How to Get Into New York University Law School: LSAT, GPA & Admissions (2026)

The honest answer to how to get into New York University Law School starts with two numbers. According to NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 entering class posted an LSAT median of 172 (169 to 174) and a GPA median of 3.92 (3.81 to 3.97). Hit both and you are competitive, not admitted.

By Ali Unar, Georgetown Law, Founder of Lovare Institut. Ali Unar is a Georgetown Law student and the founder of Lovare Institut, an admissions and LSAT-prep practice built on primary-source law school data. Verified August 2026. Every figure on this page comes from NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class), the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, and NYU Law's own admissions pages.

New York University School of Law is defined by two things this page will keep returning to as it walks through New York University law admissions. First, NYU Law's scholarship pool is unusually top-heavy: NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports 148 full-tuition awards, by a wide margin the deepest pool of full rides among the schools in this set, even though its median grant is a comparatively modest $20,000. Second, NYU Law is a New York City BigLaw feeder in the purest sense: the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 placed 365 of its 523 graduates in New York, 69.8% of the class, the highest single-market concentration of any school profiled here. The thesis of this page is that NYU Law rewards the very strongest applicants with a real shot at a full ride and channels most of its graduates into New York's largest firms, so its value is highest for applicants who either win one of those 148 awards or want New York BigLaw badly enough to pay the sticker for it.

NYU Law at a glance: LSAT, GPA, acceptance rate and cost

NYU Law is a genuinely elite school whose acceptance rate is more attainable than its top-six reputation suggests. According to NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 class posted a 172 LSAT median, a 3.92 GPA median, and a 13.39% acceptance rate. Full-time tuition and fees run $83,952. The table below collects the core numbers.

MetricNYU Law (fall 2025 entering class)LSAT (25th / 50th / 75th)169 / 172 / 174GPA (25th / 50th / 75th)3.81 / 3.92 / 3.97Acceptance rate13.39%Applications10,546Offers of admission1,412Matriculants from the pool452First-year class452Full-time tuition and fees$83,952Living expenses$36,094Share receiving grants66% (870 students)Median grant$20,000Conditional scholarshipsNoFirst-time bar passage96.94%Employed at ten months98.3% (514 of 523)

Source: NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class), NYU Law's ABA bar-passage report, and the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024. Tuition and living expenses are printed separately in the 509, which does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance total. The share-receiving-grants row lists the recipient count because the 509 as compiled here does not print a clean enrollment denominator for that percentage.

What LSAT and GPA do you really need to get into NYU Law?

You realistically need a 172 LSAT and a 3.92 GPA to sit at the center of NYU Law's class. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure puts the LSAT middle at 169 to 174 and the GPA middle at 3.81 to 3.97. Below either 25th percentile, the other number must compensate.

Read the two rows one at a time. The New York University law LSAT median is 172, with a 25th percentile of 169 and a 75th percentile of 174, per NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That is a five-point full range, and it sits high on the national scale: a 169 already places an applicant at the bottom quarter of NYU Law's class, a 172 is the exact middle, and a 174 puts a candidate in the top quarter. There is little room at the low end here, because even NYU Law's 25th percentile of 169 is a score most law schools would report as a median.

The GPA band is tight as well. The New York University law GPA median is 3.92, with a 25th percentile of 3.81 and a 75th percentile of 3.97, according to the same disclosure. The distance from the 25th percentile to the median is 0.11 of a point, so the middle half of NYU Law's class is packed into a narrow, high slice of the undergraduate scale. A 3.81 is a live number at the bottom of the band, but it is not low by any absolute standard; it simply sits at the floor of an unusually strong class.

So what does a realistic NYU Law profile look like? A 172 LSAT paired with a 3.92 GPA places an applicant exactly at both medians, per NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, which is a competitive center-of-class position at a school admitting about 13 in every hundred applicants. Fall below the 169 LSAT or the 3.81 GPA and you need a clear compensating strength on the other number. A 3.7 GPA applicant realistically wants an LSAT at or above the 174 upper quartile to stay in contention, and a 167 LSAT applicant needs a GPA pressed toward the 3.97 top quarter to offset the score in NYU Law's read.

