Since the data began coming out in late summer/early fall, we have been collecting the LSAT and GPA statistics of the 2018 entering classes of every ABA-approved law school, primarily on Reddit here (and feel free to comment on that post if you have any new data we can add to the full spreadsheet of 25th/75th percentiles and medians). Please note that all of this year's numbers are preliminary, as reported by the law schools, and will not be considered "final" until official ABA 509 reports are released.
Here, we have compiled some macro-level stats on the data we have so far (from 120 schools that have reported) on LSAT medians. As you can see, the majority of law schools were able to increase their LSAT median by one point. A notably very small percentage went down in their LSAT medians. Full data here:
|
Total Known Medians |
No Change to Median |
+1 LSAT Median |
+2 LSAT Median |
+3 LSAT Median |
-1 LSAT Median |
| Top 14 Ranked Schools |
13 |
7 (53.8%) |
6 (46.2%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
| Top 25 Ranked Schools |
21 |
10 (47.6%) |
11 (52.4%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
| Top 50 Ranked Schools |
44 |
15 (34.1%) |
25 (56.8%) |
2 (4.5%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (4.5%) |
| Top 100 Ranked Schools |
76 |
26 (34.2%) |
42 (55.3%) |
5 (6.6%) |
0 (0%) |
4 (3.8%) |
| Top 150 Ranked Schools |
104 |
41 (39.4%) |
54 (51.9%) |
5 (4.8%) |
0 (0%) |
4 (3.8%) |
| All ABA Accredited Law Schools |
120 |
45 (37.5%) |
59 (49.2%) |
10 (8.3%) |
1 (0.8%) |
5 (4.2%) |
(Small side note: "Top 50" or "Top 100" does not mean exactly 50 or 100 schools due to ties in the US News rankings.)
For reference, here is the full and complete data from last cycle, as officially reported by LSAC (note that in total, applicants were up 8.1%, and applications were up 8.7% compared to the previous year).
| Highest LSAT |
# Applicants |
% Change YTD |
| < 140 |
4,348 |
1.9% |
| 140-144 |
5,942 |
1.1% |
| 145-149 |
9,775 |
2.3% |
| 150-154 |
11,598 |
4.3% |
| 155-159 |
10,540 |
6.6% |
| 160-164 |
8,283 |
14.7% |
| 165-169 |
5,123 |
27.2% |
| 170-174 |
2,382 |
13.4% |
| 175-180 |
689 |
59.9% |
| % Change in applications |
# Schools |
| Increase of 100% or more |
1 |
| Increase of 50% to 99% |
2 |
| Increase of 40% to 49% |
2 |
| Increase of 30% to 39% |
4 |
| Increase of 20% to 29% |
20 |
| Increase of 10% to 19% |
42 |
| Increase of 1% to 9% |
75 |
| No change |
11 |
| Decrease of 1% to 9% |
31 |
| Decrease of 10% to 19% |
9 |
| Decrease of 20% to 29% |
4 |
| Decrease of 30% to 39% |
0 |
| Decrease of 40% to 49% |
0 |
| Decrease of 50% or more: |
4 |
| Law School Type |
# Applications |
% Change YTD |
| Private |
252,099 |
8.3% |
| Public |
133,728 |
9.6% |
| Region |
Applicants # |
Applicants % Change YTD |
Applications # |
Applications % Change YTD |
| Far West |
7,899 |
12.4% |
58,188 |
10.3% |
| Great Lakes |
7,630 |
6.5% |
52,590 |
7.2% |
| Midsouth |
7,069 |
6.8% |
70,241 |
7.3% |
| Midwest |
2,129 |
16.5% |
11,695 |
4.8% |
| Mountain West |
3,047 |
12.2% |
14,902 |
16.7% |
| New England |
2,925 |
11.3% |
34,842 |
12.1% |
| Northeast |
9,951 |
9.0% |
70,493 |
10.2% |
| Northwest |
1,477 |
7.8% |
8,339 |
12.2% |
| South Central |
6,783 |
5.7% |
28,496 |
8.3% |
| Southeast |
8,543 |
0.5% |
36,041 |
3.4% |
| Total |
60,616 |
8.1% |
385,627 |
8.7% |
| Race/Ethnicity |
Applicants # |
% Change YTD |
| Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Australian |
5 |
* |
| American Indian or Alaska Native |
1,372 |
6.9% |
| Asian |
6,705 |
13.9% |
| Black or African American |
8,926 |
6.0% |
| Canadian Aboriginal |
44 |
37.5% |
| Caucasian/White |
38,470 |
8.7% |
| Hispanic/Latino |
8,053 |
8.5% |
| Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander |
286 |
6.7% |
| Puerto Rican |
1,752 |
1.8% |
| Not Indicated |
1,534 |
16.8% |
| Gender |
Applicants # |
% Change YTD |
| Female |
32,530 |
9.3% |
| Male |
27,539 |
6.2% |
| Not Indicated |
547 |
51.5% |
