Law school
Yale Law School
New Haven, CT
#2 in U.S. News & World Report Best Law Schools (2026-27)
Published admissions data for the Fall 2025 entering class, an estimate of where your own numbers land, this cycle's deadlines, the school's own essay prompts and the ABA employment outcomes it reports.
Admissions profile
- Median LSAT
- 174
- Median GPA
- 3.96
- Admit rate
- 4.1%
- Entering class
- 175
- Applications
- 5,562
- Admitted
- 226
Source: Yale Law School — Standard 509 Information Report (2025 cycle) · Fall 2025 entering class
How competitive is Yale?
Reported for the Fall 2025 entering class.
For the Fall 2025 entering class, Yale reported a median LSAT of 174 and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.96.
Its published LSAT band runs 171 / 174 / 177: the 25th percentile sits three points below the median and the 75th sits three points above it.
Yale admitted 226 applicants from 5,562 applications, an admit rate of 4.1%.
175 students enrolled.
What LSAT and GPA do you need for Yale?
The ABA reports where the entering class landed — three percentiles, not a cut-off. No score is required, and none guarantees anything.
Published LSAT: 25th 171 · median 174 · 75th 177.
Published GPA: 25th 3.90 · median 3.96 · 75th 4.00.
Percentiles: American Bar Association Standard 509 Information Report · Fall 2025 entering class
Add your own numbers — nothing is saved, and no account is needed.
Two numbers only. The full analysis also weighs your softs, your residency, your application round and when you submit.
2026–27 application timeline
Dates the school publishes for this cycle, in the order they fall.
- Regular decision deadlineFebruary 15
Source: Yale Law School — J.D. Application Process · verified August 29, 2026
Essay prompts
2026–27 cycle, quoted from the school. Never summarised, never behind a control.
Personal Statement
Required · about 2 pages
Applicants must submit a personal statement that explores their reasons for attending law school and any specific legal interests they have, as well as the personal, professional, and/or academic qualities they would bring to the Law School community and the legal profession. Applicants often submit the personal statement they have prepared for other law school applications. Personal statements should focus on relevant personal, professional, and/or academic experiences and not on specific reasons they would wish to attend Yale Law School. Personal statements should be approximately two double-spaced pages, formatted in a professional 12-point font, and include their name, LSAC number, and "Personal Statement" in the header.
Source: Yale Law School — Application Components
250-Word Essay
Required · 250 words
The Law School is a vibrant intellectual community where students are expected to engage academically with faculty and fellow students. In no more than 250 words, applicants must write about an idea or issue from their academic, extracurricular, or professional work that is of particular interest to them. The idea or issue they choose does not have to be law-related; this is an opportunity for readers to learn more about how the applicant would engage intellectually in the Law School community. The 250-word essay should be double-spaced, formatted in a professional 12-point font, and include their name, LSAC number, and "250-Word Essay" in the header.
Source: Yale Law School — Application Components
Optional Essay
about 1 page
We encourage applicants to submit an essay in response to one of the four questions below, each related to a value that is central to the Law School community. This is an opportunity to provide readers with relevant information that may not be found elsewhere in their application. If they choose to answer one of these questions, the essay should focus on relevant personal, professional, and/or academic experiences and not on specific reasons why they wish to attend Yale Law School. The optional essay should be approximately one page double-spaced, formatted in a professional 12-point font, and include their name, LSAC number, and "Optional Essay X" in the header (X should be the number of the question selected; e.g. Optional Essay 3). The prompts for the optional essay are as follows: Option 1: The Law School has a strong tradition of public service and encourages its students to contribute to the community in a wide variety of ways. Describe a community that has been particularly meaningful to you. Discuss what you have gained from being a part of this community and what you have contributed to this community. Option 2: The Law School encourages its students and alumni to be leaders, innovators, and changemakers across many different sectors. Describe one of your most important accomplishments and explain why it is important to you. Discuss how you demonstrated leadership, helped innovate, and/or drove change as part of that accomplishment. Option 3: The Law School values determination and resilience and recognizes that these traits are critical to success at the Law School and in the legal profession. Describe a significant challenge, disappointment, or setback that you have faced. Discuss how you approached this experience and what you learned from it. Option 4: In order to succeed at the Law School and in the legal profession, you must be able to have discussions across difference and be open to changing your mind. Describe a time when you changed your mind on an important topic after discussing it with a person with whom you disagreed or learning additional information. Discuss what you learned from this experience.
