Woohoo! She passed the bar exam!
Given the atrocious statistics of late, it seems like passing the bar exam has been a more challenging feat than ever for recent law school graduates. No matter what caused them to fail, it likely would have been helpful if these graduates had known well in advance of the test — perhaps before they applied to law school — how well certain law schools performed on the exam.
Thankfully, StartClass, an education research website, has compiled a new ranking of the law schools with the highest percentage of graduates who pass the bar exam on the first try. As the site notes, “[t]hough it is not the primary measure of the quality of a law school, the bar passage rate is a useful indicator of how effective an institution is at preparing its students to become lawyers.” So, which law schools came out on top?
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Before we get to that, let’s examine the methodology StartClass used to create its list:
Using data from the American Bar Association Standard 509 Reports from each school, StartClass has identified the 25 law schools with the highest bar passage rates.
Schools are ranked by the reported rate at which students from an institution pass the bar exam on their first attempt. Because the bar passage rate is so dependent on where the bar exam is taken, we’ve listed each school’s “pass percentage difference.” This shows the difference between a school’s pass rate and the state’s average pass rate for the jurisdictions that the graduates tested. We’ve also listed the most common state in which students take the bar exam.
For law schools with the same bar passage rates, the school with the higher overall Smart Rank is ranked higher. Our Smart Rank system is based on traditional law school rankings combined with statistical data.
With that out of the way, here are the Top 10 law schools with the best bar passage rates — and no, they are not all T14 law schools. You may be surprised by some of them:
1. Wisconsin / 100 percent / Wisconsin
2. Marquette / 100 percent / Wisconsin
3. South Dakota / 97.8 percent / South Dakota
4. Baylor / 97 percent / Texas
5. Harvard / 96.4 percent / New York
6. Alabama / 96.4 percent / Alabama
7. Columbia / 96.3 percent / New York
8. Yale / 96.2 percent / New York
9. NYU / 96.2 percent / New York
10. Penn / 95.6 percent / New York
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You can access the full list here.
Imagine how shocked we were to find out that Wisconsin and Marquette topped the list of law schools that performed the best on the bar exam, when students who attend law schools within the state of Wisconsin don’t even need to take the bar exam. Wisconsin is currently the only state that offers “diploma privilege” to all graduates. This StartClass ranking is fundamentally flawed from the get-go, which is a bit distressing.
Because StartClass’s ranking absurdly lists Wisconsin and Marquette at the top, here are the number 11 and 12 law schools so readers can see a truer version of the Top 10: 11. Vanderbilt / 95.6 percent / Tennessee; and 12. Duke / 95.4 percent / Texas.
Aside from that nit, it’s nice to see that law schools like South Dakota, Baylor, and Alabama made an appearance near the top of the list. If you don’t mind moving to South Dakota, the state has the easiest bar exam in the country, and some lucky law students will get 90 percent of their tuition payments reimbursed by the state if they pledge to work in rural communities for five years. Go West, would-be law students, because both Alabama and Texas also have relatively easy bar exams (compared to that of New York).
Has this changed your perspective on which law school you’ll be attending, or which state’s bar exam you’ll be taking — or do you think it’s ridiculous to base your future career on a (faulty) list like this? Please don’t hesitate to let us know your thoughts.
Law Schools With the Best Bar Passage Rates [StartClass]