10: School of Law

General Information | Admission Information | Financial Aid Information | Career Services
Degree Programs | Academic Regulations | Student Activities and Awards
Annual Law School Awards and Honors | Course Descriptions | Faculty

Regular Students | Special Students

Admission Information

Preliminary Education   The study of law requires the constant application of a disciplined mind. Therefore, those courses are best suited to prelaw study which either in content or method of instruction are best adapted to inculcating habits of disciplined thought. Furthermore, the scope of law is so broad that no single field of study can be peremptorily excluded. Subjects such as economics and political science are customarily recommended, but to recommend these subjects is not to suggest that other courses, such as history, mathematics, English and American literature, philosophy, the natural sciences, psychology, Latin, and modern languages are not of equal value. A lawyer is constantly engaged in communicating ideas, and to that end, emphasis on the capacity to write clearly is properly stressed. Courses in English composition are therefore recommended. Courses in accounting and public speaking are often recommended. It should be noted, however, that the School of Law offers the opportunity for pursuing these courses as related to law, so they are not specifically recommended in preference to broader and more culturally-oriented courses.

Profile of the 1996 Entering Class   The 361 students who entered the first year of law study at the University of Virginia in August 1996 were selected from a total of 3,782 applicants from 538 different colleges and universities. There were 189 Virginia residents; the remaining 172 came from 32 different states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Puerto Rico, and South Korea. There were 122 women students and 36 minority students.

Although widely differing approaches to college grading often serve to render comparative statements about undergraduate records misleading, it is significant that most students in this fall's entering class ranked in the upper 20 percent of their graduating classes. The median grade point average for the entering class was 3.7 on a 4.0 scale. (This computation does not include several students whose grades could not accurately be interpolated to a 4.0 scale.) The mean LSAT score was the 96th percentile. Many of these students also had completed advanced degree work. The average age was 25.

The Law School has continued its policy of giving preferred status to Virginia applicants, and a large number of highly qualified non-Virginians must be turned away for lack of space. A total of 1,033 Virginia residents applied for admission, compared with 2,749 out-of-state applicants.

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