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

How to get into University of Michigan Law School starts with two numbers. According to Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 class posted an LSAT median of 171 (168 to 173) and a GPA median of 3.88 (3.74 to 3.95). Hit both and you are on target; miss one and the other must carry you.

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 Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class), the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, and Michigan Law's own published pages.

What sets University of Michigan Law School apart in the T14 is where its graduates land: nowhere in particular, and that is the point. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, only 23.3% of Michigan Law graduates stayed in the school's single largest market, the lowest market concentration of any school in this set. Where a Chicago or a New York feeder school ties its class to one city, Michigan Law spreads it across New York, Illinois, Michigan, and beyond. The thesis of this page is that Michigan Law is the closest thing American legal education has to a genuinely national degree, one that buys optionality across markets rather than a fast track into a single one.

University of Michigan Law at a glance: LSAT, GPA, acceptance rate and cost

University of Michigan Law School is among the most selective law schools in the country. According to Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, the fall 2025 class posted a 171 LSAT median, a 3.88 GPA median, and an 8.57% acceptance rate. Full-time tuition and fees run $76,680 for residents and $79,680 for nonresidents. A full snapshot follows.

MetricUniversity of Michigan Law School (fall 2025 entering class)LSAT (25th / 50th / 75th)168 / 171 / 173GPA (25th / 50th / 75th)3.74 / 3.88 / 3.95Acceptance rate8.57%Applications8,982Offers of admission770Matriculants from the pool329First-year class343Full-time tuition and fees$76,680 resident / $79,680 nonresidentLiving expenses$26,886Share receiving grants91% (902 of 990)Median grant$32,000Conditional scholarshipsNoFirst-time bar passage95.57%Employed at ten months97.2% (313 of 322)

Source: LSAT, GPA, acceptance rate, applications, offers, matriculants, tuition, living costs, and grants come from Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class); first-time bar passage comes from Michigan Law's ABA bar-passage report; the ten-month employment figure comes from the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024. The 509 prints tuition and fees and living expenses separately and 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 University of Michigan Law School?

You really need a 171 LSAT and a 3.88 GPA to sit at the center of University of Michigan Law School's class. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure puts the LSAT middle at 168 to 173 and the GPA middle at 3.74 to 3.95. Below either 25th percentile, the other number has to clearly carry you.

Read Michigan Law's two admissions rows together and the shape of the class is clear. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports an LSAT 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile of 168, 171, and 173, and a GPA spread of 3.74, 3.88, and 3.95. The Michigan law LSAT median of 171 means half the entering class scored at or above 171 and half below, inside a five-point middle band. The Michigan law GPA median of 3.88 sits inside a tight 0.21-point middle band, so the typical admit is strong but not perfect on grades.

A realistic on-target profile looks like this. A 171 LSAT paired with a 3.88 GPA places an applicant squarely at both of Michigan Law's medians, per its 2025 ABA 509 disclosure, which is the center of the admitted class and a genuinely competitive position at an 8.57% acceptance rate. An applicant at the 173 LSAT and 3.95 GPA upper quartiles is comfortably above the middle and is a strong candidate for both admission and scholarship money. An applicant below the 168 LSAT floor or the 3.74 GPA floor is not out of the running, but the file needs a clear compensating strength on the other number to stay in it.

On the splitter question, Michigan Law reads as balanced rather than lopsided. The GPA spread from the 25th percentile to the median is 0.14 and the LSAT spread is three points, per Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure, 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. Michigan Law does neither to an extreme. A splitter with a 174-plus LSAT and a GPA a little under 3.74 can still compete, and a reverse splitter with a 3.95-plus GPA and an LSAT a touch under 168 can too, but in both cases Michigan Law expects the strong number to be genuinely strong. This is one of the Michigan law requirements that applicants most often misjudge: neither number is a free pass, and the admissions read weighs the whole file once both clear the band.

One reassurance sits underneath these numbers. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of just 1.0%, meaning almost no one who starts at Michigan Law washes out academically. The bar to get in is high, but once admitted, students are supported to finish. That low attrition is part of why a Michigan Law admit is worth pushing hard for even when your numbers sit at the edge of the band.

Is University of Michigan Law harder to get into than its reputation?

Yes, modestly. University of Michigan Law School's reputation is elite, and its admissions math is a shade tougher than even that reputation suggests. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure reports an 8.57% acceptance rate, which ranks third most selective among the leading national law schools clustered around its 171 LSAT median. The reputation is right, and the numbers back it.

