Yale expects a 174. Harvard expects a 174. Stanford expects a 173. If you are aiming for a top law school, you need to know exactly what LSAT score puts you in contention. This guide provides median LSAT scores for T14 and top 50 law schools, explains what those medians really mean for your chances, and offers strategic advice for making the most of your score in the most competitive admissions cycle in over a decade.
The T14 is the group of fourteen law schools that have consistently placed in the U.S. News top 14 — Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Penn, NYU, Virginia, Duke, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkeley, Cornell, and Georgetown. Their current medians cluster tightly: Columbia tops the list at 175, Yale, Harvard, Chicago, and NYU all sit at 174, and most of the rest fall between 171 and 173.
The narrow range hides a real gap in selectivity. A 174 at Yale puts you right at the median and gives you roughly a coin-flip chance; the same score at Berkeley (median 171) positions you well above. The table below shows the current median for each T14 school so you can benchmark your score against each specific program rather than against the tier as a whole.
T14 schools compete globally for students and produce a disproportionate share of federal clerkships, BigLaw partners, and judges. That prestige generates enormous applicant volume — Yale's acceptance rate hovers around 6%, Stanford's around 7% — which in turn lets these schools hold medians high without sacrificing yield.
The result is an admissions environment where the LSAT is doing heavy lifting. Admissions committees still read personal statements, recommendations, and résumés closely, but your LSAT and GPA numbers decide whether your application gets a serious look in the first place. Breaking into the T14 generally means a high-170s LSAT paired with a GPA close to 3.9.
| Rank | School | Median LSAT | Median GPA | Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yale | 174 | 3.93 | ~6% |
| 2 | Stanford | 173 | 3.93 | ~7% |
| 3 | Chicago | 174 | 3.93 | ~11% |
| 4 | Virginia | 172 | 3.94 | ~12% |
| 5 | Columbia | 175 | 3.92 | ~10% |
| 6 (tie) | Harvard | 174 | 3.93 | ~10% |
| 6 (tie) | Duke | 172 | 3.88 | ~12% |
| 8 | Penn | 173 | 3.93 | ~11% |
| 9 | Northwestern | 172 | 3.91 | ~14% |
| 10 | Michigan | 172 | 3.89 | ~13% |
| 11 | NYU | 174 | 3.93 | ~14% |
| 12 | Berkeley | 171 | 3.84 | ~15% |
| 13 | Georgetown | 172 | 3.90 | ~16% |
| 14 (tie) | Multiple schools | 169-171 | 3.82-3.91 | ~16-22% |
Outside the T14, ranks 15 through 25 include schools like UCLA, Vanderbilt, USC, Washington University in St. Louis, Boston University, Texas, and Notre Dame. Median LSAT scores in this group typically run from 166 to 170 — a meaningful but narrower step down from the T14.
A score in the 167-170 range makes you competitive across most of this tier and strong near the top of it. These schools are also where many splitter profiles — high LSAT, lower GPA — find traction. Because they're working to protect their LSAT medians without being quite as GPA-constrained as the T14, a strong test score can overcome a GPA that's a few tenths below the median.
The current admissions cycle has been the most competitive in over a decade, with application volume up roughly 18% year over year. That surge has pushed medians up across the top 25, with some schools gaining a full point or more compared to the prior year. Scores that were comfortably above median two years ago may now only match it.
The practical implication: if you're targeting a school in this tier, don't anchor to last year's median. Pull the latest ABA 509 report, and assume the trend continues upward unless the cycle clearly softens. Aiming 2-3 points above the most recent median gives you enough cushion to stay competitive even if scores keep drifting up.
Ranks 26 through 50 include schools such as Ohio State, Wisconsin, Fordham, George Washington, Wake Forest, Boston College, and Arizona State. Median LSAT scores in this tier typically run from 161 to 167, depending on the school's specific ranking and regional draw.
Competition in this band is real but more forgiving than the T14 or top 25. A score in the mid-160s positions you well across most of this tier, and hitting 167+ can make you a standout applicant at schools near the middle of the range. Because medians vary noticeably from school to school in this tier, your score's value depends heavily on the specific program you're targeting.
Top 50 programs offer some of the best scholarship leverage in the law school market. These schools actively use merit aid to pull their medians up, which means an LSAT score 3-5 points above a school's median can unlock substantial partial scholarships, and a 5+ point margin can produce full-tuition offers.
Strategic applicants use this dynamic deliberately. Applying to a mix of schools where your score is near the median and schools where it's well above gives you both reach options and scholarship-rich "overmatch" options. Offers from the latter become leverage when negotiating with your top-choice programs — a tactic schools expect and accommodate.
| Tier | LSAT Range | Competitiveness | Scholarship Potential |
|---|---|---|---|
| T14 (Ranks 1-14) | 169-175 | Extremely competitive | Need-based primarily; some merit at lower T14 |
| Top 25 (Ranks 15-25) | 165-170 | Highly competitive | Good merit scholarships for above-median scores |
| Top 50 (Ranks 26-50) | 160-165 | Competitive | Strong scholarships for 3-5+ above median |
| Top 100 (Ranks 51-100) | 155-162 | Moderately competitive | Significant scholarships available |
| All ABA Programs | 150+ | Varies widely | Full scholarships possible at lower-ranked schools |
A school's published median is the midpoint of its most recent admitted class: half of admitted students scored above it, half scored below. It's not a cutoff or a minimum — just a description of the middle of the class. Schools report the 25th and 75th percentiles alongside the median precisely to show the spread of admitted scores.
That spread matters. At a school with a median of 170, the 25th percentile might be 166 and the 75th 172. An applicant scoring 167 isn't outside the admissible range — they're just below median, which usually means the rest of their file needs to be stronger than average to clear admission.
"Splitter" applicants have a high LSAT but a lower GPA relative to a school's medians; "reverse splitters" have the opposite profile. Both groups get admitted regularly, but they tend to fare better at specific kinds of schools: splitters do best at programs that weight the LSAT heavily (often those trying to protect ranking-sensitive LSAT medians), while reverse splitters do better where GPA is emphasized.
The common advice to aim 2-3 points above a school's median applies especially to splitter applicants. Because your GPA is dragging your application down, the LSAT has to carry more weight — and schools are more likely to take a chance on a low-GPA applicant when the LSAT is clearly above their median rather than merely matching it.
Law schools evaluate applications holistically, but LSAT and undergraduate GPA do the most work in the initial screen. Most schools use an index — a weighted combination of the two — to triage applications into buckets, and where your index lands determines how closely the rest of your file gets read.
That's why your score's impact depends on your GPA. A 170 with a 3.9 is a different application from a 170 with a 3.4, even though both carry the same test score. If your GPA is locked in, the LSAT is the main lever you still have to shift your index upward — and small LSAT gains can produce outsized improvements in where your application lands in the pile.
The current cycle's surge in applicants has compressed the admissions margin at every tier of law school. T14 medians have crept upward, top 25 schools are receiving applications from candidates who would have been comfortable T14 admits in softer cycles, and mid-tier schools are attracting stronger applicant pools that push their own medians up.
The practical response is to apply broadly and aim higher than you would have in a normal cycle. Don't treat last year's numbers as a reliable ceiling, don't assume you'll get an offer at a "safety" school without a score above its median, and use competitive overmatch applications to secure scholarship leverage. In a cycle this tight, the cushion you build into your target score is what protects your options.