California Bar Exam Statistics

Detailed statistics for the July 2010 California Bar Exam are finally out. The overall pass rate for all takers was 54.8%. The overall pass rate for first-time takers was 67.7%. Out-of-state ABA-approved first-time takers posted a 68.1% pass rate. California ABA-approved first-time takers' pass rate was slightly higher at 75.2%.

The pass rates for first-time takers from top 20 law schools:

Yale -- 100%
Harvard -- 94%
Stanford -- 98%
Columbia -- 93%
Chicago -- 100%
NYU -- 87%
Penn -- 85%
Berkeley -- 91%
Michigan -- 86%
Virginia -- 96%
Cornell -- 67%
Northwestern -- 83%
Duke -- 89%
Georgetown -- 75%
Texas -- 76%
UCLA -- 83%
USC -- 90%
Vanderbilt -- 81%
Wash. U. -- 64%
George Washington -- 85%

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Keep in mind that many of these individual pass rates reflect an overall percentage of a relatively few number of students who actually took the bar. For example, only 17 students from Chicago sat for the bar, compared to 41 for Northwestern.