Rick J. Caruso School of Law: admission requirements and 509 data

What the 2025 numbers say about Rick J. Caruso

Rick J. Caruso received 4,272 completed applications for the 2025 entering class and made 998 offers of admission, an acceptance rate of 23.4%. 223 of those admitted enrolled, a yield of 22.3%. The full first-year class came to 227 students, all full time. Total JD enrollment across all years is 553.

Enrolled students posted a median LSAT of 164, with a 25th percentile of 161 and a 75th of 167. That is 5 points above the 159 median across the 196 ABA-approved schools in this data. It ranks 49 of 196 on LSAT median. Undergraduate GPA ran 3.61 at the 25th percentile, 3.85 at the median and 3.94 at the 75th. 2 of the entering class were admitted on a GRE score rather than an LSAT score.

Full-time tuition is $72,920 a year at a single rate for residents and non-residents. Mandatory fees add $630. The school's own living-expense estimate for a single student off campus is $33,700. Tuition, fees and that living estimate add up to $107,250 for one year, or $321,750 across three, before any grant. 410 JD students hold a grant or scholarship, 77% of the student body, and the median full-time award is $30,000. 25 awards cover full tuition or more. The school reports conditional scholarships: 117 entering students held one and 27 had it reduced or eliminated.

Of the graduating class that sat a bar exam for the first time, 164 of 189 passed, a rate of 86.77%. The weighted average across the jurisdictions where those graduates sat was 78.03%, so the school ran 8.74 points ahead of the jurisdictions it feeds. Ten months after graduation, 168 of 183 graduates (91.8%) held a job requiring bar admission. 27 joined law firms of 251 lawyers or more (14.8% of the class), of whom 22 went to firms of 501 or more. 2 took federal clerkships. The largest single destination was California with 145 graduates, followed by Texas with 7.

Rick J. Caruso has been approved by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education since 1972. It is a private school based in Malibu, CA. 15 first-year students left for academic reasons, 8.0% of the class. 4 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 Rick J. Caruso 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.