On the splitter question, NYU Law is best described as balanced rather than splitter friendly or reverse-splitter friendly. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.11 and an LSAT spread of 3 points, so neither number carries dramatically more forgiveness than the other. A splitter-friendly school forgives a lower GPA when the LSAT is high; a reverse-splitter-friendly school forgives a lower LSAT when the GPA is high. NYU Law does neither cleanly. It expects both numbers to be strong and uses the rest of the file, not the raw index, to separate a large pool of numerically qualified applicants, so a splitter in either direction needs the off-median number to stay close to the 25th percentile.

Is NYU Law harder to get into than its reputation?

Not really. NYU Law is elite academically but more attainable on acceptance rate than its top-six billing implies. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports a 13.39% acceptance rate, which ranks it 14th most selective of the 21 leading schools within two LSAT points of its 172 median. The reputation outpaces the admit rate.

To size up New York University law acceptance rate fairly, compare NYU Law only against schools with a similar academic profile. Among the 21 leading national law schools whose median LSAT falls within two points of NYU Law's 172, that is a median of 170 to 174, ranked by acceptance rate, NYU Law is the 14th most selective. Its 13.39% rate, from NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, places it in the lower half of its own academic band, which is a surprise given that NYU Law is routinely grouped with the six most prestigious schools in the country.

Ranked from most to least selective by acceptance rate, that band runs as follows: Yale University at 4.1%, Stanford University at 6.1%, the University of Pennsylvania (Carey) at 8.1%, the University of Michigan at 8.6%, Harvard University at 9.2%, the University of Chicago at 9.7%, the University of Virginia at 10.2%, Columbia University at 11.8%, UCLA and Boston University both at 12.1%, Northwestern University (Pritzker) at 12.3%, Duke University at 12.9%, Vanderbilt University at 13.3%, and then New York University at 13.39%. Behind NYU Law sit the University of Texas at Austin at 14.0%, UC Berkeley at 14.8%, Georgetown University at 15.8%, the University of Notre Dame at 16.1%, Cornell University at 18.2%, Brigham Young University (BYU) at 22.8%, and the University of Minnesota at 26.7%.

One school needs an asterisk. Boston College reports an 8.5% acceptance rate that would slot it high in a band like this, but Boston College reports its offers on a narrower basis than the others, so it is not a true selectivity peer and is not counted in the ranking above. With that caveat noted, the picture is clear. Thirteen schools in NYU Law's band are more selective by acceptance rate, and seven are less selective, so NYU Law sits squarely in the lower middle of its cluster. This is not a knock on NYU Law's quality; its 172 LSAT median ties it with Texas and sits above Georgetown and Cornell. It is a statement about the admit rate specifically: NYU Law admits a larger share of applicants than Columbia, Michigan, Chicago, and the rest of the top of the band, so an applicant who assumes NYU Law is as hard to enter as its top-six reputation implies is overstating the raw difficulty. The academic bar is elite; the acceptance rate is mid-band.

Does NYU Law have Early Decision, and is it binding?

Yes. NYU Law offers a binding Early Decision program, and the commitment is absolute. According to NYU Law's own admissions page, it is a single round with a November 15 deadline, and on admission you must commit to enroll and immediately withdraw every other law-school application regardless of status. NYU Law also runs a non-waitlist Hold category.

The mechanics are among the strictest in this set, so read them carefully. NYU Law's own admissions page describes a single binding Early Decision round with a November 15 deadline. If NYU Law admits an Early Decision applicant, that applicant must commit to enroll and must immediately withdraw all applications at every other law school, regardless of whether those applications are still pending, already admitted, or waitlisted. There is no softening clause here: an Early Decision admission from NYU Law ends the applicant's cycle everywhere else at once. That is a serious commitment, appropriate only for an applicant certain that NYU Law is the unambiguous first choice.

NYU Law adds one wrinkle worth understanding. According to NYU Law's own admissions page, NYU Law runs a non-waitlist Hold category for early applicants who are neither admitted nor denied in the early round but are instead read again in the regular round. A Hold is not a waitlist and not a rejection; it is a deferral of the decision itself into the larger regular-cycle pool. For an Early Decision applicant, being placed on Hold means the binding commitment does not yet bind, because there is no admission to accept, and the file simply competes again later. The practical takeaway is that NYU Law's early process has three outcomes, admit, deny, or Hold, and only the admit carries the immediate, absolute withdrawal obligation.

