What LSAT Score do I Need to Get Into Stanford Law School?

What LSAT Score do I Need to Get into Stanford Law School?

The short answer is that you need an LSAT score somewhere in the range of 169-174 to get into Stanford Law School. That is the published range of their 25th percentile to 75th percentile scores last year, meaning that 25% of their students had an LSAT score at or below 169, and 25% had an LSAT score at or above a 174. The rest fell into the middle.

Here are the LSAT and GPA number for the Stanford Law School class of 2023.

	25th %ile	Median	75th %ile
GPA	3.77	3.89	3.96
LSAT	169	171	174

Now, what does this all mean as the LSAT score you specifically need for Stanford Law School? Well, if you have an LSAT better than 169 and a GPA above 3.77, Stanford Law School, you’ve got a fighting chance.

What if my LSAT score is weak?

“If your LSAT is your weak piece, then every other aspect in your file must be strong in order for us to say that the LSAT should lessen in importance.  If your LSAT is strong but your personal statement is poorly written and there is no evidence that you’ve taken any courses where serious writing was required, your file may not get very far.” (Source)

The difficulty is that Stanford is not just any other law school when it comes to determining your chances by the numbers. Because it is one of the top 3 schools, Stanford has far more qualified applicants than it has seats to fill.

Though this is true to some extent at every school, it is way more true at Stanford, which has one of the lowest acceptance rates in the US.

For a class size of about 160 students, Stanford law school received over 3800 applications in 2020. With this many applicants, stanford’s acceptance rate is a meger 10.48%.

2020 Stanford Law School Application Stats

Applications	3807
Offers	399
Acceptance Rate	10.48%

These conditions make Stanford Law School into what is known in the admissions game as a “Black Box.” In plain speech, this means that while bad scores might break you, good scores won’t necessarily make you. Since Stanford has no shortage of qualified applicants, numbers alone won’t necessarily guarantee you a spot at this hyper-competitive school.

The common belief among many applicants is that discovering the cure for a serious disease or writing a Booker prize-winning novel, along with having a good GPA and LSAT, might be enough to guarantee admission to Stanford Law. While this is somewhat of an exaggeration, the point is that there has to be something about you to gain admittance to Stanford Law. I wish that I could quantify precisely what this particular something is for future applicants but perhaps that is best left to the Associate Dean of Admissions, Faye Deal:

Forget standing out.  Don’t approach it that way.  Don’t think about a “wow” factor.  No need to do it up in a big and loud fashion.  Instead, stop and think for a bit about what it is that you want to convey to me.  We all have stories to tell, so your task is really to figure out which story you want to tell me.”

In the above quote, she is discussing how to write the personal statement, which is part of the application process. However, the point stands that you don’t need some crazy “hook” such as being an Olympic athlete. What you likely do need to be is interesting, and you want to come across as such in your application.

Being an interesting person is going to help at any law school, but Stanford has more credibility than most when they say that they look beyond the numbers and take the whole person into account. The proof of this is in the numbers: because Stanford is an incredibly desirable school (A top 3 school in a place with some of the nicest weather on Earth!) it could easily have the LSAT 25th/75th of Harvard or even better, yet it chooses not to.

Nor does it look like this is changing anytime soon. This is from a blog post by Faye Deal of Stanford Law School admissions:

“I was asked an interesting question about our admissions policy.  Will Dean Kramer’s departure signal a change in the way we review files and make decisions?  Specifically, will we become a school that places a great deal of emphasis on the numbers rather than looking at the entire file?  …[N]o need to worry.  I’ve worked closely with three deans (Brest, Sullivan, and Kramer), and not once in all the years of collaboration did we ever think about doing things any differently.  I have no doubt that the incoming dean – from inside SLS or from outside SLS – will see any reason to change our course.  What do we have to gain in comparison to all that we’d lose?”

For more of Faye Deal’s glosses on SLS admissions check out her posts at the SLS Admissions Blog

Meanwhile, if your heart is set on Stanford, remember that while it isn’t Yale, you still need a very high LSAT score (getting a 169 or better is no mean feat!) to have your best chance. Check out some recommended reading for boosting your admissions chances in the law school game, and also remember to post your questions in the comments section! If you want to get into Stanford Law, make sure that you are maximizing your LSAT score by studying with the right LSAT prep books: CLICK HERE to learn how I got a 177 on the LSAT.

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