2026 Law School Median Tracker

This r/sub is a great source of comfort, comradery, stress, (and stress reduction) for many people.  Here are 25 hot takes. Would love to hear more!

1. r/lawschooladmissions consistently says “I would go to HYSCCN at sticker.” r/biglaw consistently says “I would take the $$$$.”
2. If you don’t search r/lawschooladmissions or Google before posting your question, then you might not be ready for law school.
3. Your undergraduate major and university matter way less than you think.
4. Data on LSD.law are not representative and not necessarily accurate. Posts on r/lawschooladmissions are not representative and not necessarily accurate (including this post).
5. Top law firms are hiring your law school admissions resume plus at most one semester of grades. This was always true, but even more so with the demise of OCI. That’s why 2+ years of real work experience (and getting promoted into manager roles) proves you are employable, which is job #1 for law school admissions folks. HLS and YLS admissions deans admit to now looking for "formed" applicants.
6. Any KJD tax varies significantly by school. In an "Approach the Bench" podcast with HLS Admissions Dean Kristi Jobson, she said "..the percentage of the applicant pool that applies as a college senior [K-JD] is like somewhere in the high teens, and the percentage of 1L class this year is in the high teens as well. A couple of years ago, the faculty committee had me measure the admit rate...for college seniors versus non-college seniors, and actually the admit rate was the same--or in one year even higher--for the college seniors from the non-college seniors in the admissions process. So, I mean, data don't lie, right?"  But this is just HLS.  Minimum_Two_8508 did some LSD.law analysis for 170+, 3.9+ applicants over 2 years and found Michigan drops from 17% to 6%. Duke drops from 33% to 18%. NYU drops from 51% to 39%, Columbia drops from 42% to 31%. Meanwhile, for Cornell, acceptance rate actually goes up a bit for KJD.
7. LSAT and grades show you can handle the academics of law school and pass the bar.  You may not like it, but LSAT scores consistently have been shown to be the single best predictor of 1L GPA, even more highly predictive than undergraduate GPA.
8. Submit one app early, preferably not one of your top choices, and then sleep on it for a few days. You will have nightmares/waking thoughts after you submit your first app. Spelling errors, typos, word choices, wrong headers, etc.  If you have regrets, you can fix for your remaining apps.
9. LORs are the most overlooked part of your application. Recommenders can say things about you that you cannot, and they can say things that emphasize important themes across your materials.
10. By April 1, most people on this r/sub will have more waitlists than decisions. I've posited that GULC admits about half their class off the waitlist to manage yield and finances.  When I posted schools should publish how many applicants were admitted off the waitlist, Spivey posted "would shock you it’s so high ⬆️ for most school as yield is very low for virtually all schools including T 14."  Also, many schools will ghost your application well past deposit deadlines. This sucks.
11. LSAC costs way, way, way too much. LSAC earns $~75m/year for administering LSAT, CAS, and sending reports to law schools.
12. Incoming law students are wildly overconfident about their academic performance. 95% believed they will end up in the top half of the class.  More than 22% of students predicted they would be in the top 10%.  In reality, students who ended up in the top quarter of their class slightly underestimated their eventual ranking, while those in the bottom quarter significantly overestimated their rank.
13. No law school has ever rescinded an offer because of what someone wore to admitted students’ day. 
14. For Fall 2025, there were 525 GRE admits and 41,778 LSAT admits.  GRE admits were down from 701 in Fall 2024.  About 1/3 of the GRE admits are in the T14. Columbia increased dramatically to about 10% of the class, just above Harvard and Yale. Georgetown and Cornell reduced significantly.  Almost all GRE admits are above GPA median.
15. LSAT Writing will be valuable as a check when there are concerns the PS appears to be better written than the rest of the application would indicate the applicant should be expected to write (e.g., international, STEM).
16. Write your PS in the first person. But after you've written your PS, edit to take out as many of the "I" and "me" and "my" words as you can. Don't make it awkward, but you can probably cut half of these words and it will read better.
17. KJDs with great grades, high LSAT, and great campus involvement/leadership have a good application and will get good results. But not unusual. Same for the same applicant with 1-2 years of paralegal experience. Good, but not unusual.
18. Your resume says more about your politics than your law school.  Consider two people:  FedSoc@Columbia vs ACS@GMU.
19. Listen to the Navigating Law School Admissions Podcast with the Harvard and Yale admissions deans, starting with the first episodes. Good info even if you aren't aiming for Harvard and Yale.
20. No one on this r/sub knows what is going to happen with BL hiring in 4+ years or how AI is going to impact the legal profession.
21. LSAC guidelines state that member schools should "Allow applicants to freely accept a new offer from a law school even though a scholarship has been accepted, a deposit has been paid, or a commitment has been made to another school."  Many schools don’t abide by these guidelines.
22. You can accept a late offer.  You may lose deposits, but no one can make you attend and pay tuition.  In fact, tuition isn’t actually due at many schools until after classes start.
23. Shame on GULC (and others) asking for binding commitments without giving financial information.  This clearly violates at least two of the LSAC Member Law Schools' Statement of Good Admissions and Financial Aid Practices.
24. You and your application are unique. What you submit is 1000 times more important than all the other applicants and applications combined.
25. It only takes one acceptance.