To size up Michigan Law's selectivity fairly, compare it only against schools with a similar academic profile. Among the 26 leading national law schools whose median LSAT falls within two points of Michigan Law's 171, that is, a median of 169 to 173, ranked by acceptance rate, Michigan Law is the third most selective of the group. Its 8.57% Michigan law acceptance rate, from Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, trails only two schools in that entire band.

Ranked from most to least selective by acceptance rate, the only two schools in that band ahead of Michigan Law are Stanford University at 6.1% and the University of Pennsylvania (Carey) at 8.1%. Michigan Law's 8.57% then sits ahead of the University of Virginia at 10.2%, USC (Gould) at 11.2%, Columbia University at 11.8%, UCLA, Boston University, and Texas A&M University at 12.1%, Northwestern University (Pritzker) at 12.3%, the University of Georgia at 12.7%, Duke University at 12.9%, Vanderbilt University at 13.3%, New York University at 13.4%, the University of Texas at Austin at 14.0%, UC Berkeley at 14.8%, UC Irvine at 14.9%, Georgetown University at 15.8%, George Mason University (Scalia) at 16.0%, the University of Notre Dame at 16.1%, the University of Florida (Levin) at 16.5%, Cornell University at 18.2%, Brigham Young University at 22.8%, and the University of Minnesota at 26.7%. In plain terms, at its own LSAT level Michigan Law admits a smaller share of applicants than almost every school an applicant would name in the same breath, including Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Duke, and Georgetown.

One school that looks like a peer on paper is left out on purpose. Boston College reports an 8.5% acceptance rate that would appear to slot right beside Michigan Law's 8.57%, but Boston College reports its offers on a narrower basis than the rest of the band, so it is not a true selectivity peer and does not belong in this ranking. Set that anomaly aside and the conclusion holds: Michigan Law is not simply a famous school coasting on history. By the one metric that measures how hard it is to secure an offer, University of Michigan Law School is measurably harder than its already-elite reputation implies.

Does University of Michigan Law have Early Decision, and is it binding?

Yes. University of Michigan Law School offers a binding Early Decision program. According to Michigan Law's own special-circumstances page, the Early Decision deadline is November 15, with a decision guaranteed by December 15, and admitted applicants commit fully to Michigan Law. It is a true binding commitment, not a soft early-action signal.

Here are the mechanics exactly as Michigan Law publishes them. According to Michigan Law's own special-circumstances page, an Early Decision applicant files by November 15 and receives a decision guaranteed by December 15. On admission, the applicant owes a $600 deposit due January 15, must withdraw every other law school application already submitted, and must start no new applications. That is the trade at the heart of binding Early Decision: certainty and an early answer from Michigan Law in exchange for surrendering the ability to shop competing offers.

On money, Michigan Law is even-handed with its Early Decision admits. Per Michigan Law's own special-circumstances page, Early Decision applicants remain eligible for both merit and need-based grants on the same terms as everyone else, though those aid decisions come later than the December 15 admission decision. That timing is the one genuine catch. An Early Decision admit to Michigan Law commits to enroll before knowing the size of any scholarship, so this route makes the most sense for an applicant who has decided Michigan Law is the clear first choice and is prepared to attend at close to sticker price if the aid comes in modest. An applicant whose decision hinges on the scholarship number is usually better served by the regular pool, where offers can be compared side by side.

How much does University of Michigan Law cost, and how much scholarship money will you get?

University of Michigan Law School lists full-time tuition and fees at $76,680 for residents and $79,680 for nonresidents, with living expenses of $26,886, in its 2025 ABA 509 disclosure. Michigan Law is unusually generous on grants: 91% of students receive one, the median grant is $32,000, and none of the awards are conditional on grades.

Start with the sticker. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $76,680 for Michigan residents and $79,680 for nonresidents, and separately lists living expenses at $26,886. That 509 does not print a single combined cost-of-attendance total, so any all-in annual number quoted elsewhere is someone's arithmetic rather than a figure Michigan Law reports, and this page will not invent one.

