Howard University School of Law: admission requirements and 509 data

What the 2025 numbers say about Howard University

Howard University received 2,428 completed applications for the 2025 entering class and made 584 offers of admission, an acceptance rate of 24.1%. 172 of those admitted enrolled, a yield of 29.5%. The full first-year class came to 176 students, all full time. Total JD enrollment across all years is 555.

Enrolled students posted a median LSAT of 156, with a 25th percentile of 153 and a 75th of 160. That is 3 points below the 159 median across the 196 ABA-approved schools in this data. It ranks 122 of 196 on LSAT median. Undergraduate GPA ran 3.40 at the 25th percentile, 3.63 at the median and 3.80 at the 75th.

Full-time tuition is $39,780 a year at a single rate for residents and non-residents. Mandatory fees add $1,632. The school's own living-expense estimate for a single student off campus is $38,251. Tuition, fees and that living estimate add up to $79,663 for one year, or $238,989 across three, before any grant. 261 JD students hold a grant or scholarship, 48% of the student body, and the median full-time award is $23,657. 27 awards cover full tuition or more. The school reports conditional scholarships: 261 entering students held one and 0 had it reduced or eliminated.

Of the graduating class that sat a bar exam for the first time, 119 of 155 passed, a rate of 76.77%. The weighted average across the jurisdictions where those graduates sat was 82.24%, so the school ran 5.47 points behind the jurisdictions it feeds. Ten months after graduation, 115 of 155 graduates (74.2%) held a job requiring bar admission. 58 joined law firms of 251 lawyers or more (37.4% of the class), of whom 47 went to firms of 501 or more. 3 took federal clerkships. The largest single destination was District Of Columbia with 43 graduates, followed by New York with 29.

Howard University has been approved by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education since 1931. It is a private school based in Washington, DC. 5 first-year students left for academic reasons, 2.0% of the class.

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 Howard University 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.