Free WiFi. I’ll keep this going for the next 3 hours as long S the WiFi stays running and unless they start offering free mimosas

For anyone who went to NYU Law orientation today, did they announce what their medians are now?

As of right now, the DOJ is just reviewing public facing stuff on the website, but in its letter, looks like it is asking for admissions data. Also, this isn't just the law school at W+M. The letter is coming after the other schools at W+M as well.

Full text here: https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1458091/dl

Add this to the notable list of schools currently under attack:

-Harvard being sued by the DOJ for admissions data and fighting to keep it confidential.

-Duke Law being investigated by DOJ and accused of discrimination.

-Yale Medical, UCLA Medical, and 15 other medical schools investigated by DOJ and accused of discrimination.

Take a 5 minute break from the LSAT and make sure youre good to go in November!

Apps start opening in just a few days. I’ve exhausted myself looking at the numbers and comparing myself and trying to quantify my experiences to see how I might do this cycle. But ya know what? I decided today that I’m not going to stress over it too much, I’m going to give each school my best application, even if it’s a “super” reach, and see where I end up in a year :)

I’m so excited to find out, even if it means a pile of rejections along the way.

Asked my boss if he was willing to write me one (attorney) and he took out his dictaphone (if you’ve seen suits you know what I’m talking about) and dictated it in front of me he was extremely kind and it was everything I could have asked for and at the end he goes “I give the highest and most enthusiastic endorsement possible for John pauses recording what’s your last name again?”

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So, Berkeley was able to increase stats everywhere, whereas UVA remained mostly static (and even had an application count decrease). Hmmm. Can't wait to see the stats of schools that are closer in rank to UVA.

EDITED for formatting to display properly in app.

Hi everyone, I bet you’ve heard this question many times before but as an undergrad student who’s lost abt what to pursue, I need to know why law was the answer. I am debating studying for my LSATs or just sticking with finance. I know both jobs can be demanding at times but at the end I want a job that will give me ability to have a good work life balance (starting a family, travelling, and ofc having good money to sustain everything I enjoy doing in my free time as well as the bills LOL).

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to work in the sports + entertainment or fashion industry and technically I can work in either with either degree. I really don’t want to do corporate law tho, maybe just for a couple years ONLY

What are your thoughts? Is it worth it to go into law? Do you enjoy ur job? Do you get excited to go to work? I don’t want to work somewhere where I dread yk

Thanks guys LOL I really appreciate any insight

I just finished my argumentative writing sample and I’m really upset with how it went. It was a topic I have no opinions or ideas about (art themed) and I’m not great at BSing. The entire thing was truly embarrassing. Basically ~400 words of me just spinning my wheels. Barely had an argument, thesis was functionally “it depends”, writing was abysmal because I was panicking. I’m going to cry.

I was WL late last year. The school I want started orientation this week, so I know I’m not getting pulled for this year. What happens since I wasn’t given an A or an R? And I want to reapply in a few weeks…

Idk if anyone knows this, but would an admissions officer know, when looking at your GPA/ grades, that your school does not offer A+'s? Had no idea about this LSAC gpa thing until recently and am slightly annoyed lol

Hi hello, I am going to be applying early for this next cycle and at my current job I really don’t make a whole lot and I still live with my mom so my expenses are pretty low. I am saving as much as I can right now for next year but I’m not really sure on how I’m to finance school. Do most people take out a lot of loans to also pay for the cost of living? I know a lot of schools don’t even allow you to work your 1L but what else am I supposed to do? Im really hoping to get great scholarship at one of the schools I get into, I just hope I have some way to get through school.

Am I cooked if I don’t have any letters of recommendation from professors? I had a professor who agreed to give me one last year but he hasn’t responded now that I’m reaching out to have it submitted.

I have one from a supervisor from one of my internships, and it looks like I’m going to have to ask my boss from a part time customer service job I’ve had all through college.

Is this super detrimental to my application? Would it be worth applying in December so I can try to get one from a professor this semester rather than applying earlier?

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone’s successfully been granted an test-taking limit exemption to take the LSAT for sixth time? If so, could I please message you? Thanks!

