the book “How to Get Into Harvard Law School.”

NOTE that this chart is not intuitive; the only way to make the chart meaningful is to multiply your gpa by the GLR, then add your LSAT score. Compare the results to those published here to see how you fare.  

The data reported here is from 2003, a year of record high applications.  

"Where Can I Get In?" -- Part Two

The chart below answers this question.  It includes every ABA-approved law school in the mainland U.S.  Note that this does not represent the school's medians, but the grades and LSAT at which they accept roughly half of all applicants. These numbers will be near the medians for schools that compete with a large number of others for their students; for schools in less competitive environments, these numbers may be well below the medians.  

This chart was revised in 2005 to reflect data collected at the 2004 Law Forums  

	3.8-4.0+	3.6-3.79	3.4-3.59	3.2-3.39	3.0-3.19	2.80-2.99	2.5-2.79
172-3	Yale			50% Acceptance Rates for Mainstream Applicants at all ABA-approved U.S. Law Schools Copyright © 2005 DeLoggio Achievement Program.				172-3
170-1	Harvard	Columbia NYU						170-1
168-9	Stanford Berkeley	Chicago Duke Georgetown Northwestern Penn						168-9
166-7	Virginia	Boston Coll. UCLA Cornell Michigan Southern Cal. Wash & Lee	Illinois					166-7
164-5		G. Mason G.Washington N. Carolina Notre Dame Texas Vanderbilt Washington	Baylor Boston U Fordham Wash. U Wm & Mary					164-5
162-3		Brigham Young Minnesota	Arizona UC Hastings Colorado Emory Georgia Iowa	Alabama Cardozo IU-Bloomington San Diego	This chart may be reproduced exactly as is, including all logos and copyright information, and freely distributed. It may not be modified, sold or included in any materials for which there is a fee. Compiled from data published in  the ABA/LSAC Official Guide to Law Schools. 2005 ed. , and by interview data collected at the 2004 Law Forums.			162-3
160-1			American Arizona St. UC Davis Cincinnati Florida Houston Maryland Ohio St. S’n.Methodist Utah Wisconsin	Brooklyn Connecticut Loyola-Chicago Loyola - L.A. Richmond Wake Forest				160-1
158-9			Denver Hawaii Kentucky MO-Columbia Oregon Pepperdine St. Louis Santa Clara S. Carolina Temple Tennessee	Case Western Georgia St. Lewis & Clark Miami New Mexico Northeastern Rutgers- Camden Rutgers-Newark St. John’s San Fran. Tulane Villanova	Catholic Chicago-Kent Maine Pittsburgh Seton Hall			158-9
156-7			Florida St. Kansas Louisville Oklahoma	DePaul	C.U.N.Y. Hofstra IU Indianapolis Marquette Stetson Suffolk Wyoming			156-7
	3.8-4.0+	3.6-3.79	3.4-3.59	3.2-3.39	3.0-3.19	2.80-2.99	2.5-2.79
154-5			Mississippi Montana Nebraska Texas Tech	Ark.-Fayetteville Ark.-Little Rock Buffalo (SUNY) Memphis Mercer U.N.L.V. Penn State Seattle Tex.Wesleyan Wayne St.	Akron Campbell Golden Gate Louisiana St. N. Illinois Pace Southwestern Syracuse Toledo Valparaiso Willamette	N.Y.L.S. Pacific Samford Touro Vermont		154-5
152-3			Idaho	Duquesne N. Dakota W. Virginia	Baltimore Cal. Western Gonzaga Loyola - New Orleans Thos.Jefferson Wm. Mitchell	Chapman Dayton Drake FranklinPierce Howard J. Marshall(IL) N. Kentucky Quinnipiac Regent		152-3
150-1	The law schools on this chart accepted roughly 50% of the applicants with the grades and LSAT scores in the box indicated. Most of the schools could have been placed in several boxes; the location above is representative, but not exclusive. This chart applies  only to mainstream applicants. Nontraditional applicants and minorities should consult the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of our web site.				Albany Capital Creighton Hamline MO-KansasCity St.Thomas(MN) S. Illinois Tulsa Washburn	Cleveland St. Michigan St. New England Nova Roger Wms. St. Mary’s S. Texas		150-1
148-9					Ave Maria Ohio Northern S. Dakota	Barry Detroit Mercy District of Columbia F.A.M.U. Miss. College W.New England Whittier Widener	Fla. Coastal Okla. City	148-9
146-7				N.C. Central			Appalachian St.Thomas(FL)	146-7
144-5							J.Marshall(GA) Southern Tex.Southern Thos. Cooley	144-5
	3.8-4.0+	3.6-3.79	3.4-3.59	3.2-3.39	3.0-3.19	2.80-2.99	2.5-2.79