How to Use Our Law School Pages to Make Smarter Admissions and Financial Decisions

Every ABA-accredited law school is required to publish a large amount of data to protect applicants. That data includes admissions statistics, employment outcomes, bar passage rates, and scholarship information.

In theory, this transparency is a good thing.

In practice, most of this information lives inside ABA 509 reports and employment disclosures that are difficult to read, easy to misinterpret, and nearly impossible to compare across schools unless you already have significant admissions expertise.

That is the problem our law school pages are designed to solve.

We take public ABA data from every accredited law school and organize it into a format that is easier to understand, easier to compare, and easier to use when making real decisions. Below is a walkthrough of how to use these pages effectively.

Start with the Overview Metrics

Each school page begins with a high-level overview that gives you a snapshot of the school's profile.

This includes core admissions numbers like median LSAT and GPA, along with outcomes-focused metrics such as BigLaw placement, federal clerkship rates, and a debt-to-income indicator.

This section is not meant to replace deeper analysis. It is meant to quickly answer basic questions like:

• How competitive is this school numerically?
• What kinds of jobs do graduates tend to get?
• Does the financial risk look manageable at first glance?

If a school already looks misaligned with your goals here, that is a useful signal before you invest more time.

Use the Admissions Section for Positioning, Not Guessing

The admissions section shows LSAT and GPA ranges, medians, and acceptance rates.

The most important thing to understand is that these ranges represent where most admitted students fall—not hard cutoffs. People above and below these ranges are admitted every year.

Use this section to answer questions like:

• Am I clearly competitive here, marginal, or a reach?
• Which schools am I likely helping versus hurting with my numbers?
• Where should I expect meaningful scholarship leverage?

This is especially useful when comparing schools clustered around similar rankings but with different admissions profiles.

Focus on Employment Outcomes, Not Rankings

Rankings are easy to find. Outcomes are harder to interpret—and far more important.

The employment section breaks down where graduates actually go after law school, including:

• Large law firms by size
• Federal clerkships
• Government and public interest roles
• Business and industry positions
• Unemployment and unknown outcomes

This section helps you move from abstract prestige to concrete results. Two schools close in rank can produce dramatically different outcomes, especially when it comes to BigLaw or clerkships.

If your goal is a specific career path, this section should carry significant weight in your decision-making.

Understand the Financial Analysis as an Estimate, Not a Promise

The financial section combines public cost data with outcome-weighted salary estimates to model return on investment.

You will see figures like net cost, expected salary, and years to payoff. These are not predictions about what you personally will earn. They are averages based on publicly reported outcomes.

Use this section to:

• Compare financial risk across schools
• Identify schools with strong outcomes relative to cost
• Spot situations where debt may outpace realistic earnings

We publish the formulas used so you can understand exactly how these numbers are generated and decide how much weight to give them.

Read the Scholarship Section Carefully

Sticker price is rarely what students actually pay.

The scholarship section shows how many students receive aid, the typical scholarship size, and how tuition changes after discounts. It also breaks down how common partial versus full tuition awards are.

This section is especially useful for understanding:

• Whether scholarships are the norm or the exception
• How aggressive a school is with discounting
• Where negotiation leverage is likely to exist

It helps replace assumptions with actual data about how schools price their degrees.

Check Bar Passage as a Safety Signal

Bar passage rates are not usually a deciding factor between strong schools, but they are an important safety check.

A school whose graduates consistently outperform the state average on the bar is doing something right academically. Large gaps below the state average are a red flag that should not be ignored.

Use this section to confirm that outcomes are not coming at the expense of bar readiness.

Compare Schools Side by Side

One of the most powerful parts of these pages is the peer comparison.

Each school is compared to similarly ranked institutions across admissions stats, employment outcomes, and tuition. This often reveals meaningful differences that rankings alone hide.

This is where many students discover that a school they assumed was interchangeable with its peers actually performs much better—or much worse—in the areas they care about most.

How to Use These Pages Together

These pages are not meant to tell you where to go to law school. They are meant to help you ask better questions and avoid bad assumptions.

A good way to use them is to:

1. Shortlist schools using admissions competitiveness
2. Compare outcomes based on your career goals
3. Evaluate financial risk using net cost and earnings
4. Use comparisons to refine your final choices

All of the data comes from public ABA disclosures and is updated with the most recent available information.

Explore Law School Pages →

The goal is not to simplify law school decisions into one number, but to make the information clear enough that you can decide intentionally.