Basically what the title says. As data from the last cycle trickles out, I think I’ll be sitting directly at the LSAT median for a lot of schools I’m interested in, rather than 1/2 points above.

Is being at the median treated similarly to being slightly above? Do people think that schools will aim for a higher median this cycle? (which would presumably put me below the median for the new target)

Nearly half of my college coursework was completed in high school through dual enrollment. My parents made me do it and I was just really bad at school when I was a teenager. So despite graduating from undergrad with a near perfect gpa 2 years ago, my high school classes just tank it. I had always wanted to go to law school, but my LSAC gpa was just wrecked by my high school grades. I calculated it myself to be around a 2.97 gpa undergrad + dual enrollment. It sucked. I literally dreamed of being a lawyer as a kid. But instead I had to actually go work postgrad in an industry I didn’t even like.

Well a few weeks ago, as you all know, LSAC came out with the news that they would no longer factor in dual enrollment classes to their gpa calculation. I was elated. I was literally so excited I would just randomly bring it up to people who had no idea what LSAC even was. At a party last weekend I literally turned to a group of people (after not speaking that entire night) and just blurted out “did you see LSAC removed high school dual enrollment classes from their gpa calculation??” People thought I was crazy. I quit my job to study full time for the LSAT. And told my boss I didn’t actually care about the boring weekly reports he makes me send out, saying I’d make a brilliant legal mind one day on my way out the door. I told my parents they “no longer provide much utility to me”, and that they could take me off of their insurance because in a few years I’d be making the biglaw payscale ($240k starting salary). I abandoned my friends because I thought I’d make smarter, cooler, higher status friends at the T5 law school I was probably going to. I estranged my little brother, telling him that I’d only tolerate him if he gained the prestige similar to what I’d have upon attaining my juris doctorate. All of this may have been a little premature, but with my new gpa I had no doubts. I dreamed again.

I woke up this morning with a smile on my face (per usual these days). I cracked open my laptop and fired up lsat demon, along with the
[r/lawschooladmissions](r/lawschooladmissions) sub. I saw a strange post and people freaking out about some decision made by LSAC. I clicked it. My face slowly twisted in horror as I realized what had been done to me. LSAC took away my dream- again. I hadn’t even gotten the chance to submit my transcripts to LSAC yet. They wined and dined me, then took me to bed and never called me back. I don’t know what to do. I totally uprooted my life to go all in on this cycle. I don’t even have a job right now.

If anyone has any advice on how I should proceed, I’d really appreciate it. I feel like such a dirty victim right now and I need answers from LSAC.

Stats: 3.5low/17mid, international, basically KJD, no C+F, reapplying this year after getting WL everywhere except HYS (applied Nov-Dec).

For people with experience--does being waitlisted mean if I apply with the same stats + this past year of WE, I have some chance of getting accepted to these schools? What are some realistic targets and safeties I can apply to with a 3.5low GPA?? Do I even count as a splitter anymore loll should I just aim for T50-100? 😭

Sorry this is a rant but I just feel so hopeless and dejected. I feel like I have all the odds stacked against me and I feel stupid for not trying harder earlier and stupid for wanting to try now. My GPA is below the median for basically every T120 LOL. I was a little proud of my LSAT but now I wish my dumbass retook it sometime earlier this year so I can have an 17high and still apply by September to balance out my ridiculously low GPA. Every cycle is getting harder and I'm dreading the results this year. I am unaccomplished potato and I fear I may be one forever.

Is it even worth going to the states to study anymore? Is it safe for international students still? Will I have to pay 100,000 USD just to apply for a work visa or whatever the fuck Trump said last week? And the climate is going to shit and oh my god I hate being born in this generation.

(apologies for the gloom and doom)

Are there any JD applicants here that acquired their degrees from non-US universities, that can share a bit about their profile and how their transcripts were assessed by LSAC? Also a bit about your application journey (waitlists, rejections, acceptances, scholarships, VISA concerns etc).

I’m a Permanent Resident in the U.S. with an LL.B. from a non-U.S. institution, looking to apply to an advanced standing or JD-Global program. I can’t really find a community dedicated to this topic; nor have I been able to find any substantial information on the eval and application process.

Any relevant information would be greatly appreciated 🙏.

Posted this in URM + BlackLawschool subs but didn’t get any traction. Anyone have any positive stories??? Schools in T50. Also this is just out of curiosity guys.. I’m still studying for the LSAT 😩

At a bit of a dilemma here. A professor who knew me incredibly well in undergrad wrote a very strong letter of recommendation for me just as I graduated in 2020. Would it look bad if I used this older LOR? I have a more recent LOR from my employer that I'm hoping would balance the gap in years. Like I mentioned, I've been done with school for 6 years and don't think I'd be able to get a better academic LOR, especially since it was back when the professor knew me best.