Passing the bar in California is not an easy task. The test is known to be the most difficult tests in the nation. The passing rate in fact is the lowest in the country. InJuly 2018, less than 41% of those taking the bar in California passed! Ouch. However, law school students from certain schools have higher passing rates than average. The table below shows the California state bar tests taken in 2019 and the percentage of students that passed the test. Impressively, Duke University had 100% of the 25 students that took the test in 2019 all pass the bar. Yale had 28 of 30 pass (93%) followed by Stanford at 90% of the 104 students that took the bar who passed. On the other side, only 3 out of 20 students passed the bar at American University for a dismal 15% pass rate. Pretty embarrassing for American University, especially when their cost of law school tuition in 2018 was nearly $57,000. FYI, the Duke tuition for 2018 was $65,000.
School | Takers | Passers | Passing Percentage |
Duke University | 25 | 25 | 100% |
Yale University | 30 | 28 | 93% |
Stanford University | 104 | 94 | 90% |
Harvard University | 82 | 73 | 89% |
Columbia University | 26 | 23 | 88% |
University of California-Berkeley | 214 | 186 | 87% |
University of California-Los Angeles | 276 | 231 | 84% |
Georgetown University | 66 | 55 | 83% |
New York University | 22 | 18 | 82% |
University of Virginia | 25 | 20 | 80% |
University of Southern California | 177 | 141 | 80% |
University of Texas at Austin | 19 | 15 | 79% |
University of Chicago | 28 | 22 | 79% |
University of California-Davis | 159 | 121 | 76% |
Northwestern University | 26 | 19 | 73% |
Loyola Marymount University-Los Angeles | 272 | 195 | 72% |
University of Notre Dame | 23 | 16 | 70% |
University of San Diego | 244 | 169 | 69% |
University of California-Irvine | 102 | 70 | 69% |
University of Michigan | 31 | 21 | 68% |
Pepperdine University | 143 | 93 | 65% |
University of Pennsylvania | 22 | 14 | 64% |
Chapman University | 131 | 81 | 62% |
Santa Clara University | 201 | 120 | 60% |
University of California-Hastings | 257 | 150 | 58% |
Boston University | 14 | 8 | 57% |
George Washington University | 55 | 29 | 53% |
Emory University | 21 | 11 | 52% |
California Western School of Law | 183 | 95 | 52% |
Southwestern Law School | 252 | 127 | 50% |
McGeorge School of Law | 109 | 54 | 50% |
Western State College of Law | 92 | 44 | 48% |
Washington University | 15 | 7 | 47% |
University of Miami | 11 | 5 | 45% |
Arizona State University | 17 | 7 | 41% |
Golden Gate University | 72 | 27 | 38% |
Indiana University – Bloomington | 11 | 4 | 36% |
University of San Francisco | 156 | 52 | 33% |
Tulane University | 12 | 4 | 33% |
University of La Verne | 53 | 17 | 32% |
Thomas Jefferson School of Law | 109 | 26 | 24% |
Whittier Law School | 78 | 16 | 21% |
Loyola University-Chicago | 10 | 2 | 20% |
American University | 20 | 3 | 15% |