The aid picture is where Michigan Law stands out. According to Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure, 91% of students receive grant aid, 902 of 990 enrolled students, which is one of the highest grant-participation shares among top law schools. Grant amounts at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles are $20,000, $32,000, and $41,000. On top of that, Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure reports 14 full-tuition awards and 17 awards above full tuition, so a small group of admits attend for free or better. These grants include both merit and need-based aid, so a strong Michigan law admissions profile genuinely helps here, unlike at the handful of top schools that award need-based aid only.

For a typical grant recipient the math runs like this. Against the $79,680 nonresident sticker for tuition and fees, a student receiving Michigan Law's median grant of $32,000 nets about $47,680 in tuition and fees before living costs, using figures from Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure. Just as important, Michigan Law reports that its scholarships are not conditional, per its 2025 ABA 509 disclosure, meaning an award cannot be cut or revoked for landing in the bottom of the first-year curve. That protection matters. At schools that use conditional scholarships, a first-year grant can shrink after a single bad semester; at Michigan Law, the grant an admitted student is quoted is the grant they keep for all three years.

The strategic read is that Michigan Law is a school where numbers convert into dollars. Because grants blend merit and need and 91% of students receive something, an applicant who pushes an LSAT into the 173 range and a GPA toward 3.95 is not only improving admission odds but positioning for a larger award. The best-funded Michigan Law admits tend to be the ones sitting at or above both upper quartiles, and with 14 full-tuition and 17 above-full-tuition awards on the table, the ceiling on that money is real.

What are your real chances off the University of Michigan Law waitlist?

Modest, and the yield math explains why. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure shows 770 offers and 329 matriculants from the pool, an implied yield of 42.7%. No ABA disclosure publishes waitlist admits, so implied yield is the honest proxy: a 42.7% yield means University of Michigan Law School fills most of its class from first-round offers.

Here is the reasoning in full. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports 770 offers of admission and 329 matriculants drawn from the applicant pool, an implied yield of 42.7%. No ABA disclosure, Michigan Law's included, publishes how many applicants are admitted off the waitlist or how many accept, so implied yield is the honest way to reason about waitlist movement. The logic is direct: the higher the share of offers a school converts to enrollments, the more of its class is locked in from the first round and the less room it has left to backfill from a waitlist.

A 42.7% yield is moderate to high for a national law school, which tells a waitlisted Michigan Law applicant to hope but not to count on movement. A school that yields, say, 25% sends far more offers than it has seats, expects most to decline, and routinely reaches deep into its waitlist to finish the class. Michigan Law is closer to the other end: it converts well over four in ten of its offers, so in a typical cycle it needs relatively little waitlist help, and waitlist admission to Michigan Law is correspondingly harder to bank on. A waitlisted applicant who has a genuine case to make should make it through a concise letter of continued interest, because at these odds the marginal signal is what moves a file.

One honest note on the class figures. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure lists 329 matriculants from the applicant pool but a first-year class of 343. The gap reflects students who arrive through paths other than this single cycle's pool, such as admitted students who deferred from a prior year. The 42.7% implied yield is computed from the 329 pool matriculants against the 770 offers, which is the correct comparison for reasoning about this cycle's waitlist odds at Michigan Law.

Where do University of Michigan Law graduates actually work?

Everywhere, and that is the whole point. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, Michigan Law's largest market, New York, took just 23.3% of graduates and the top three markets took 52.8%, the most dispersed outcome in this set. Large firms of 101-plus lawyers hired 59.3%, and 10.2% won federal clerkships.

The single most useful fact about University of Michigan Law School's employment outcomes is how little any one city dominates them. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, Michigan Law placed 75 graduates in New York, 52 in Illinois, and 43 in Michigan, its three largest markets. New York, the top market, absorbed only 23.3% of the class, and the top three markets together took 52.8%, per the same ABA Employment Summary. Compare that with a school where a single city swallows 40% or more of the class, and the contrast is the argument: a Michigan Law degree does not quietly pre-select your city for you. It travels to New York, Chicago, Michigan, and a long tail of other markets on close to equal footing.

By employer type, the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 191 Michigan Law graduates, or 59.3%, taking jobs at large firms of 101 or more lawyers, and 162 of them, 50.3% of the class, at the very largest firms of 501 or more lawyers. So large-firm practice, what applicants usually mean by BigLaw, is the most common single destination for a Michigan Law graduate, and it skews toward the biggest firms in the market. A Michigan Law graduate who wants BigLaw can get it, but can pursue it in almost any major market rather than being funneled into one.

