Comparing Law Schools Side by Side

The first thing on every detail page is a stacked bar showing, of applicants admitted to both schools, what percentage enrolled at each. This is realized preference: what students actually did when given the choice, not what they said they'd do or what a ranking told them to do. When someone is admitted to both schools and picks one, that single choice bundles scholarship money, location, fit, reputation, and career goals into a decision made with full information on both sides. Over enough decisions, the split tells you which school the market actually rewards at this particular matchup.

The headline figure is scoped to the last five cycles, so it reflects current preference rather than legacy reputation. An "all-time" expansion below the hero shows the full-history split alongside the five-cycle one when more data exists. Median scholarship offered at each school appears beneath the bar when available, because one school can "win" cross-admits largely by paying more, not by being preferred at equal cost.

Further down the page, the Cross-Admit Decisions by Cycle table breaks the same data out year by year, so you can see whether the split is holding steady or shifting. Only cycles with five or more decisions are shown.

Sample size matters. A 70/30 split on 200 cross-admits is signal. The same split on 8 cross-admits is noise. Every figure shows the underlying count alongside the percentage so you can judge for yourself. Detail pages render for any pair, even ones with no cross-admit data, with a "No Cross-Admit Data" note in place of the hero when applicable.

Below the hero, the detail page stacks three tables (admissions, financial, and employment) with the two schools as columns inside each one. In every row, the stronger school is marked by a small triangle and colored green; the weaker value is muted. The reference year is shown in a badge in each table's header. Admissions and financials pull from the most recent ABA 509 report, while employment can fall back to an earlier year if the current cycle's outcomes haven't been published yet.

• Admissions: USN rank, LSD rank, LSAT 25th/median/75th, GPA median, acceptance rate, class size, and yield rate
• Financial: in-state tuition, out-of-state tuition, median grant, percentage of students receiving grants, and average debt at graduation
• Employment: BigLaw (501+ attorney firms), judicial clerkships, median private-sector salary, overall employment rate, and first-time bar pass rate

For the definition of any individual metric, see the glossary or the school profile walkthrough.

The /compare landing page lists school pairs ranked by cross-admit volume: the pairs where the largest number of LSD.Law users have reported being admitted to both schools and chosen one. Only pairs with at least 20 self-reported cross-admit decisions appear in that list, so browsing the index is a quick way to see which matchups have the most signal behind them.

To run a specific comparison, use the Quick Compare dropdowns at the top of the index page. Select any two schools and the page will navigate to the detail view.

Below the tables, the detail page surfaces the top related matchups for each of the two schools: other pairs involving either school, ranked by cross-admit volume. If you're weighing a third option, this is the fastest way to see whether it's already sitting in a well-populated comparison. There's also a second Quick Compare form higher up the page that lets you swap either school without returning to the index.