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

How to get into University of Houston Law School is, at heart, a value question with a strong answer. According to Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 class posted a 163 LSAT median (160 to 165) and a 3.79 GPA median (3.56 to 3.9). Hit both and you are competitive at a genuine public-school price.

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. The admissions figures on this page come from Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class), the employment figures from the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, and the remaining detail from Houston Law Center's own pages.

The single most distinctive fact about Houston Law Center is that it pairs a public-school price with a large-firm outcome. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists resident tuition and fees at $39,222, well below the private schools in its academic band, while the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 33.1% of its graduates landing at large firms of 101 or more lawyers. That combination, a resident sticker under $40,000 feeding a third of the class into large-firm practice in one of the country's biggest legal markets, is the thesis this page returns to. Houston Law Center is a value play anchored in the Houston market, and its admissions numbers, scholarships, and outcomes all read most clearly through that lens.

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

Houston Law Center is a selective public school with a Houston large-firm pipeline. According to Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 class posted a 163 LSAT median, a 3.79 GPA median, and a 22.99% acceptance rate. Resident tuition and fees run $39,222, nonresident $53,947, with living expenses listed at $26,086. The table collects the core numbers.

MetricHouston Law Center (fall 2025 entering class)LSAT (25th / 50th / 75th)160 / 163 / 165GPA (25th / 50th / 75th)3.56 / 3.79 / 3.9Acceptance rate22.99%Applications3,510Offers of admission807Matriculants from the pool246First-year class249 (219 full-time + 30 part-time)Full-time tuition and feesResident $39,222 / nonresident $53,947Living expenses$26,086Share receiving grants74% of studentsMedian grant$11,500Conditional scholarshipsNoFirst-time bar passage88.63%Employed at ten months94.6% (246 of 260)

Source: Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class), Houston Law Center'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, so this page does not quote one.

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

You realistically need a 163 LSAT and a 3.79 GPA to sit at the center of Houston Law Center's class. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure puts the LSAT middle at 160 to 165 and the GPA middle at 3.56 to 3.9. Below either 25th percentile, the other number has to carry a clear compensating strength.

Take the two numbers one at a time. The University of Houston law LSAT median is 163, with a 25th percentile of 160 and a 75th percentile of 165, per Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That is a compact band: three points separate the median from the bottom quarter and two points from the top quarter, so a 165 places an applicant in the top quarter of the class, a 163 sits at the exact middle, and a 160 marks the bottom quarter but stays inside the admitted range. An LSAT below 160 does not end the conversation at Houston Law Center, but it puts real weight on the GPA and the rest of the file.

The GPA band is similarly tight at the top. The University of Houston law GPA median is 3.79, with a 25th percentile of 3.56 and a 75th percentile of 3.9, according to the same disclosure. The distance from the 25th percentile to the median is 0.23 of a point. In plain terms, Houston Law Center's admitted students cluster high, but a 3.56 is a genuinely live number rather than a disqualifier, and the top quarter reaches to 3.9.

So what does a realistic Houston Law Center profile look like? A 163 LSAT paired with a 3.79 GPA lands an applicant squarely at both medians, per Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, a competitive center-of-class position at a school admitting about 23 in every hundred applicants. Fall below the 160 LSAT or the 3.56 GPA and you need a clear compensating strength on the other number. On the splitter question, Houston Law Center is splitter friendly: its 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.23 and an LSAT spread of 3 points, so the GPA band is the more forgiving of the two. A splitter-friendly school forgives a lower GPA when the LSAT is high, and Houston Law Center leans that way, so a high-LSAT applicant carrying a GPA in the mid-3.5s has a realistic path.

Is Houston Law Center harder to get into than its reputation?

Yes. Houston Law Center is more selective than a state-school reputation might suggest. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports a 22.99% acceptance rate, which ranks it 8th most selective of the 41 leading schools within two LSAT points of its 163 median. Its admit rate sits well inside the top quarter of its academic band.

