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Asking what is Minnesota law school like day to day: A serious, quietly excellent, deeply Midwestern law school with the highest acceptance rate in this group and a student body better than that number suggests. About 222 people graduate a year in Minneapolis. Here is the texture.
A serious, quietly excellent, deeply Midwestern law school with the highest acceptance rate in this group and a student body better than that number suggests.
A serious public law school with a civic tradition and the strongest human rights programme in the Midwest. Top-twenty in clinical training, health law, and international law.
Strong in constitutional law, health law, and human rights, with a well-regarded Robina Institute on criminal justice. Practical, unpretentious, high-achieving Midwesterners, plus a meaningful international cohort.
Every figure here comes from Minnesota's own ABA disclosures. Read them before you read anyone's impressions, including ours.
Verified figureValueAcceptance rate26.7% (909 offers on 3,405 applications)LSAT 25/50/75166 / 171 / 173GPA 25/50/753.62 / 3.88 / 3.95Annual cost of attendance$82,558Median grant / share receiving$35,000 to 94% of studentsClass of 2025 graduates222Firms of 101+ attorneys28.8% (64 graduates)Federal clerkships3.2% (7 graduates)Employed at 10 months96.0%Top marketsMN 122, IL 21, CA 10CityMinneapolis, MNCar neededNoJanuary average low / July average high8.8F / 83.4F
Sources: Minnesota's 2025 ABA 509 report (https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/AnnualQuestionnaire/GenerateIndividualDisclosure509Report?schoolId=81&year=2025), its class of 2025 ABA Employment Summary (https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/EmploymentOutcomes/GenerateIndividualEQSummaryReport?schoolId=81&year=2025), and its admissions pages (https://law.umn.edu/admissions/jd/how-apply). Climate from NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals. Verified July 26, 2026.
If you are still working out whether you can get in, our page on Minnesota law school acceptance rate runs the same class through the admissions numbers.
Present but low-drama, consistent with the regional culture.
Grading: Letter grades with a curve. Class rank: No published rank.
The disclosed backdrop: Minnesota admitted 26.7 percent of applicants and employs 96.0 percent of graduates at ten months, so the competition is over which job rather than whether one exists. 1L sections in a class of roughly 200.
Warm and low-key. Minneapolis is a genuinely good city: lakes, theatre, food, and a professional class that stays.
Collegiality rates 5 out of 5 in our master file. Anyone targeting Minneapolis or the upper Midwest, and splitters who want a 171-median school that will actually admit them.
The complaint students actually make: A 26.7% acceptance rate reads as unselective and depresses the school's perceived prestige, even though the 171 LSAT median is higher than Duke's, Michigan's, or UCLA's.
Journals: Minnesota Law Review, Journal of Law and Inequality, Journal of International Law, Journal of Science and Technology. Mondale Hall, named for Walter Mondale; a clinical programme older than most law schools; a public-service culture that predates the modern public interest movement.
Helpful, not required.
Minneapolis-St. Paul: 3.7 million people, more theatre seats per capita than anywhere outside New York, and 22 lakes inside the city. Uptown, Northeast, and the West Bank, mostly a short bike or light rail ride.
Genuinely severe. January is a test and the city is engineered around it, including a downtown skyway system. A free Saturday looks like this: The lakes, the Walker Art Center, Northeast breweries, the Mill City farmers market, cross-country skiing in winter.
Distance to market: Downtown Minneapolis is fifteen minutes; Chicago is a short flight. Airport: MSP, twenty minutes by light rail.
Human Rights Center, Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Institute for Law and Rationality, Corporate Institute, Law and Health Sciences programme, Consortium on Law and Values.
Clinics: One of the oldest and largest clinical programmes in the country, founded in 1913. Federal Immigration Litigation, Child Advocacy, Civil Rights, Innocence, Housing, Business Law, Tax.
Faculty and intellectual lineage: Richard Painter, Jill Hasday, Francesco Parisi, Perry Moriearty, Myron Orfield.
Roughly $22,000. One-bedrooms run $1,100 to $1,500 and the quality of housing per dollar is among the best in these volumes.
Cost of attendance is $82,558 a year and the median grant is $35,000 to 94 percent of students, so the median student pays roughly $47,558 a year before interest.
Since July 1, 2026 federal borrowing for professional students is capped at $50,000 a year and $200,000 in aggregate with Grad PLUS eliminated, under the Reimagining and Improving Student Education final rule, which attributes the change to the Working Families Tax Cuts Act (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/01/2026-08556/reimagining-and-improving-student-education-federal-student-loan-program-final-regulations). That leaves a gap of about $32,558 a year at sticker, our arithmetic, to be closed by scholarship, savings or private credit.
Anyone targeting Minneapolis or the upper Midwest, and splitters who want a 171-median school that will actually admit them.
Who should look elsewhere: Someone who needs a coastal market or a high Big Law rate.
The trade-off, stated plainly: You accept winter and a regional market in exchange for a high quality of life and low costs.
Our full verdict, including who should skip it outright, sits on our honest take on whether to go to Minnesota.
Our verified data layer for Minnesota is missing the matriculant count. Everything else on this page is sourced; that one item is not, so we have written around it rather than guessing. Confirm it with the admissions office before you rely on it.
A serious, quietly excellent, deeply Midwestern law school with the highest acceptance rate in this group and a student body better than that number suggests. Structurally it is a 222-graduate class in Minneapolis, with a 26.7 percent acceptance rate and 96.0 percent employed at ten months.
Present but low-drama, consistent with the regional culture. Grading is Letter grades with a curve, and rank is: no published rank.
Warm and low-key. Minneapolis is a genuinely good city: lakes, theatre, food, and a professional class that stays. Collegiality rates 5 out of 5.
Helpful, not required. Uptown, Northeast, and the West Bank, mostly a short bike or light rail ride.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
July 30, 2026
July 30, 2026