How to Get Into Stanford Law School: LSAT, GPA & Admissions (2026)

The short answer to how to get into Stanford Law School is to hit its medians. According to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 entering class posted an LSAT median of 173 (171 to 176) and a GPA median of 3.96 (3.87 to 4.0). Match 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 Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class), the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, and Stanford Law School's own admissions and application pages.

Stanford Law School's defining edge in this tier is scarcity. According to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, its first-year class of 193 is the smallest in the T14, built from just 337 offers against 5,526 applications, which is why the Stanford Law acceptance rate sits at 6.1%, second only to Yale among schools at its LSAT level. Stanford Law School is west-coast anchored, with the largest single share of graduates in California per the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, yet it places into New York and Washington DC at real scale. And although Stanford Law School awards no merit aid, its need-based grants run unusually large, with a median of $52,797. This page reads Stanford Law School through that lens: a tiny, intensely selective, nationally placed class funded by need rather than merit.

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

Stanford Law School is the second most selective law school in the country by acceptance rate. According to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 class had a 173 LSAT median, a 3.96 GPA median, and a 6.1% acceptance rate. Full-time tuition and fees run $77,454. The table below collects the core numbers for quick reference.

MetricStanford Law School (fall 2025 entering class)LSAT (25th / 50th / 75th)171 / 173 / 176GPA (25th / 50th / 75th)3.87 / 3.96 / 4.0Acceptance rate6.1%Applications5,526Offers of admission337Matriculants from the pool173First-year class193Full-time tuition and fees$77,454Living expenses$51,102Share receiving grants50% (285 of 565)Median grant$52,797Conditional scholarshipsNoFirst-time bar passage96.5%Employed at ten months96.0% (191 of 199)

Source: Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class) for admissions, cost, and grant figures; Stanford Law School's ABA bar-passage report for first-time passage; and the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 for the employment figure. Tuition and living expenses are printed separately in the 509, which does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance total. Verified August 2026.

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

You effectively need to match both medians to get into Stanford Law School. According to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, a 173 LSAT and a 3.96 GPA sit exactly at the medians, inside a 171 to 176 LSAT band and a 3.87 to 4.0 GPA band. Below either 25th percentile, one number must carry the other.

Start with the spread. According to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 entering class posted an LSAT 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile of 171, 173, and 176, and a GPA 25th, 50th, and 75th of 3.87, 3.96, and 4.0. The median is the number to internalize: a 173 LSAT and a 3.96 GPA place an applicant at the exact center of Stanford Law School's admitted class, which means competitive rather than comfortable. Roughly a quarter of enrolled students scored 176 or higher on the LSAT, and a quarter carried a 4.0 or all but a 4.0.

The Stanford Law GPA band is the harder gate of the two. A 25th percentile of 3.87 means three-quarters of Stanford Law School's class earned better than a 3.87, an unforgiving standard that leaves almost no room for a soft transcript. On the splitter question, Stanford Law School reads as balanced rather than splitter friendly or reverse-splitter friendly: the GPA 25th-to-median spread is only 0.09 and the LSAT 25th-to-median spread is 2 points, per its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. Narrow spreads on both axes mean Stanford Law School does not systematically trade one number for 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. Stanford Law School does neither cleanly and expects strength on both.

So what offsets a below-median number at Stanford Law School? If a GPA sits under the 3.87 floor, an applicant realistically needs an LSAT at or above the 176 upper quartile to signal that the transcript understates the candidate, plus a genuine explanation such as an upward grade trend, a demanding major, or a documented circumstance. If the LSAT sits under 171, a near-perfect GPA helps but rarely rescues the file on its own, because Stanford Law School's LSAT band is already so high and its class so small. The Stanford Law requirements are not a checklist; they are two medians an applicant is expected to meet or beat, evaluated by readers who then use the rest of the file to choose among a large pool of numerically qualified candidates.

Is Stanford Law School harder to get into than its reputation?

