Santa Clara University

Q: How hard is it to get into Santa Clara University?

Santa Clara University has an acceptance rate of 52.6% and is ranked #150 in the US News rankings. The median LSAT score is 159, with a middle 50 percent running from 157 to 162. The median GPA is 3.50, with a middle 50 percent from 3.21 to 3.74. Applicants should aim at or above the median to be competitive.

Q: What is Santa Clara University's bar passage rate?

168 of 205 Santa Clara University first-time takers passed, a rate of 82.0%, among those who sat in 2025. The ABA counts every first-time taker who sat that year, including graduates of earlier classes, so this is not a single graduating class. That is 0.6 percentage points below the 82.6% average for graduates of ABA or Council accredited law schools in the jurisdictions where they sat, weighted by how many sat in each. These figures describe graduates' first-time bar outcomes. Results reflect students' backgrounds and preparation as well as where they take the exam. They do not isolate the school's effect or predict an individual result.

Q: What LSAT score do I need for Santa Clara University?

The median LSAT score at Santa Clara University is 159. The 25th percentile is 157 and the 75th percentile is 162. To be competitive, aim at or above the median of 159. Applicants below the 25th percentile face significantly lower chances unless the rest of the application is exceptional.

Q: What GPA do I need for Santa Clara University?

The median undergraduate GPA at Santa Clara University is 3.50. The 25th percentile is 3.21 and the 75th percentile is 3.74. Strong applicants typically have a GPA at or above the median.

Q: Is Santa Clara University worth the cost?

Santa Clara University has annual tuition of $68K and places 16.7% of graduates in BigLaw, meaning firms of 501 or more attorneys, plus 0.5% in federal clerkships, for a prestigious job placement rate of 17.2%. That is 34 of 198 graduates in the class of 2025. The overall employment rate is 84.34%. Based on our estimates, graduates can expect to earn approximately $125K, weighted by this school's actual employment outcomes rather than by a single BigLaw median. Individual outcomes vary and are not guaranteed. Weigh your career goals, any scholarship offer, and your debt tolerance.

Q: What are Santa Clara University employment outcomes?

84.34% of Santa Clara University graduates were employed ten months after graduation. 16.7% secured full time, long term BigLaw positions at firms of 501 or more attorneys and 0.5% obtained full time, long term federal clerkships. Based on our estimates, graduates can expect to earn approximately $125K, weighted by this school's actual employment outcomes rather than by a single BigLaw median. The school is ranked #150 nationally. Individual outcomes vary.

Q: How does Santa Clara University compare to similar law schools?

At #150 in the US News rankings, Santa Clara University competes with other similarly ranked schools. With a 17.2% prestigious job placement rate, Santa Clara University offers competitive outcomes against peer institutions. Compare median LSAT scores, employment outcomes, and total cost of attendance when evaluating similar schools.

Santa Clara, CaliforniaRanked #150

Estimate my chances Scholarships Cost & ROI

159
Median LSAT: 3.50
Median GPA: 52.6%
Acceptance rate: $67,800
Annual tuition

16.7%
BigLaw: 0.5%
Federal clerkships: 82.0%
First-time bar passage: $236K
Est. net cost

What these figures cover

Admissions: Entering class of Fall 2025
Cost: Academic year 2025 to 2026
Grant aid: Grant aid, academic year 2024 to 2025
Employment: Class of 2025, ten months out
Bar passage: First-time takers in 2025 (2026 ABA report), from the 2026 ABA report
Admit rate grid: LSAC 2024-2025 cycle

Reported by the school to the ABA, except the admit rate grid and the index formula, which LSAC publishes, and anything labelled an HFL estimate.

Admissions

Entering class of Fall 2025

An LSAT of 159 and a GPA of 3.50 sit at the median, against an acceptance rate of 52.6%.

Check your odds

LSAT, middle 50 percent

15725th159median16275th

GPA, middle 50 percent

3.2125th3.50median3.7475th

How Santa Clara University weighs LSAT and GPA

Balanced

At this school, +1 LSAT point and +0.1 GPA move your index by roughly the same amount.

At this school's medians the published formula produces an index of 3.14.

