State Guide · 6 ABA Schools · 509 data 2025
North Carolina law school requirements
North Carolina has 6 ABA-approved law schools, with LSAT medians from 151 to 171. Together they took 16,160 completed applications, made 3,591 offers and filled 1,175 first-year seats in 2025. Every number on this page comes from those schools' own ABA Standard 509 reports.
ABA schools
6
2 public, 4 private
LSAT median range
151 to 171
across the state
First-year seats
1,175
from 16,160 applications
Tuition range
$36,116 to $80,100
full time, non-resident
The 6 ABA-approved North Carolina law schools
| School | Type | LSAT | GPA | Accept | 1L | Tuition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duke Law SchoolDurham | Private | 171 | 3.91 | 12.9% | 227 | $80,100 |
| University of North CarolinaChapel Hill | Public | 168 | 3.89 | 11.2% | 181 | $51,320 |
| Wake Forest UniversityWinston Salem | Private | 166 | 3.79 | 24.6% | 204 | $57,920 |
| Campbell UniversityRaleigh | Private | 156 | 3.51 | 50.7% | 202 | $51,840 |
| Elon UniversityGreensboro | Private | 154 | 3.40 | 53.2% | 228 | $45,333 |
| North Carolina Central UniversityDurham | Public | 151 | 3.31 | 39.1% | 133 | $36,116 |
What the state data shows
Duke Law School reports the highest LSAT median in the state at 171, with a 3.91 GPA median and a 12.9% acceptance rate on 6,240 applications. The spread of 20 LSAT points between the top and bottom of the state means a single score can be a stretch at one North Carolina school and comfortably above median at another. The national median of school medians is 159, so North Carolina's strongest reported median sits 12 points above it.
2 of the 6 schools charge residents less than non-residents, so residency status is worth checking before you apply. The lowest published resident tuition belongs to North Carolina Central University at $13,444 a year, where the median full-time grant is $12,982. Across the state, published non-resident tuition runs from $36,116 to $80,100, a gap of $43,984 a year before fees, living costs or scholarship.
4 of the 6 schools reporting bar outcomes beat the weighted average pass rate in the jurisdictions where their graduates sat. Duke Law School reports the state's highest first-time pass rate at 97.48% from 278 first-time takers, against a 82.94% jurisdiction average. Bar admission is granted state by state, so the jurisdiction you intend to practise in matters as much as the school.
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Data: ABA Standard 509 Information Report (2025), published for consumer disclosure, retrieved from the ABA Required Disclosures portal on 2026-09-01, with bar passage figures from the same portal's Bar Passage Outcomes report for the class of 2024. Restated in our own structure; no ABA document or file is reproduced here.