No, Stanford Law School is exactly as hard as its reputation, and by the numbers Stanford Law School is second only to Yale. Per Lovare's band-peer analysis of 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures, among the 17 leading schools within two LSAT points of Stanford Law School's 173, only Yale admits a smaller share than Stanford Law School's 6.1%. The reputation matches the math.

To size up Stanford Law School's selectivity fairly, compare it only against schools with a similar academic profile rather than against the whole country. Lovare's band-peer analysis takes the leading national law schools whose median LSAT falls within two points of Stanford Law School's 173, a median of 171 to 175, and ranks them by acceptance rate using each school's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. Among the 17 schools in that band, Stanford Law School is the second most selective, trailing only Yale.

Ranked from most to least selective by acceptance rate, the 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 at 12.1%, Northwestern University (Pritzker) at 12.3%, Duke University at 12.9%, New York University at 13.4%, the University of Texas at Austin at 14.0%, Georgetown University at 15.8%, Cornell University at 18.2%, Washington University in St. Louis at 19.0%, and the University of Minnesota at 26.7%. Stanford Law School's 6.1% is comfortably clear of the University of Pennsylvania's 8.1% in third, and Stanford Law School is the only school in the band besides Yale to admit under seven applicants in every hundred.

One entry needs an asterisk. Boston College reports an 8.5% acceptance rate that would slot near the top of this band, but Boston College reports its offers on a narrower basis than the other schools, so it is not a true selectivity peer and is left out of the ranking above. That caveat aside, the verdict on reputation is clear. Stanford Law School is popularly grouped with Harvard University and Yale in the informal HYS triad, yet by acceptance rate Stanford Law School is far tougher than Harvard University's 9.2% and sits alone in second between Yale and the rest of the T14. Stanford Law School is not harder to get into than its reputation suggests; it is precisely as hard, and the distance between its 6.1% and the pack behind it is the proof.

Does Stanford Law School have Early Decision, and is it binding?

No. Stanford Law School offers neither binding Early Decision nor Early Action. According to Stanford Law School's own JD application page, admission is rolling with a single application deadline of February 16, so every applicant competes on the same timeline. There is no early round, no early deposit, and no early-commitment scholarship trade-off to weigh at Stanford Law School.

Because Stanford Law School runs no early round, there is nothing to optimize on timing beyond applying early within the rolling window. According to Stanford Law School's own JD application page, the school reviews files on a rolling basis and sets February 16 as the final deadline. Rolling review rewards early, complete applications: seats and reader attention are more plentiful in the fall than in February, so a file submitted in October or November is read against a less crowded field than one submitted at the deadline. That is the only early-timing lever available at Stanford Law School.

State the absence plainly. Stanford Law School publishes no binding Early Decision deadline, no early-decision deposit, no withdrawal-on-admission requirement, and no early-round scholarship condition, because Stanford Law School operates none of those programs. If you are comparing law schools on Early Decision mechanics, Stanford Law School simply sits outside that framework. The trade-off some applicants weigh elsewhere, committing before they see the money, does not exist at Stanford Law School, which matters given that Stanford Law School's aid is need-based and calculated the same way regardless of when in the cycle an applicant files.

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

Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $77,454 and living expenses at $51,102, with no single cost-of-attendance total printed. Stanford Law School awards no merit scholarships. All grant aid is need-based, half of students receive it, and Stanford Law School meets demonstrated financial need in full.

Start with the sticker. Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $77,454 and separately lists living expenses at $51,102, a high figure that reflects the cost of living in the Bay Area. That same 509 does not print a single combined cost-of-attendance total, so any all-in annual figure quoted elsewhere is someone's arithmetic, not a number Stanford Law School reports. Lovare will not manufacture a total Stanford Law School itself does not publish.

Now the aid, and here Stanford Law School is different from most of its peers. Stanford Law School awards no merit scholarships at all. Every dollar of grant aid at Stanford Law School is need-based, and Stanford Law School commits to meeting the demonstrated financial need of the students it admits. According to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, 50% of students receive grant aid (285 of 565), with grant amounts at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of $34,240, $52,797, and $72,247. Those are large dollar figures by any standard, even though none of it is merit money.