How much does NYU Law cost, and how much scholarship money will you get?

NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $83,952 and living expenses at $36,094, with no single cost-of-attendance total printed. NYU Law awards merit and need-based grants to 66% of students, with a modest $20,000 median but 148 full-tuition awards, the deepest full-ride pool in this set.

Start with the sticker. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $83,952 and separately lists living expenses at $36,094. That 509 does not print a single combined cost-of-attendance total, so any all-in annual figure quoted elsewhere is someone's arithmetic rather than a number NYU Law reports, and this page will not invent one.

Now the aid, which has an unusual shape at NYU Law. NYU Law's grant pool blends merit and need-based money, and 66% of students receive some grant, a total of 870 students, according to NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. But the grant amounts are top-heavy rather than broadly generous. The same disclosure reports grant amounts at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of $12,000, $20,000, and $35,750, and separately reports 148 full-tuition awards and zero awards above full tuition. Read those two facts together and the structure becomes clear: NYU Law hands out a large number of full rides, 148 of them, more than any other school in this set, while the typical recipient receives a comparatively modest partial grant with a $20,000 median.

For a median recipient, the math is sobering. Against the $83,952 sticker for tuition and fees, a student holding NYU Law's median grant of $20,000 nets about $63,952 in tuition and fees before living costs, using figures from NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That is a real bill, and it explains why the 148 full-tuition awards matter so much: at NYU Law the gap between a median grant and a full ride is enormous, so the aid outcome is close to binary for the strongest applicants. NYU Law's scholarships are also not conditional, per the same disclosure, so a first-year award cannot be cut for landing in the bottom half of the curve; the grant you are quoted is the grant you keep.

The strategic read follows directly. Because NYU Law concentrates its most valuable aid in 148 full-tuition awards rather than spreading larger partial grants across the class, the payoff for pushing your LSAT and GPA to the top of NYU Law's range is unusually steep. A number at or above the 174 LSAT upper quartile does not just improve admission odds at NYU Law; it is the profile that competes for the full rides that separate a fully funded degree from a roughly $64,000-a-year tuition bill.

What are your real chances off the NYU Law waitlist?

Thin but not sealed. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure records 1,412 offers and 452 matriculants from the pool, an implied yield of 32.0%. No ABA disclosure publishes waitlist admits, but a yield near 32% means NYU Law fills much of its class from first-round offers while keeping a working waitlist.

Here is the reasoning in full. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports 1,412 offers of admission and 452 matriculants drawn from the applicant pool, which is an implied yield of 32.0%. No ABA disclosure, NYU Law's included, publishes how many applicants receive offers off the waitlist or how many accept, so implied yield is the honest proxy for waitlist movement. The logic is that when a school converts about 32% of its offers into enrollments, it sends roughly three offers for every seat, which leaves room to return to a waitlist when a given cycle's yield lands soft.

Set against the very top of the market, a 32.0% yield is a moderately waitlist-active profile. A school that yields 70% or more fills nearly its whole class from first-round offers and rarely touches its waitlist; NYU Law, at 32.0%, plans for most of its admits to enroll elsewhere and therefore keeps a functioning waitlist to finish the class. For a waitlisted applicant, that is qualified encouragement: an NYU Law waitlist spot is a live position rather than a soft rejection, and it is worth keeping the file active with a letter of continued interest. The honest limit is that NYU Law, like every school, does not publish year-to-year waitlist admit counts, so the depth of movement swings with each cycle's yield and cannot be promised. What the 32.0% implied yield establishes is that NYU Law is more likely to work its waitlist than a school converting two-thirds of its offers, without guaranteeing how far it will go in any single year.

Where do NYU Law graduates actually work?

In New York, overwhelmingly. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, New York took 69.8% of NYU Law graduates and the top three markets took 81.8%. Large firms of 101-plus lawyers hired 60.2%, and 5.2% took federal clerkships. This single-market concentration, not the raw rate, decides fit.

The single most useful fact about NYU Law's employment outcomes is its geographic concentration, which is the tightest of any school profiled here. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, NYU Law placed 365 graduates in New York, 33 in the District of Columbia, and 30 in California, its three largest markets. New York alone absorbed 69.8% of the class, the top market share, and the top three markets together took 81.8%, per the same ABA Employment Summary. In practice an NYU Law degree is a New York City degree: seven in ten graduates begin their careers in the city, and the next two markets combined do not come close to matching it.