To judge the University of Houston law acceptance rate fairly, compare it only against schools with a similar academic profile. Among the 41 ABA law schools whose median LSAT falls within two points of Houston Law Center's 163, that is a median of 161 to 165, ranked by acceptance rate, Houston Law Center is the 8th most selective, per Lovare's analysis of the 2025 ABA 509 disclosures. That places Houston Law Center in the top fifth of its own academic band: 33 of the 41 schools sharing its LSAT profile admit a larger share of applicants than Houston Law Center's 22.99%.

The practical reading matters for how you plan. Houston Law Center carries the reputation of an accessible public university, which can lead applicants to assume an easy admit, but the numbers say otherwise: at 22.99%, Houston Law Center admits fewer than one applicant in four, a rate more selective than most schools with the same 163 LSAT median. The Houston legal market's size, the school's in-state price, and a contained class of 249 first-years all push demand up and the admit rate down. The takeaway for an applicant is to treat Houston Law Center as a genuine target rather than a safety, and to build a file to the medians.

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

Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists resident tuition and fees at $39,222, nonresident at $53,947, and living expenses at $26,086, with no single cost-of-attendance total printed. Aid reaches a solid majority: 74% of Houston Law Center students receive a grant, with a median award of $11,500, and the scholarships are not conditional on grades.

Start with the sticker, which is really two stickers. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists resident tuition and fees at $39,222 and nonresident tuition and fees at $53,947, and separately lists living expenses at $26,086. That resident figure is the heart of the value case: at under $40,000 a year, Houston Law Center's resident tuition is a genuine public-school price, well beneath the stickers common at private law schools, and even the $53,947 nonresident rate stays below many private options. The 509 does not print a single combined cost-of-attendance total, so any all-in annual number quoted elsewhere for Houston Law Center is someone's arithmetic rather than a figure the school reports, and this page will not invent one.

The aid picture is solid rather than blanket. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports that 74% of students receive a grant, with grant amounts at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of $4,000, $11,500, and $16,900. Houston Law Center made 1 full-tuition award and 23 awards above full tuition, according to the same disclosure. The grants here are more modest than at the high-discount private schools, but they layer on top of an already low resident tuition. At the 25th percentile Houston Law Center's grant is just $4,000, per the same disclosure, a reminder that the aid does supporting work while the resident tuition does the heavy lifting on value. Using the nonresident sticker, a student holding Houston Law Center's median grant of $11,500 nets about $42,447 in tuition and fees before living costs, per the same disclosure; measured against the $39,222 resident base, that same median grant brings a resident's net well below $30,000.

One consumer-protective point works in the applicant's favor at Houston Law Center. According to Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, its scholarships are not conditional, so a first-year award cannot be cut for landing in the bottom half of the curve. The grant you are quoted in your offer is the grant you keep, which removes the renewal risk that some schools attach to first-year merit money. Because the resident tuition is already low, the strategic move is to establish Texas residency where possible and to push your LSAT and GPA as high as you can, since those numbers drive the grant on top of the low base.

What are your real chances off the Houston Law Center waitlist?

Moderate. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure records 807 offers and 246 matriculants, an implied yield of 30.5%. No ABA disclosure publishes waitlist admits, so implied yield is the honest proxy: a 30.5% yield means Houston Law Center fills much of its class from first-round offers but sends more than three offers per seat.

Here is the reasoning in full. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports 807 offers of admission and 246 matriculants drawn from the applicant pool, which is an implied yield of 30.5%. No ABA disclosure, Houston Law Center's included, publishes how many applicants are admitted off the waitlist or how many accept, so implied yield is the honest stand-in for waitlist movement. The logic is that when a school converts 30.5% of its offers into enrollments, it sends more than three offers for every seat it fills, which leaves a moderate amount of class-building work that can, in a given year, reach onto a waitlist.

For a waitlisted applicant, the practical read is cautiously hopeful. A 30.5% implied yield at Houston Law Center sits in a middle range: high enough that Houston Law Center fills much of its class from first-round offers, but not so high that its waitlist never moves. The honest limit is that Houston Law Center, like every school, does not publish year-to-year waitlist admit counts, so movement varies by cycle. If you are on the Houston Law Center waitlist, a concise letter of continued interest reaffirming Houston Law Center as a first choice is worth sending, especially from an applicant able to commit to the Houston market.

