Saint Louis University

MO · Private · West North Central

Acceptance rate: 56% (941 applicants)
Median LSAT: 157 (middle 50%: 154–161)
Median GPA: 3.61 (middle 50%: 3.37–3.83)
Tuition: $55,260 (per year)
Bar passage: 89.1% (+3.5 pts vs. state average)

Deadlines

Priority: Feb. 1, 2027
For international Summer Institute applicants: Feb. 15, 2027

Essays

Personal statement (Two pages or less)

With the additional information provided in the statement, the Admission Committee looks beyond LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA to gain insight into a student's life experiences, individual character, and writing ability. As such, information regarding personal or professional goals, academic, career and life experiences is helpful. Attention is given to brevity and clarity of thought and expression. Please limit the personal statement to two pages or less.

Supplemental essay: Diversity (Two pages or less (answer one of three))

SLU LAW understands that our lived experiences help to shape our character and serve to strengthen our perseverance, resilience, courage and empathy. Describe how your lived experiences, culture, and character will help to enrich the broader law school community. What have you learned from your experiences and/or cultural challenges and how have they shaped your desire to go to law school and/or join the legal profession?

Supplemental essay: Growth (Two pages or less (answer one of three))

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth, led to you changing your opinion on something meaningful, and/or unveiled a new understanding of yourself or others.

Supplemental essay: Service (Two pages or less (answer one of three))

Our mission is to advance the understanding and development of law and prepare students to achieve professional success and personal satisfaction through leadership and service to others. Following these ideals, describe a challenge you see in the legal world and what you would hope to do as a lawyer to address that challenge.

Summer Institute essay (No stated limit)

In addition to fulfilling all of SLU LAW's application requirements, applicants to the Summer Institute are required to submit an essay explaining their eligibility based upon the above description.

Editor's notes

Get the file in by Feb. 1. SLU starts deciding in early December and ties full scholarship consideration, including the 1843 full-tuition award, to that date. After it, you're competing for what's left.
Check your LSAT date. SLU only counts scores from the last three years, so an older score that other schools still accept may not count here.
Keep the personal statement short and clean. SLU says it grades brevity and clarity, and its admissions policy asks for leadership, service and tenacity. One well-told story that shows one of those does more than a two-page résumé in prose.
Write your own drafts. SLU strongly discourages generative AI and says it values original thoughts and experiences, so a statement that sounds generated works against you here.