Brooklyn Law admits an entering class once a year only, for the fall semester which begins in mid-August. Transfer students may only apply for a fall semester start term. Visiting students may apply for either a fall or spring semester start term.

Yes. The standard part-time program requires four years of study. For more information, please see Application Options.

No, you must select only one enrollment option on your application form. In the event your first choice is the full-time division, but it is determined by the Admissions Committee that you are not eligible for admission to the full-time division, you will automatically be considered for the part-time program. A second application or special request is not necessary.

Wait-listed candidates for full-time may be offered a seat in the part-time division if, as is sometimes the case, the full-time division closes before we reach their position on the waiting list.

Please note that if you applied for full-time consideration and were subsequently denied admission, it means that, in the opinion of the Committee, you were not eligible for consideration for our part-time division either.

Yes, although there are some restrictions on this and there are important financial considerations as well. In all such cases, approval from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs is required. Students should take note of the fact that BLS reserves the right to reassess its division-transfer policies at any time. 
Read more about Division Transfers.

In a concerted effort to make the application process as easy as possible, Brooklyn Law School offers you two ways to access our application and associated materials. Please note that no preference is given to any of these options.

BLS application materials are revised annually and made available in September. To receive them you may:

• Utilize the LSAC electronic application.
• Download and print our application materials in PDF format, fill them out and mail them to us.

There is no application deadline, but applications completed by February 1 are given first consideration. Applications are reviewed as they become complete (see Important Dates). Decisions are made here on a modified ‘rolling basis’ which favors those who apply earlier.  

However, Early Decision candidates have an application deadline of December 1. LL.M. applications will continue to be accepted through the winter and spring months.

Important Note: An application is considered complete when all required documents, including the candidate’s Law School Credential Assembly Service (CAS) Report and two Faculty Recommendations or Evaluations, have been received by, and not just mailed to, our Office of Admissions. Candidates are advised to consider the several weeks it will take the CAS to process their report and to incorporate this into their application timeline.

Yes, applicants must register with LSAC and sit for the LSAT, offered every year in June, September/October, December and February. BLS recommends that candidates take the LSAT no later than February for admission in the fall, although June test scores will be considered as well. Early Decision candidates must take the test no later than October of the year prior to enrollment. Scores older than five years are usually considered obsolete and may not be acceptable. For clarification of individual circumstance contact admitq@brooklaw.edu. (Applicants to our Foreign Trained Lawyers Program are exempt from the LSAT.) For more information about the LSAT, visit the Law School Admission Council Web site: www.lsac.org.

No; Juris Doctor candidates only need to submit LSAT scores. Candidates for our LL.M. Program may need to take the TOEFL (please refer to our LL.M. Program description).

If you are registered to take a future LSAT it is in your best interest to submit your application as soon as possible so that it will be on file here, ready for review, when your score report arrives.

If you already have a reportable score and wish to postpone any decision until a new score is received, you should indicate this at the appropriate admission application question, or subsequently by e-mail, or otherwise in writing.

Yes. You must register for CAS and have all undergraduate (and graduate) transcripts sent to LSAC.

When we receive and process your application, we will request your CAS report, and LSAC will send it directly to us. The CAS report includes your LSAT scores, copies of your academic transcripts, LSAT writing sample, and a summary of undergraduate grades. If you subscribed to the Letter of Recommendation Service, the letters will also be included. If you had previously registered with CAS, you must re-register only if that subscription had lapsed or if your scores pre-date June 1, 2005. For information, contact LSAC directly at www.lsac.org.

Yes. Applicants who have received their undergraduate degrees outside the United States (including its territories) or Canada must utilize the LSAC Credential Assembly Service. A foreign credential evaluation will be completed, as part of your CAS subscription, by AACRAO (the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers) and incorporated into your CAS Report. Questions about this JD Credential Assembly Service should be directed to LSAC.

See Early Decision.

No, the standards and selectivity are the same for Early Decision and regular deadline applicants.  Applicants who were denied admission as Early Decision Candidates will not be reconsidered in our Regular Review cohort absent some significant change in their application profile (e.g. improved LSAT scores; later grades). Read more information on Early Decision Admission.

For full-time students our medians were 161/3.35; for part-time students our medians were 156/3.25. Class-wide, the medians were 161/3.33.

Please recognize that medians identify only the middle person in a given class and do not reflect the range of acceptable scores and grades. In addition, the ABA urges law schools to report the ranges for the middle 50 percent of the class. The following is for the entering class of 2012:

	Total	Full-Time	Part-Time
75% LSAT	164	164	160
Median LSAT	161	161	156
25% LSAT	158	159	156
75% GPA	3.50	3.51	3.47
Median GPA	3.33	3.35	3.25
25% GPA	3.08	3.12	3.08

Yes and no; given the smaller number of part-time seats available each year as compared to full-time, the applicant-to-seat ratio is nearly the same for the two cohorts. Additionally, a number of part-time students have been away from school and standardized examinations for a number of years, and the Admissions Committee weighs somewhat more heavily the real-world experience of these candidates.