How this school’s index formula worksLSAC admission index

Index = 0.043 × LSAT + 0.3 × GPA − 4.744

LSAC publishes the formula each school uses to combine an LSAT score and a GPA into a single index number. The coefficients show how the school trades one against the other.

The index is one factor in how a school triages applications. The rest of the process is not published, and the scale is not comparable between schools.

Admit rates by LSAT and GPA

Every applicant LSAC processed for the 2024-2025 cycle, sorted into bands. Read it as a benchmark, not a prediction.

Applicants: 2,610
Admitted: 1,361
LSAC admit rate: 52.1%
Applicant pool covered: 100.0%

LSAT	>3.74	3.50-3.74	3.25-3.49	3.00-3.24	2.75-2.99	2.50-2.74	2.25-2.49	2.00-2.24	<2.00	No GPA	Total
175-180	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	N/A	N/A	100.0%	N/A	50.0%	86.7%
170-174	92.3%	100.0%	91.7%	83.3%	100.0%	N/A	0%	0%	N/A	100.0%	89.4%
165-169	100.0%	95.2%	92.5%	91.3%	43.8%	100.0%	0%	0%	0%	87.5%	90.1%
160-164	97.5%	98.3%	94.6%	80.4%	77.1%	63.2%	66.7%	50.0%	0%	85.7%	90.7%
155-159	88.7%	85.4%	72.7%	54.2%	42.3%	30.6%	9.1%	0%	0%	55.0%	71.3%
150-154	42.9%	24.7%	18.2%	12.5%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	11.1%	21.7%
145-149	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
140-144	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	N/A	0%	0%
120-139	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
No LSAT	90.0%	63.6%	60.0%	60.0%	50.0%	40.0%	0%	33.3%	N/A	27.8%	52.7%
Total	73.0%	59.8%	54.4%	36.5%	30.9%	23.7%	9.3%	11.4%	0%	50.0%	52.1%

Percent admitted0 to 2021 to 4041 to 6061 to 8081 to 100N/Anobody applied

How to read this gridLSAC, 2024-2025

N/A means nobody applied with that LSAT and GPA combination. 0% means people did apply and none were admitted. LSAC prints both as an empty cell, so we separate them. Hover or tap any cell for the exact applied and admitted counts.

The LSAC admit rate above (52.1%) is not the same figure as the acceptance rate in the page summary (52.6%). LSAC's own figure, taken from its Official Guide report. It covers the applicants LSAC processed for this cycle and counts admitted students who deferred to a later term. The acceptance rate shown in the page summary comes from the school's ABA 509 report, which counts applications on the ABA definitions and deadlines. Both are official figures, so the two often differ by a fraction of a point.

Law schools weigh much more than an LSAT score and a GPA. This grid also covers a previous application year, so it may not reflect changes in applicant volume that affect admission decisions. Read it as a benchmark, not a prediction.

View the LSAC report LSAC school profile

How LSAT and GPA medians have shiftedABA 509, 2016 to 2025

A decade of entering class medians at Santa Clara University.

LSAT median rose from 154 to 159 between 2016 and 2025.
GPA median rose from 3.17 to 3.50 between 2016 and 2025.

LSAT median over time

GPA median over time

Cost & Aid

Academic year 2025 to 2026

Grant aid, academic year 2024 to 2025

61% of students receive a scholarship, bringing the three year net cost to about $236K from a sticker price well above it.

See scholarship data

Cost summary

Sticker cost, 3 years: $310,254
Est. net cost, 3 years: $236,058
Modeled salary, covered job categories: $124,990, 74% of class
Illustrative repayment: 12.6 years
Debt to income (HFL estimate): 1.89

What students actually pay

Sticker$67,800

Estimated average paid$43,068

Estimated avg. discount$24,732

Annual, non-resident tuition plus mandatory fees. The average includes students receiving no aid at all. The two estimated figures are an HFL model built from the school's reported grant percentiles, not figures the ABA publishes.

