Comparing Law Schools Side by Side

What the tool surfaces

Compare is organized into categories stacked top to bottom.

Cross-admit decisions lead with a stacked bar showing where students admitted to both schools enrolled. A 70/30 split on 200 decisions is a strong signal about how applicants weigh the two when forced to choose; the same split on 8 decisions is noise. Check the count alongside the percentage. A by-cycle breakdown below shows whether the preference is stable.

Admissions stats cover LSAT and GPA medians, acceptance rate, class size, and yield. These show selectivity and how your numbers stack up at each school.

Employment is where schools at similar rankings diverge most. Compare BigLaw placement (full-time long-term jobs at firms of 500+ attorneys), federal clerkship rate, median private-sector salary, and overall FTLT bar-required employment. A 55% vs. 30% BigLaw gap is material even with identical LSAT medians. First-time bar pass rates also sit here.

Finance covers in-state and out-of-state tuition, median grant, grant rate, and average debt at graduation. Sticker price is rarely what students actually pay — focus on median grant, grant rate, and debt at graduation.

Class composition covers demographics, age, undergrad majors, and states of origin. Useful for gauging fit.

Reading the differences

Example: Michigan next to UVA. BigLaw placement rates and LSAT medians are close to identical. UVA tends to be more generous with scholarship money for strong applicants, and the three-year sticker cost can differ by tens of thousands of dollars. The kind of gap that disappears in a ranking list but jumps out on a side-by-side.

Compare flags the stronger value in each row with a small green triangle. Treat it as a pointer, not a verdict. A cheaper school with materially weaker employment outcomes is still a tradeoff. Decide which categories matter most to you before you open the tool.

Using it alongside school profiles

Compare shows headline numbers for each category. When a difference jumps out, click through to the school profile for the underlying applicant data, scholarship distributions, and historical trends. The school profile walkthrough explains what each metric means. Typical workflow: read two or three profiles in depth, then open compare to line them up.