The Committee of Admissions is not troubled in any way by an applicant who takes the LSAT for a second, or even a third time. (Beyond that, some questions will arise.)

You should take the test again only if you feel confident that your first attempt was not indicative of your test-taking ability, or adversely affected by outside circumstances and only if you have time to thoroughly prepare for a re-test.

The Admissions Committee will see all reported scores, but attaches most weight to the highest score, rather than the average score. This gives multiple test takers maximum benefit from an improved score.

Where there is a significant discrepancy between scores applicants are encouraged to address this in their application materials. It is in your best interest to inform the Admissions Committee about any factors that adversely or positively affected  your LSAT performance. Our application provides a suitable place to provide such information.

A single cancelled LSAT has no impact on our evaluation of a candidate. That said, multiple cancellations will raise some concerns in the minds of the Admissions Committee. We encourage you to explain the circumstances surrounding any cancellation(s) in a brief supplementary statement.

Brooklyn Law School requires that at least two (2) faculty letters of recommendation be submitted as part of the application. If you have graduated and been out of school for several years or more, you can request a recommendation from an employer or other individual who knows your intellectual abilities. Please bear in mind, however, that we are primarily interested in a recommender's judgment about your potential for academic success in law school. In such cases, the Law School expects candidates to recognize how valuable such references are to the Admissions Committee in its assessment of the intellectual contribution a candidate will make in the classroom. You should, therefore, urge non-faculty writers to focus on your intellectual ability and problem-solving skills.

The Law School strongly suggests that candidates submit letters through the LSAC Letter of Recommendation (LOR) Service, already included in the CAS registration subscription. A maximum of three letters will be copied and sent to Brooklyn Law School together with the CAS Report. To utilize this service, follow the directions for submitting letters as outlined in the Law School Admission Information Book.

Alternatively, such letters may be submitted by the applicant for admission, or they may be forwarded separately by the persons requested to write such letters, directly to our Office of Admissions.

Candidates should use the Brooklyn Law School Faculty Recommendation Form included in our application packet, or a photocopy of it, for each letter submitted, unless these letters are being sent by the undergraduate school's own credential service or by the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service. Please do not send duplicate letters.

We will accept more letters if, in the candidate's opinion, the additional evaluations offer new, significant information. In such cases, the additional letter(s) may be sent to us directly.

Numbers alone cannot provide a comprehensive assessment of a candidate's potential for law school success. Therefore, the Committee pays close attention to the Letters of Recommendation received on behalf of each candidate.

It is important, however, that Committee members get a clear sense that the writer has direct knowledge of the applicant and speaks concretely about his/her strength.

While Letters of Recommendation generally do not turn a denial into an acceptance, they could advance a presumptive waiting list candidate to the admitted level, or bump up a very close denial to the waiting list with some reasonable chance of later admission.

If you answered "yes" to questions 1, 2 or 3 in the Character and Fitness section of the FlexApp, you are requried to submit a Dean’s Certification form.  It is not intended as a letter of recommendation, but is an assurance of good conduct and a confirmation that there were no disciplinary actions against you while at that college. Simply send the form to the office which handles your transcripts and other official credentials and ask them to complete and return the form to us.

You may write your personal statement on any subject of importance to you that you feel will assist us in our assessment of your credentials. Some themes frequently developed by successful applicants in previous years include: a presentation of the personal strengths that you would bring to Brooklyn Law and to the practice of law; a description of what you propose to do professionally after graduation from law school (if you choose to write on this topic, it might be useful to identify aspects of your experience, knowledge and education that evidence interest or promise in the selected areas); and a discussion of any special circumstances or events or distinctive aspects of your background, not fully explained elsewhere, which you believe are essential to an understanding of what lies behind the written record of who you are. Most importantly, you should be sure to write this in  your own voice.

Do not, on the other hand, use the essay to explain a low LSAT score, or poor grades. Such explanations should be provided, if at all, in a brief addendum, keeping the Personal Statement focused and positive, providing the Admissions Committee with affirmative reasons to consider your candidacy favorably.

Faxed or e-mailed transcripts are not considered official and will not be accepted. Letters of Recommendation are accepted if transmitted by the writer or institution only. Other supporting documents - corrections and/or additions to application questions, personal statements or supplementary essays, updated resumes - may be sent via fax or e-mail. In all such cases, these items will be added to your application file.

Admission files are maintained for three years. If a candidate previously applied within that time period and wishes to reapply to the Law School, he or she may request that the file be reactivated. However, a new application form must be filed, with a new, updated personal statement. It is also necessary to submit a new LSDAS Law School Report, even if the applicant did not retake the LSAT after the original LSDAS Law School Report was filed. A new Dean's Certification may be required as well. Candidates are urged to update their file with any new, relevant information.

Previously denied candidates are advised that, unless there is a significant improvement in their application profile, a more favorable outcome is unlikely upon reapplication.