Where do Houston Law Center graduates actually work?

In Texas, and heavily in large firms. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, Texas took 86.9% of Houston Law Center graduates and the top three markets took 89.6%. Large firms of 101 or more lawyers hired 33.1% of the class, while federal clerkships took 1.5%. Concentration, not the raw employment rate, decides fit here.

The most useful fact about Houston Law Center's outcomes is how firmly they stay in state. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, Houston Law Center placed 226 graduates in Texas, 4 in New York, and 3 in California, its three largest markets. Texas alone absorbed 86.9% of the class, and the top three markets together took 89.6%, per the same summary. In practice a Houston Law Center degree is a Houston-and-Texas degree, feeding the energy, corporate, and litigation practices of the nation's fourth-largest city above all.

By employer type, the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 33.1% of Houston Law Center graduates taking jobs at large firms of 101 or more lawyers. That is the number that defines the school's value case: a third of the class steps directly into large-firm practice at a public-school tuition, which is a rare pairing. Federal clerkships are a much smaller path, taking 1.5% of the class, per the same summary, so the Houston Law Center story is a large-firm-and-market story rather than a clerkship one.

The overall placement rate is strong. The same ABA Employment Summary shows 246 of 260 Houston Law Center graduates employed at ten months, a 94.6% rate, and Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of 0.0%, so essentially no one who starts at Houston Law Center washes out academically. The reason to weigh Houston Law Center on concentration rather than that 94.6% headline is that the specific shape of its outcomes, Houston-first and large-firm heavy at a low price, is what actually distinguishes the school.

When are Houston Law Center's application deadlines?

Houston Law Center runs a J.D. admissions cycle, but this page does not print a specific deadline date because the packet behind it did not pull one. The honest instruction is to confirm Houston Law Center's current deadlines, and any early-decision terms, directly on the school's admissions site. This guidance is dated August 2026.

On early decision specifically, Houston Law Center's ED terms are not confirmed here for the current cycle, so rather than state a binding-or-not rule or a date that might be wrong, this page notes the absence plainly: if you are weighing an early application to Houston Law Center, confirm whether Houston Law Center offers an Early Decision round, whether it is binding, and what its deadline is, on the school's own admissions page before you rely on it. Application cycle dates shift from year to year, and a date that holds for one cycle can move in the next, so treat Houston Law Center's official site as the registrar of record. What this page can say with confidence, verified in August 2026, is that a strong Houston Law Center application benefits from being complete early in the cycle, because seats and scholarship dollars are more plentiful earlier in the year, and Texas residency should be documented as early as possible to lock in the resident rate.

Frequently asked questions about getting into Houston Law Center

Is a 163 LSAT good enough for Houston Law Center?

A 163 is exactly Houston Law Center's LSAT median, per Houston Law Center'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 163 and half below, inside a 160 to 165 middle range. Paired with a GPA at or near the 3.79 median, a 163 puts a Houston Law Center applicant squarely at the center of the admitted class.

What GPA do you need for Houston Law Center?

Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports a GPA median of 3.79, with a 25th percentile of 3.56 and a 75th percentile of 3.9. Realistically you want a GPA of at least 3.56 to stay inside Houston Law Center's admitted band, and because Houston Law Center is splitter friendly, a strong LSAT at or above 163 can offset a GPA in the mid-3.5s in the school's read of the file.

What is Houston Law Center's acceptance rate?

Houston Law Center's acceptance rate is 22.99%, computed as 807 offers against 3,510 applications in Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That ranks Houston Law Center 8th most selective among the 41 leading schools within two LSAT points of its 163 median, in the top fifth of its academic band. Fewer than one applicant in four receives an offer from Houston Law Center in a given cycle.

How many people apply to Houston Law Center?

Houston Law Center received 3,510 applications for its fall 2025 entering class, according to Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. From that pool, Houston Law Center extended 807 offers of admission and enrolled 246 matriculants, building a first-year class of 249, which splits into 219 full-time and 30 part-time students. The part-time option is one way Houston Law Center serves working students in the Houston market.

How much does Houston Law Center cost?

Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists resident tuition and fees at $39,222, nonresident at $53,947, and living expenses at $26,086 for the year. Houston Law Center does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance total, so this page will not quote one. A student holding Houston Law Center's median grant of $11,500 nets about $42,447 against the nonresident sticker, and far less against the resident rate.

Does Houston Law Center give scholarships?

Yes, to most students. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports that 74% of students receive a grant, with a median award of $11,500 and grants reaching a $16,900 upper quartile. Houston Law Center made 1 full-tuition award and 23 awards above full tuition, and its scholarships are not conditional, so a first-year grant at Houston Law Center cannot be cut for grades.

What is Houston Law Center's bar passage rate?

Houston Law Center's ABA bar-passage report shows a first-time pass rate of 88.63% for the 2024 exam year, with Texas as the largest jurisdiction. The ultimate pass rate, measured two years out for the 2022 cohort, is 92.68%, per the same report. In short, close to nine in ten Houston Law Center graduates who sit for a bar exam pass on the first try, and more pass on a later attempt.

Where do Houston Law Center graduates work?

Overwhelmingly in Texas. The ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows Texas taking 226 Houston Law Center graduates (86.9%), New York 4, and California 3, so the top three markets account for 89.6% of the class. A Houston Law Center degree points hardest at the Houston market, with large firms of 101 or more lawyers hiring 33.1% of the class.

Can a splitter get into Houston Law Center?

Yes, and the high-LSAT splitter has the edge. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.23 and an LSAT spread of 3 points, so the GPA band is the more forgiving one. That makes Houston Law Center splitter friendly: an applicant with a 163-or-better LSAT and a GPA in the mid-3.5s fits the profile Houston Law Center admits readily.

Does Houston Law Center cost less for Texas residents?

Yes, substantially. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists resident tuition and fees at $39,222 and nonresident at $53,947, a difference of $14,725 a year. Establishing Texas residency where possible is one of the largest cost levers at Houston Law Center, and because 74% of students also receive a grant with an $11,500 median, a resident's net tuition can fall well below $30,000.

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

Near the top of its band. Among the 41 leading schools with a median LSAT within two points of Houston Law Center's 163, ranked by acceptance rate, Houston Law Center is 8th most selective at 22.99%, per Lovare's analysis of the 2025 ABA 509 disclosures. Thirty-three band peers admit a larger share of applicants than Houston Law Center does, so its admit rate runs below its academic profile.

Is Houston Law Center worth it?

For a Houston or Texas career, emphatically yes. Against a $39,222 resident sticker in Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, 74% of students receive grants, and the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 94.6% employed at ten months with 33.1% at large firms. That low price and large-firm pipeline make Houston Law Center one of the strongest public-school values in Texas.

What LSAT and GPA give the best shot at a Houston Law Center scholarship?

The highest you can post, because Houston Law Center ties aid to numbers. Per Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, grants reach a $16,900 upper quartile, with 1 full-tuition and 23 above-full-tuition awards. An LSAT at or above the 165 upper quartile paired with a GPA near the 3.9 top quarter gives the strongest shot at the larger awards, layered on top of Houston Law Center's already low resident tuition.

Does Houston Law Center have high first-year attrition?

No. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of 0.0%, meaning essentially no member of the entering class was dismissed for grades in the first year. For an applicant, that is a reassuring signal: once you are admitted to Houston Law Center and enroll, the school is not using the first-year curve to force students out, and your scholarship is not conditional either.

Does Houston Law Center offer a part-time program?

Yes. Houston Law Center's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows its first-year class of 249 splitting into 219 full-time and 30 part-time students. The part-time track lets working students in the Houston market pursue the J.D. on a reduced course load, and it is one reason Houston Law Center serves a broader slice of the city's aspiring lawyers than a full-time-only school would.

Sources

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

Houston Law Center 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class): https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/AnnualQuestionnaire/GenerateIndividualDisclosure509Report?schoolId=144&year=2025

Houston Law Center ABA bar-passage report: https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/BarPassageOutcomes/GenerateIndividualBarPassageReport?schoolId=144&year=2025

ABA Employment Summary, Class of 2024: https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/EmploymentOutcomes/GenerateIndividualEQSummaryReport?schoolId=144&year=2024

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