The clerkship pipeline is strong as well. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, 33 Michigan Law graduates, 10.2% of the class, went into federal clerkships, more than one in ten. That is a robust federal-clerkship share that signals both the caliber of the class and the reach of Michigan Law's faculty recommendations into chambers around the country, again spread across jurisdictions rather than concentrated in one circuit.

Overall placement is excellent but, at this level, almost beside the point. The ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 313 of 322 Michigan Law graduates employed at the ten-month mark, a 97.2% employment rate, and Michigan Law's 2025 ABA 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of just 1.0%. Near-total employment is table stakes across the top of the national market, so it does not distinguish Michigan Law from its peers. What distinguishes University of Michigan Law School is the geographic breadth behind that number. If you want a degree that keeps New York, Chicago, Washington, California, and your home market all genuinely open, Michigan Law's dispersion is the feature, not a bug, and it should weigh more in your decision than the headline employment rate everyone at this tier shares.

When are University of Michigan Law's application deadlines?

University of Michigan Law School runs a binding Early Decision track and a regular cycle. According to Michigan Law's own special-circumstances page, the Early Decision deadline is November 15 with a decision by December 15. Michigan Law's disclosures do not give this page a fixed regular-decision deadline, so confirm the current date on Michigan Law's site.

Take the dates Michigan Law does publish first. According to Michigan Law's own special-circumstances page, the binding Early Decision deadline is November 15, a decision is guaranteed by December 15, and an admitted Early Decision applicant owes a $600 deposit by January 15. Those are firm, dated milestones for the early track, and an applicant set on Michigan Law as a first choice can plan around them with confidence.

For the regular J.D. cycle, honesty requires a caveat. The source documents behind this page, chiefly Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure and its special-circumstances page, do not hand this page a single fixed regular-decision deadline to quote, so this page will not manufacture one. Michigan Law admits from a rolling-style national pool, and application cycle dates shift from year to year, so a date correct for one cycle can move in the next. The Early Decision dates stated here reflect the published cycle and were verified in August 2026. Before relying on any regular-cycle deadline, confirm the current date directly on Michigan Law's admissions site, because a page like this is a planning aid, not the registrar of record.

Frequently asked questions about getting into University of Michigan Law School

Is a 171 LSAT good enough for Michigan Law?

A 171 is exactly Michigan Law's LSAT median, per Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, so it is good enough to be competitive but not to feel safe. Half of the fall 2025 class scored at or above 171 and half below, inside a 168 to 173 middle range. At an 8.57% acceptance rate, a 171 applicant to Michigan Law still needs a solid GPA near the 3.88 median and a strong file to convert.

What GPA do you need to get into Michigan Law?

Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports a GPA median of 3.88, with a 25th percentile of 3.74 and a 75th percentile of 3.95. The Michigan law GPA middle band is tight, so the typical admit sits between 3.74 and 3.95. Realistically you want a GPA of at least 3.74, and anything below that floor needs an LSAT near the 173 upper quartile to offset it at Michigan Law.

What is Michigan Law's acceptance rate?

Michigan Law's acceptance rate is 8.57%, computed as 770 offers against 8,982 applications in Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. That ranks third most selective among the 26 leading law schools within two LSAT points of Michigan Law's 171 median, behind only Stanford and Penn. Fewer than nine applicants in every hundred receive an offer from Michigan Law in a given cycle.

How many people apply to Michigan Law each year?

Michigan Law received 8,982 applications for its fall 2025 entering class, according to Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. From that pool, Michigan Law extended 770 offers of admission and enrolled 329 matriculants, building a first-year class of 343. The distance between 8,982 applications and 770 offers is what produces Michigan Law's 8.57% acceptance rate, one of the lowest at its LSAT level.

Does Michigan Law have binding Early Decision?

Yes. Michigan Law offers a binding Early Decision program, according to Michigan Law's own special-circumstances page. The deadline is November 15, a decision is guaranteed by December 15, and admitted applicants owe a $600 deposit by January 15, must withdraw all other applications, and may start no new ones. Early Decision admits to Michigan Law stay eligible for merit and need aid, but the aid decision comes after the admission decision.

How much does Michigan Law cost per year?

Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure lists full-time tuition and fees at $76,680 for residents and $79,680 for nonresidents, with living expenses of $26,886. Michigan Law does not publish a single combined cost-of-attendance total in that 509, so this page will not quote one. A student receiving Michigan Law's median grant of $32,000 nets about $47,680 in nonresident tuition and fees before living costs.

