California Western School of Law: admission requirements and 509 data

What the 2025 numbers say about California Western

California Western received 2,144 completed applications for the 2025 entering class and made 1,006 offers of admission, an acceptance rate of 46.9%. 242 of those admitted enrolled, a yield of 24.1%. Counting deferred admits and part-time entrants, the first-year class came to 242 students: 206 full time and 36 part time. Total JD enrollment across all years is 669.

Enrolled students posted a median LSAT of 155, with a 25th percentile of 152 and a 75th of 158. That is 4 points below the 159 median across the 196 ABA-approved schools in this data. It ranks 132 of 196 on LSAT median. Undergraduate GPA ran 3.16 at the 25th percentile, 3.50 at the median and 3.66 at the 75th. 8 of the entering class were admitted on a GRE score rather than an LSAT score.

Full-time tuition is $64,720 a year at a single rate for residents and non-residents. Mandatory fees add $150. The school's own living-expense estimate for a single student off campus is $34,342. Tuition, fees and that living estimate add up to $99,212 for one year, or $297,636 across three, before any grant. 392 JD students hold a grant or scholarship, 60% of the student body, and the median full-time award is $37,440. 77 awards cover full tuition or more. The school reports conditional scholarships: 199 entering students held one and 126 had it reduced or eliminated.

Of the graduating class that sat a bar exam for the first time, 134 of 213 passed, a rate of 62.91%. The weighted average across the jurisdictions where those graduates sat was 77.53%, so the school ran 14.62 points behind the jurisdictions it feeds. Ten months after graduation, 155 of 205 graduates (75.6%) held a job requiring bar admission. 13 joined law firms of 251 lawyers or more (6.3% of the class), of whom 7 went to firms of 501 or more. 3 took federal clerkships. The largest single destination was California with 155 graduates, followed by Unknown with 3.

California Western has been approved by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education since 1962. It is a private school based in San Diego, CA. 10 first-year students left for academic reasons, 4.0% of the class. 1 students transferred in from other law schools.

The full 509 record

California has 17 ABA-approved law schools. The California 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 California Western School 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.