By employer type, the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 315 NYU Law graduates, or 60.2%, taking jobs at large firms of 101 or more lawyers, and 283 of them, 54.1% of the class, at the very largest firms of 501 or more lawyers. Large-firm practice, what applicants usually call BigLaw, is the single most common destination for an NYU Law graduate, and it skews heavily toward the biggest firms rather than mid-sized ones. Combine that with the New York concentration and NYU Law's identity becomes precise: it is a feeder into the Manhattan offices of the nation's largest law firms.

Federal clerkships are a smaller slice. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, 27 NYU Law graduates, 5.2% of the class, went into federal clerkships, a solid share though not the outsized figure some smaller, clerkship-focused schools report. Overall placement is essentially total: the same summary shows 514 of 523 graduates employed at ten months, a 98.3% rate, and NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of 1.0%, so almost no one who starts washes out academically. The reason to weigh NYU Law on concentration rather than the 98.3% headline is that near-total employment is standard at the top of the national market; what makes NYU Law distinctive is that its employment is so overwhelmingly a New York, large-firm outcome. If you want New York BigLaw, few schools deliver it more directly; if you want a different market, NYU Law's pull toward the city is a factor to weigh honestly.

When are NYU Law's application deadlines?

NYU Law runs a binding Early Decision round and a regular cycle. According to NYU Law's own admissions page, the binding Early Decision deadline is November 15. Cycle dates shift from year to year, so confirm the current deadlines on NYU Law's site. This reflects the 2025 to 2026 cycle.

NYU Law's published calendar gives one firm date to anchor on. According to NYU Law's own admissions page, the binding Early Decision deadline is November 15, the single early round in which an admission ends the applicant's cycle at every other law school. Beyond that Early Decision deadline, the sources compiled for this page do not state a separate regular-cycle deadline for NYU Law, so rather than invent one, this page notes the absence honestly: confirm NYU Law's current regular J.D. deadline directly on the school's admissions site before you plan around it.

One caveat applies to every deadline here. Application cycle dates shift from year to year, and a date that holds for one cycle can move in the next. The November 15 Early Decision deadline stated on this page reflects the 2025 to 2026 cycle as published on NYU Law's own admissions page and verified in August 2026. Before relying on it, confirm the current dates on NYU Law's site, because a profile like this one is a planning aid, not the registrar of record.

Frequently asked questions about getting into NYU Law

Is a 172 LSAT good enough for NYU Law?

A 172 is exactly NYU Law's LSAT median, per NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, so it is good enough to be competitive rather than safe. Half of the fall 2025 class scored at or above 172 and half below, inside a 169 to 174 middle range. Paired with a GPA at or near the 3.92 median, a 172 puts an NYU Law applicant at the center of the admitted class.

What GPA do you need to get into NYU Law?

NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports a GPA median of 3.92, with a 25th percentile of 3.81 and a 75th percentile of 3.97. That band is tight, so realistically you want a GPA of at least 3.81 to stay inside the admitted range, and because NYU Law is balanced rather than splitter friendly, a GPA below 3.81 needs an LSAT near the 174 upper quartile to offset it at NYU Law.

What is NYU Law's acceptance rate?

NYU Law's acceptance rate is 13.39%, computed as 1,412 offers against 10,546 applications in NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That ranks NYU Law 14th most selective among the 21 leading schools within two LSAT points of its 172 median, in the lower half of its own academic band. About 13 applicants in every hundred receive an offer from NYU Law in a given cycle.

How many people apply to NYU Law each year?

NYU Law received 10,546 applications for its fall 2025 entering class, according to NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. From that pool, NYU Law extended 1,412 offers of admission and enrolled 452 matriculants, which is also the size of the first-year class. The distance between 10,546 applications and 1,412 offers is what produces NYU Law's 13.39% acceptance rate.

Does NYU Law have binding Early Decision?

Yes. NYU Law offers a single binding Early Decision round with a November 15 deadline, according to NYU Law's own admissions page. On admission, an applicant must commit to enroll and immediately withdraw all applications at every other law school regardless of status. NYU Law also runs a non-waitlist Hold category, which reads an early file again in the regular round rather than admitting, denying, or waitlisting it.

