Key points:
- Fourteen law schools have been granted variances from ABA Standard 503 in 2025.
- The variances allow schools to admit more students without an LSAT or other entrance exam.
- The changes are part of a broader push toward test-optional admissions and data collection on student outcomes.
The American Bar Association has granted variances to 14 law schools this year, enabling them to admit a greater share—or all—of their J.D. students without requiring an admissions test such as the LSAT or GRE.
The development follows a November 2024 decision by the ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to expand use of its variance process under Standard 503. Schools can now request to admit up to 100% of their class without a standardized test for a period of up to five years, marking a major shift from the previous 10% limit.
Ten of the 14 approved schools had previously received variances to use the JD-Next assessment as an alternative to the LSAT. Schools like Arizona State, Texas A&M, Mississippi College, and Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law have confirmed that their new variances are aimed at allowing a larger portion of their class to be test-optional.
“This doesn’t change 503—it just expands the variance process,” said Marc Miller, former dean of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. “The possibilities now are huge.”
The ABA plans to collect data from participating schools over three to five years, including first-year GPA, attrition, and bar passage outcomes, to assess the impact of test-optional admissions.
According to Robert Ahdieh, dean at Texas A&M Law, the variance complements the school’s prior adoption of the GRE and JD-Next. “We want to offer pathways that are a fit for the entire range of potential applicants,” he told Law.com.
Under the policy, schools must notify applicants that certain scholarships may be unavailable without a test score. They must also submit annual reports detailing enrollment metrics and student performance.
The surge in variance requests suggests a broader willingness within legal education to rethink traditional gatekeeping mechanisms. While the ABA House of Delegates blocked a full repeal of Standard 503 in 2023, the current approach reflects a compromise that allows for experimentation without eliminating the rule entirely.
Law schools that received a 2025 variance but have not publicly confirmed their use of it include institutions such as CUNY, George Mason, Indiana University-Bloomington, and University of Washington.