The shape of those awards is worth reading. Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports two full-tuition awards and 64 above-full-tuition awards among its 285 grant recipients. That combination is not a contradiction. Because Stanford Law School's aid is need-based and can be sized to cover living costs as well as tuition, the highest-need students receive grants that exceed the tuition line entirely, while there is no fixed full-tuition merit bucket to hand out. Most recipients therefore hold partial grants below full tuition, and 64 of them hold grants larger than tuition itself, per the same disclosure.

For a typical grant recipient, the math works out like this. Against the $77,454 sticker for tuition and fees, a student receiving Stanford Law School's median grant of $52,797 nets about $24,657 in tuition and fees before living costs, using figures from Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. Stanford Law School also reports that its scholarships are not conditional, meaning a grant cannot be reduced or revoked for missing a class-rank or GPA threshold, per the same disclosure. The grant an admitted Stanford Law School student is quoted is the grant they keep. The strategic consequence is blunt: because Stanford Law School awards no merit aid, no LSAT or GPA number, however high, will buy a scholarship there, and there is no merit offer from a peer school to leverage into a bigger Stanford Law School award. Harvard University and Yale operate the same way inside this tier; all three award no merit scholarships and instead meet demonstrated need.

What are your real chances off the Stanford Law School waitlist?

Slim, and the math says so. Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows 337 offers and 173 matriculants from the pool, an implied yield of 51.3%. No ABA disclosure publishes waitlist admits, but a yield that high means Stanford Law School fills its class from first-round offers and leans little on its waitlist.

Here is the reasoning in full. Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports 337 offers of admission and 173 matriculants drawn from that applicant pool, which is an implied yield of 51.3%. No ABA disclosure, Stanford Law School's included, publishes how many applicants are offered spots off the waitlist or how many accept, so implied yield is the honest proxy for waitlist movement. The logic is straightforward: when a school converts more than half of its offers into enrollments, it is filling essentially its entire class from the first round of offers and has little unfilled space to backfill from a waitlist.

Put bluntly, a 51.3% yield is very high, and it tells a waitlisted applicant to Stanford Law School to plan for disappointment rather than count on movement. Contrast a school that yields around 30 percent: that school sends far more offers than it has seats, expects most to decline, and routinely goes deep into its waitlist to finish the class. Stanford Law School is closer to the opposite case. It extends only 337 offers against 5,526 applications per its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure and keeps more than half of the students it admits, so a Stanford Law School waitlist spot is a real but slender lifeline, and some cycles may see little waitlist activity at all.

One honest note on the class figures. Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists 173 matriculants from the applicant pool but a first-year class of 193. The gap reflects students who arrive through paths other than this single cycle's pool, such as admitted students who deferred enrollment from a prior year. The 51.3% implied yield is computed from the 173 pool matriculants against the 337 offers, which is the correct comparison for reasoning about this cycle's waitlist odds at Stanford Law School.

Where do Stanford Law School graduates actually work?

Concentrated on the coasts, but placed nationally. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, California took 34.7% of Stanford Law School graduates and the top three markets took 67.3%. Large firms of 101-plus lawyers hired 46.7%, and 17.6% took federal clerkships, a notably high share for any law school.

The single most useful fact about Stanford Law School's employment outcomes is not the overall placement rate; it is where graduates concentrate. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, Stanford Law School placed 69 graduates in California, 37 in New York, and 28 in the District of Columbia, its three largest markets. California alone absorbed 34.7% of the class, and the top three markets together took 67.3%, per the same ABA Employment Summary. A Stanford Law School degree, in practice, is west-coast anchored, with the largest single share in California, but the New York and Washington DC counts show it is not a regional school: Stanford Law School places into all three major national legal markets at scale.

Why weigh Stanford Law School on concentration rather than on the headline rate? Because at this tier every school clears the mid-90s on employment, so the raw rate does not discriminate between schools; where graduates land does. If you want California, Stanford Law School is arguably the strongest launch pad in the country. If you want New York, Stanford Law School still delivers, just behind the New York-headquartered schools by raw count. The concentration figures, not the near-universal employment rate, are what tell an applicant whether Stanford Law School fits the career they actually want.