Source: Yale Law School — Application Components
Addenda
Optional
Applicants may submit addenda to their application if any are necessary for a full representation of their candidacy. These addenda may include, for example, explanations related to transcripts or test scores, including a history of under-performance on standardized tests. It is not necessary to include any addenda, and many applicants do not include any.
Source: Yale Law School — Application Components
College Activities
Required · 2 pages
Applicants are required to submit a statement of activities to help us understand what they did during their undergraduate education and after graduation (if applicable). The college activities section asks three questions: 1) what applicants did during those terms when they were not in school, including summers and any other terms off (e.g., employment, internships, or study abroad); 2) what applicants did during the terms while they were also taking classes (e.g., extracurricular activities, employment, or internships); and 3) a catch-all question where they may briefly describe any other activities that they consider relevant (e.g., a significant thesis or capstone project, or significant personal or familial responsibilities). While applicants may choose to do this in a variety of formats, we ask that it be in a structured manner such as a list or chart. The activities in these sections should be listed in order of their relative importance to the applicant. For each activity, they must provide a brief description, state the approximate start and end dates, estimate the weekly hourly commitment, and note whether the activity was paid or unpaid. Please note that we anticipate significant duplication between these sections and the résumé. These sections should be brief, and, in general, applicants should answer the college activities questions in no more than 1–2 pages and the post-college activities question in no more than one page.
Source: Yale Law School — Application Components
Class of 2025 employment outcomes
Reported by the school to the American Bar Association, about ten months after graduation.
- Employed in a professional position94.3%199 of 211 graduates
Bar-admission-required + J.D.-advantage + professional-position + law-school-funded jobs / total graduates, about ten months after graduation. Excludes the ABA's non-professional 'Other Position', 'Undeterminable', and 'Start Date After' rows, so it reads lower than a school's headline employment figure.
- Bar admission required87.2%184 of 211 graduates
Jobs requiring bar admission / total graduates. The ABA's Bar Admission Required/Anticipated row only — J.D. Advantage is a different measure and is NOT added to it.
- Firms of 501+ attorneys31.3%66 of 211 graduates
Jobs at law firms of 501+ attorneys / total graduates. Exactly the ABA's 501+ band — not 251+, not 100+, not a private-practice share.
- Federal clerkship23.2%49 of 211 graduates
Federal clerkships / total graduates. Excludes state, local, territorial, tribal and international clerkships.
Share of the whole graduating class, counting every position the ABA reports (full- or part-time, long- or short-term), measured about ten months after graduation.
Sources and methodology
Last verified September 1, 2026.
Where each figure comes from
- Admissions figures
- Percentiles, admit rate and class size as reported to the American Bar Association under Standard 509, or published by the school in its own class profile. The source for each figure is linked beside it.
- Deadlines and essay prompts
- Taken from the school's own current-cycle application instructions and quoted exactly. A date or a prompt we have not re-verified for this cycle is withheld rather than carried over from last year.
- Employment outcomes
- Counts from the school's ABA Employment Summary for the class year shown, over one denominator: every graduate. The share is those two counts divided, and both are printed so it can be checked.
- Chance estimate
- Litigator One's own model, not school-published data and not a prediction of a decision. It reads your two numbers against this school's published percentiles and its overall admit rate.
Cited on this page
- Yale Law School — Standard 509 Information Report (2025 cycle) — American Bar Association
- Yale Law School — J.D. Application Process — Yale Law School
- Yale Law School — Application Components — Yale Law School
- Best Law Schools (2026-27) — U.S. News & World Report
Other schools on Litigator
Schools in CT, and others at a nearby published rank.