Scholarship distribution, all students

38.6% No aid
17.4% Less than half
24.1% Half to full
18.4% Full
1.4% More than full

Receive a scholarship: 61%
Median award: $40,000
25th to 75th percentile: $30K to $57K

How we estimate what students actually payABA 509 disclosures, 2025 release (tuition 2025 to 2026, grants 2024 to 2025)

Sticker price is published tuition plus mandatory fees. Actual average paid applies the school’s reported grant percentiles to its student body, so it includes the students who receive no aid at all.

Students with no scholarship pay the full sticker price. Grant recipients are split into quartiles using the reported 25th, 50th and 75th percentile awards, and each quartile is credited with the average award across its range. That uses every percentile the ABA publishes rather than the median alone.

We use non-resident tuition throughout, so the estimate is deliberately conservative. An individual offer can land well above or well below this average.

The two halves of this estimate are not from the same year. Tuition and fees are the 2025 to 2026 figures; the grant percentiles behind the discount are the 2024 to 2025 awards, which is the most recent year the ABA reports. A school that raised tuition or changed its aid budget between the two will sit slightly off.

Debt to income divides the three year net cost after scholarships by the expected first year salary.

At 1.0 the net cost equals one year of that salary, at 2.0 it is two years, and so on. Where an individual draws the line depends on their career plans, other resources and tolerance for debt, so no threshold is marked here.

The calculation uses listed non-resident tuition and the average scholarship discount across all students, including those receiving no aid, so it errs toward caution.

Careers

Class of 2025, ten months out

17.2% of the most recent class, 34 of 198 graduates, went into prestigious placements: firms of 501 or more attorneys and federal clerkships. Another 67.2% were employed elsewhere.

Cost and career outcomes

Headline outcomes

17.2%
Prestigious job placement: 34 of 198 graduates; 67.2%
Non-prestigious job placement: 133 of 198 graduates; 16.7%
Firms of 501+: 33 of 198 graduates; 0.5%
Federal clerkships: 1 of 198 graduates

Prestigious job placement:: Full time, long term jobs at firms of 501 or more attorneys, plus full time, long term federal clerkships.
Non-prestigious job placement:: Other employed outcomes outside the HFL prestige category.

Class of 2025, ten months out. The two rates add up to this school's employment rate rather than to 100 percent. Firm and clerkship figures here are full time, long term.

The other 31 of 198 graduates (15.7%) were not in reported employment. Further study, deferred start dates, unemployment and unknown outcomes stay in their own categories in the breakdown.

Employment breakdown

16.7% Big Law
40.9% Other firms
1.0% Clerkships, all courts
8.6% Public interest
6.6% Government
10.1% Business and academic
0.5% Employer not classified
3.0% Start date deferred
1.5% Pursuing further study
10.1% Unemployed, seeking
1.0% Status unknown

Class of 198 graduates, ten months out. Shares are of the whole class. Any “Not reported” slice is the part of the class the school did not account for in its ABA return, shown rather than spread across the other categories. Firm and clerkship shares here count every reported job, including part time and short term ones, so they can run slightly above the full time, long term figures beside them.

Employed, any job type: 84.3%, 167 of 198 graduates
In jobs requiring bar admission: 75.3%, 149 of 198 graduates

Employment trends

How employment outcomes have changedABA, 2016 to 2025

A decade of graduate employment outcomes at Santa Clara University.

BigLaw placement grew from 10.2% to 16.7%.
Other private firm placement grew from 14.4% to 40.4%.
Federal clerkships grew from 0.0% to 0.5%.
Public interest work grew from 3.7% to 8.6%.

Headline outcomes over time

Bar Passage

First-time takers in 2025 (2026 ABA report)

82.0% of first-time takers passed, 0.6 points below the average for the jurisdictions where they sat.

Bar passage rate, first-time takers in 2025

Santa Clara University82.0%

Average where these graduates sat82.6%

Difference, below that average−0.6 pts

168 of 205 first-time takers passed in 2025. The ABA counts every first-time taker who sat that year, including graduates of earlier classes. The comparison is the ABA’s average across the jurisdictions where these graduates sat, weighted by how many sat in each. It is not any single state’s rate.