By employer type, the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 93 Stanford Law School graduates, or 46.7%, taking jobs at large firms of 101 or more lawyers, and 80 of those, 40.2% of the class, at the very largest firms of 501 or more lawyers. Large-firm practice, what applicants usually mean by BigLaw, is the single most common destination for a Stanford Law School graduate. The BigLaw share is lower than at some peers for one clear reason: Stanford Law School sends an outsized 35 graduates, 17.6% of the class, into federal clerkships, a prestige track that typically precedes a firm or academic career rather than replacing it. Overall, 191 of 199 Stanford Law School graduates were employed at ten months, a 96.0% rate, and Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of 0.0%, meaning essentially no one who starts washes out academically.

When are Stanford Law School's application deadlines?

Stanford Law School runs one application cycle. According to Stanford Law School's own JD application page, applications are due February 16 under rolling review, with no Early Decision or Early Action round. Cycle dates shift from year to year, so confirm the current deadline on Stanford Law School's site. This reflects the 2025 to 2026 cycle.

Treat February 16 as a wall, not a target. According to Stanford Law School's own JD application page, that is the final date to submit a complete application, and because Stanford Law School reads on a rolling basis, filing months earlier is a real advantage rather than a formality. There is no separate Early Decision or Early Action deadline to track at Stanford Law School, and beyond the February 16 deadline the school's published cycle does not give this page additional dated milestones to cite, so applicants should treat February 16 as the fixed point and confirm anything else directly with the school.

One caveat applies to this and every deadline. Law school application cycle dates shift from year to year, and a date that is correct for one cycle can move in the next. The February 16 deadline stated here reflects Stanford Law School's stated deadline for the 2025 to 2026 cycle as published on Stanford Law School's own JD application page and verified in August 2026. Before relying on it, confirm the current deadline directly on Stanford Law School's admissions site, because a page like this one is a planning aid, not the registrar of record, and the cost of missing the real date is an entire application year.

Frequently asked questions about getting into Stanford Law School

Is a 173 LSAT good enough for Stanford Law School?

A 173 is exactly Stanford Law School's LSAT median, per Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, so it is good enough to be competitive but not good enough to feel safe. Half of the fall 2025 class scored at or above 173 and half below, inside a 171 to 176 middle range. At a 6.1% acceptance rate, a 173 applicant to Stanford Law School still needs a GPA near the 3.96 median and a distinctive file to convert.

What GPA do you need to get into Stanford Law School?

Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports a GPA median of 3.96, with a 25th percentile of 3.87 and a 75th percentile of a perfect 4.0. That band is extraordinarily tight and high: the entire middle half of Stanford Law School's class sits between 3.87 and 4.0. Realistically you want a GPA of at least 3.87, and anything below it needs an LSAT near the 176 upper quartile to offset at Stanford Law School.

What is Stanford Law School's acceptance rate?

Stanford Law School's acceptance rate is 6.1%, computed as 337 offers against 5,526 applications in Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That is the second-lowest among the leading national schools clustered at its LSAT level, behind only Yale. Roughly six applicants in every hundred receive an offer from Stanford Law School in a given cycle, driven in part by the smallest first-year class in the T14.

How many people apply to Stanford Law School each year?

Stanford Law School received 5,526 applications for its fall 2025 entering class, according to Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. From that pool, Stanford Law School extended 337 offers of admission and enrolled 173 matriculants, building a first-year class of 193. The distance between 5,526 applications and 337 offers is what produces the 6.1% Stanford Law acceptance rate, second only to Yale in its band.

Does Stanford Law School have binding Early Decision?

No. Stanford Law School offers neither binding Early Decision nor non-binding Early Action, according to Stanford Law School's own JD application page. Every applicant competes in a single rolling cycle with a February 16 deadline. Because Stanford Law School runs no early round, there is no early deposit, no binding withdrawal rule, and no early-commitment scholarship trade-off to weigh when applying to Stanford Law School.