How much does NYU Law cost per year?

NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $83,952 and living expenses at $36,094 for the year. NYU Law does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance total in that 509, so this page will not quote one. A student receiving NYU Law's median grant of $20,000 nets about $63,952 in tuition and fees before living costs are added.

Does NYU Law give merit scholarships?

Yes. NYU Law's grants blend merit and need-based aid, and 66% of students receive one, a total of 870 students, per NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. The median grant is a modest $20,000, but NYU Law also awards 148 full-tuition scholarships, the deepest full-ride pool in this set. A top LSAT and GPA are what put an applicant in contention for those full awards at NYU Law.

What is NYU Law's bar passage rate?

NYU Law's ABA bar-passage report shows a first-time pass rate of 96.94% for the 2025 exam year, with a 97.18% rate in its largest jurisdiction, New York. The ultimate pass rate, measured two years out for the 2023 cohort, is 98.38%, per the same report. In short, nearly every NYU Law graduate who sits for a bar exam passes it, most on the first attempt.

Do NYU Law graduates get large-firm (BigLaw) jobs?

Yes, and it is the single most common outcome. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, 315 NYU Law graduates (60.2%) took jobs at firms of 101 or more lawyers, and 283 of those (54.1% of the class) landed at firms of 501 or more lawyers. Large-firm practice, concentrated in New York, is the largest destination for NYU Law graduates by head count.

Where do most NYU Law graduates work?

In New York, more than at any peer school. The ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows New York taking 365 NYU Law graduates (69.8%), the District of Columbia 33, and California 30, so the top three markets account for 81.8% of the class. An NYU Law degree is, in practice, a New York City degree, with seven in ten graduates starting their careers in the city.

Can a splitter get into NYU Law?

It is possible but not favored, because NYU Law is balanced rather than splitter friendly. NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.11 and an LSAT spread of 3 points, so neither number forgives a weak other number much. A splitter in either direction can still be admitted to NYU Law, but the off-median number needs to stay close to the relevant 25th percentile.

How selective is NYU Law compared with schools at the same LSAT?

Mid-band. Among the 21 leading schools with a median LSAT within two points of NYU Law's 172, ranked by acceptance rate, NYU Law is 14th most selective at 13.39%, per NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. Thirteen band peers, including Columbia at 11.8% and Michigan at 8.6%, admit a smaller share of applicants than NYU Law does. Its academic profile sits above its admit-rate rank.

Is NYU Law worth the cost?

For New York BigLaw aspirants and full-ride winners, yes. Against a $83,952 sticker in NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, NYU Law awards 148 full-tuition scholarships, and the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 98.3% of graduates employed at ten months, with 60.2% in large firms. Those outcomes justify the cost most clearly for applicants who win a full award or target New York firms.

What LSAT and GPA give the best shot at an NYU Law scholarship?

The highest you can post, because NYU Law concentrates its aid in full rides. Per NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the median grant is only $20,000, but 148 students hold full-tuition awards. An LSAT above the 174 upper quartile and a GPA near the 3.97 top quarter give the strongest shot at one of those full-tuition scholarships at NYU Law, where the gap between a median grant and a full ride is enormous.

How many full-tuition scholarships does NYU Law give?

NYU Law awards 148 full-tuition scholarships, according to NYU Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, and zero awards above full tuition. That is the deepest full-ride pool of any school profiled in this set. Because the median NYU Law grant is a modest $20,000, those 148 full awards represent the difference between a fully funded J.D. and a roughly $64,000-a-year tuition bill at NYU Law.

Sources

Every figure on this page is drawn from primary disclosures, listed here so readers can verify each one directly.

NYU Law 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class): https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/AnnualQuestionnaire/GenerateIndividualDisclosure509Report?schoolId=105&year=2025

ABA Employment Summary, Class of 2024: https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ABA%202024%20Employment%20Summary.pdf

NYU Law ABA bar-passage report: https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/BarPassageOutcomes/GenerateIndividualBarPassageReport?schoolId=105&year=2025

NYU Law J.D. applications page: https://www.law.nyu.edu/jdadmissions/applicants/applications

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