Where they sat

Jurisdiction	Takers	School	All ABA schools
California	186	83%	83%
11 other jurisdictions	19	74%	80%

“School” is Santa Clara University’s pass rate in that jurisdiction. “All ABA schools” is the pass rate for graduates of ABA or Council accredited law schools who sat there, which is not every person who sat the exam. The comparison above is the “All ABA schools” column weighted by the “Takers” column.

How to read a bar passage rateABA First-Time Bar Passage, 2026 report (first-time takers in 2025)

This is the first-time pass rate: everyone who sat the bar for the first time in the reporting year, whoever they are. The ABA counts first-time takers from prior graduating classes too, so it is not restricted to the newest class. Repeat takers are excluded.

The comparison figure is not the school’s home state average. It is the ABA’s average across every jurisdiction where this school’s graduates sat, weighted by how many sat in each, and each jurisdiction’s rate covers graduates of ABA or Council accredited law schools rather than every person who sat there. At a school whose class scatters across the country it can differ sharply from the local rate: 15 of the University of Virginia’s 307 first-time takers sat in Virginia, where the rate was 81.60 percent, while the published comparison is 84.85 percent.

These figures describe graduates’ first-time bar outcomes. Results reflect students’ backgrounds and preparation as well as where they take the exam. They do not isolate the school’s effect or predict an individual result.

Compare & Research

Compare schools side by side, read the official ABA filings, and see the questions applicants ask most.

Compare all schools

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ABA official reports

ABA 509 informationView PDF
Employment summaryView PDF
Bar passage dataView PDF

Frequently asked questions

How hard is it to get into Santa Clara University?

Santa Clara University has an acceptance rate of 52.6% and is ranked #150 in the US News rankings. The median LSAT score is 159, with a middle 50 percent running from 157 to 162. The median GPA is 3.50, with a middle 50 percent from 3.21 to 3.74. Applicants should aim at or above the median to be competitive.

What is Santa Clara University's bar passage rate?

168 of 205 Santa Clara University first-time takers passed, a rate of 82.0%, among those who sat in 2025. The ABA counts every first-time taker who sat that year, including graduates of earlier classes, so this is not a single graduating class. That is 0.6 percentage points below the 82.6% average for graduates of ABA or Council accredited law schools in the jurisdictions where they sat, weighted by how many sat in each. These figures describe graduates' first-time bar outcomes. Results reflect students' backgrounds and preparation as well as where they take the exam. They do not isolate the school's effect or predict an individual result.

What LSAT score do I need for Santa Clara University?

The median LSAT score at Santa Clara University is 159. The 25th percentile is 157 and the 75th percentile is 162. To be competitive, aim at or above the median of 159. Applicants below the 25th percentile face significantly lower chances unless the rest of the application is exceptional.

What GPA do I need for Santa Clara University?

The median undergraduate GPA at Santa Clara University is 3.50. The 25th percentile is 3.21 and the 75th percentile is 3.74. Strong applicants typically have a GPA at or above the median.

Is Santa Clara University worth the cost?

Santa Clara University has annual tuition of $68K and places 16.7% of graduates in BigLaw, meaning firms of 501 or more attorneys, plus 0.5% in federal clerkships, for a prestigious job placement rate of 17.2%. That is 34 of 198 graduates in the class of 2025. The overall employment rate is 84.34%. Based on our estimates, graduates can expect to earn approximately $125K, weighted by this school's actual employment outcomes rather than by a single BigLaw median. Individual outcomes vary and are not guaranteed. Weigh your career goals, any scholarship offer, and your debt tolerance.

What are Santa Clara University employment outcomes?

84.34% of Santa Clara University graduates were employed ten months after graduation. 16.7% secured full time, long term BigLaw positions at firms of 501 or more attorneys and 0.5% obtained full time, long term federal clerkships. Based on our estimates, graduates can expect to earn approximately $125K, weighted by this school's actual employment outcomes rather than by a single BigLaw median. The school is ranked #150 nationally. Individual outcomes vary.

How does Santa Clara University compare to similar law schools?

At #150 in the US News rankings, Santa Clara University competes with other similarly ranked schools. With a 17.2% prestigious job placement rate, Santa Clara University offers competitive outcomes against peer institutions. Compare median LSAT scores, employment outcomes, and total cost of attendance when evaluating similar schools.