How much does Stanford Law School cost per year?

Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $77,454 and living expenses at $51,102 for the year. Stanford Law School does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance total in that 509, so this page will not quote one. A student receiving Stanford Law School's median grant of $52,797 nets about $24,657 in tuition and fees before living costs are added.

Does Stanford Law School give merit scholarships or only need-based aid?

Only need-based aid. Stanford Law School awards no merit scholarships whatsoever, and it commits to meeting the demonstrated financial need of admitted students. Per Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, 50% of students receive grants (285 of 565), with a median grant of $52,797, two full-tuition awards, and 64 above-full-tuition awards. No LSAT or GPA number will buy a Stanford Law School scholarship, because grant aid there depends entirely on documented financial need.

What is Stanford Law School's bar passage rate?

Stanford Law School's ABA bar-passage report shows a first-time pass rate of 96.5% for the 2024 exam year, with a 94.81% rate in its largest jurisdiction, California. The ultimate pass rate, measured two years out for the 2022 cohort, is 98.9%, per the same report. In short, nearly every Stanford Law School graduate who sits for a bar exam ends up passing it, consistent with the school's 0.0% first-year academic attrition.

Do Stanford Law School 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, 93 Stanford Law School graduates (46.7%) took jobs at firms of 101 or more lawyers, and 80 of those (40.2% of the class) landed at firms of 501 or more lawyers. The BigLaw share is a touch lower than at some peers because Stanford Law School sends 17.6% of graduates into federal clerkships first.

Where do most Stanford Law School graduates work?

Most Stanford Law School graduates cluster in a few coastal markets. The ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows California taking 69 graduates (34.7%), New York 37, and the District of Columbia 28, so the top three markets alone account for 67.3% of the class. A Stanford Law School degree, in practice, is west-coast anchored yet places into New York and Washington DC at national scale.

Can a splitter get into Stanford Law School?

It is difficult, because Stanford Law School is balanced rather than splitter friendly. Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of just 0.09 and an LSAT spread of 2 points, so neither number forgives a weak other number very much. A splitter with a high LSAT and a lower GPA can still be admitted to Stanford Law School, but the LSAT needs to reach the 176 upper quartile and the GPA should stay near the 3.87 floor.

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

Stanford Law School is the second most selective school in its LSAT band. Among the 17 leading national schools with a median LSAT within two points of Stanford Law School's 173, ranked by acceptance rate, Stanford Law School's 6.1% is second only to Yale at 4.1%, and well below Harvard University at 9.2%, per Lovare's band-peer analysis of 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosures. No peer at its academic level except Yale admits a smaller share of applicants than Stanford Law School.

Is Stanford Law School worth the cost?

For most admitted students, yes. Against a $77,454 tuition and fees sticker in Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, half of students receive need-based grants with a $52,797 median, and the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 96.0% of Stanford Law School graduates employed at ten months, with 46.7% in large firms and 17.6% in federal clerkships. Those outcomes and that need-based aid make the cost of Stanford Law School defensible.

What LSAT and GPA give the best shot at a Stanford Law School scholarship?

None, and this is the myth to drop. Stanford Law School awards no merit aid, so no combination of LSAT and GPA improves scholarship odds there. Per Stanford Law School's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, 50% of students receive grants with a median of $52,797, all of it need-based. Your numbers affect admission to Stanford Law School, not aid; your financial-need documentation determines the grant.

Sources

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

Stanford Law School 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class): https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/AnnualQuestionnaire/GenerateIndividualDisclosure509Report?schoolId=21&year=2025

ABA Employment Summary, Class of 2024: https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/EQ-Summary-Class-of-2024.pdf

Stanford Law School ABA bar-passage report: https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/BarPassageOutcomes/GenerateIndividualBarPassageReport?schoolId=21&year=2025

Stanford Law School JD application process page: https://law.stanford.edu/apply/how-to-apply/jd-application-process

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