Does Michigan Law give merit scholarships?

Yes. Unlike a few schools at the very top that award need-based aid only, Michigan Law awards grants that blend merit and need. Per Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, 91% of students receive grants (902 of 990), the median grant is $32,000, and there are 14 full-tuition and 17 above-full-tuition awards. A strong LSAT and GPA genuinely improve scholarship odds at Michigan Law, and none of the awards are conditional on grades.

What is Michigan Law's bar passage rate?

Michigan Law's ABA bar-passage report shows a first-time pass rate of 95.57% for the 2024 exam year, with a 98.84% rate in its largest jurisdiction, New York. The ultimate pass rate, measured two years out for the 2022 cohort, is 98.7%, per the same report. In short, nearly every Michigan Law graduate who sits for a bar exam ends up passing it, in New York at an especially high rate.

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

Yes, and it is the most common single outcome. In the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024, 191 Michigan Law graduates (59.3%) took jobs at firms of 101 or more lawyers, and 162 of those (50.3% of the class) landed at firms of 501 or more lawyers. Large-firm practice is the leading destination for Michigan Law graduates, and because the class is geographically dispersed, that BigLaw work is spread across many markets rather than one.

Where do most Michigan Law graduates work?

Michigan Law graduates spread out more than almost any peer's. The ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows New York taking 75 graduates (23.3%), Illinois 52, and Michigan 43, so the top three markets account for just 52.8% of the class. That 23.3% top-market share is the lowest in this set, which is why a Michigan Law degree functions as a national credential rather than a ticket into one city.

Can a splitter get into Michigan Law?

Sometimes, but Michigan Law is balanced rather than splitter friendly. Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure shows a GPA 25th-to-median spread of 0.14 and an LSAT spread of three points, so neither number forgives a weak other number by much. A splitter with a 174-plus LSAT and a GPA a little under the 3.74 floor can still compete at Michigan Law, but the LSAT has to be genuinely high to offset the grades.

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

Very. Among the 26 leading national schools with a median LSAT within two points of Michigan Law's 171, ranked by acceptance rate, Michigan Law's 8.57% is the third lowest, behind only Stanford University at 6.1% and the University of Pennsylvania (Carey) at 8.1%, per Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure. At its own academic level, University of Michigan Law School admits a smaller share of applicants than Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Duke, or Georgetown.

Is Michigan Law worth the cost?

For most admitted students, yes. Against a $79,680 nonresident tuition and fees sticker in Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure, 91% of students receive grants with a median of $32,000, and the ABA Employment Summary for the Class of 2024 shows 97.2% of Michigan Law graduates employed at ten months, 59.3% in large firms, and 10.2% in federal clerkships. The heavy grant participation plus a genuinely national employment map make Michigan Law's cost defensible.

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

Numbers at or above both upper quartiles give the best shot. Because Michigan Law's grants blend merit and need, an applicant sitting at the 173 LSAT and 3.95 GPA upper quartiles from Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure is best positioned for a larger award, up to the 14 full-tuition and 17 above-full-tuition grants Michigan Law reports. The median grant is $32,000, and pushing both numbers above the medians is how applicants move toward and past it.

What is Michigan Law's first-year attrition rate?

Michigan Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 disclosure reports first-year academic attrition of just 1.0%. In practical terms, almost no one who starts at Michigan Law is dismissed for grades, which tells an admitted student that the hard part is getting in, not staying in. Combined with a 95.57% first-time bar pass rate from Michigan Law's ABA bar-passage report, the through-line from admission to a law license at Michigan Law is about as reliable as it gets.

Sources

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

Michigan Law 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (fall 2025 entering class): https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/AnnualQuestionnaire/GenerateIndividualDisclosure509Report?schoolId=76&year=2025

ABA Employment Summary, Class of 2024: https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/EmploymentOutcomes/GenerateIndividualEQSummaryReport?schoolId=76&year=2024

Michigan Law ABA bar-passage report: https://backend.abarequireddisclosures.org/api/BarPassageOutcomes/GenerateIndividualBarPassageReport?schoolId=76&year=2025

Michigan Law special application circumstances (Early Decision) page: https://michigan.law.umich.edu/resource-center/special-application-circumstances

Get your free Michigan Law admissions profile evaluation