American University Washington College of Law: admission requirements and 509 data

What the 2025 numbers say about American University Washington

American University Washington received 5,952 completed applications for the 2025 entering class and made 1,981 offers of admission, an acceptance rate of 33.3%. 400 of those admitted enrolled, a yield of 20.2%. Counting deferred admits and part-time entrants, the first-year class came to 405 students: 354 full time and 51 part time. Total JD enrollment across all years is 1,199.

Enrolled students posted a median LSAT of 162, with a 25th percentile of 157 and a 75th of 163. That is 3 points above the 159 median across the 196 ABA-approved schools in this data. It ranks 67 of 196 on LSAT median. Undergraduate GPA ran 3.32 at the 25th percentile, 3.63 at the median and 3.75 at the 75th. 4 of the entering class were admitted on a GRE score rather than an LSAT score.

Full-time tuition is $66,990 a year at a single rate for residents and non-residents. Mandatory fees add $2,182. The school's own living-expense estimate for a single student off campus is $33,832. Tuition, fees and that living estimate add up to $103,004 for one year, or $309,012 across three, before any grant. 732 JD students hold a grant or scholarship, 59% of the student body, and the median full-time award is $40,000. 78 awards cover full tuition or more.

Of the graduating class that sat a bar exam for the first time, 304 of 374 passed, a rate of 81.28%. The weighted average across the jurisdictions where those graduates sat was 81.98%, so the school ran 0.70 points behind the jurisdictions it feeds. Ten months after graduation, 282 of 399 graduates (70.7%) held a job requiring bar admission. 63 joined law firms of 251 lawyers or more (15.8% of the class), of whom 49 went to firms of 501 or more. 4 took federal clerkships. The largest single destination was District Of Columbia with 134 graduates, followed by Maryland with 51.

American University Washington has been approved by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education since 1940. It is a private school based in Washington, DC. 2 first-year students left for academic reasons, 0.0% of the class. 13 students transferred in from other law schools.

The full 509 record

District of Columbia has 6 ABA-approved law schools. The District of Columbia guide compares them on LSAT median, cost and bar passage, and covers the state's admission rules.

Data: ABA Standard 509 Information Report (2025), published for consumer disclosure, retrieved from the ABA Required Disclosures portal on 2026-09-01. Bar passage and employment figures come from the same portal's Bar Passage Outcomes and Employment Summary reports for the class of 2024. Figures describe the 2025 to 2026 reporting cycle for American University Washington College of Law and are restated in our own structure; no ABA document or file is reproduced here. Verify anything decision-critical with the school.

Related reading: LSAT score guide, GPA benchmarks, law school cost and ROI, application timeline, all 196 ABA-approved schools, and the Yale profile for the top of the range.