Admissions Calculators
The below sites allow students to input their LSAT score and GPA and receive estimates of how likely they are to be admitted to every single law school in the country. While there is of course room for error and uncertainty, these calculators are in general very accurate. Two helpful ways to use these calculators are:
1. Input your GPA and a variety of LSAT scores so you can see how well you need to to do get into your target schools.
2. Use your GPA and official LSAT scores to identify Reach, Target, and Safety schools when applying.
Official LSAC Law School Admissions Likelihood Search
Evaluating Law Schools
Not all law schools are created equal. While traditional law school rankings (via US News and World Report) can give students some information about the relative quality of law schools, rankings contain a high degree of subjectivity and do not capture the most important factors for applicants deciding what schools to apply to. The questions that students should be asking when deciding whether to apply to a law school are:
- If I go to this law school, will I pass the bar?
- If I go to this law school, will I get a job?
- Will I get the type of job that I want? Will I get a job in the city or region that I want? Will I get the type of legal job that I want?
There are, unfortunately, some law schools that are more than happy to admit a student, but who do not have a strong record of their graduates passing the bar or getting legal jobs. One of the worst outcomes for a pre-law student is to attend a law school, but never actually get to be a lawyer. There are some schools where this is the most likely outcome for their graduates.
In other words, there are some law schools where less than 50% of their graduates go on to become full time lawyers… but this is not something they’ll advertise!
Before you give a law school your time and money, use the below websites to investigate their objective, real-world data. LawSchoolTransparency and LawSchoolNumbers track the data of law school applicants and graduates, and accurately report how well law schools are doing for their graduates.
Ask yourself: How many of their graduates pass the bar? How many get full time legal jobs? Are those odds you are willing to bet 3 years of your life and $100,000 or more on?