California Western School of Law Admission
California Western School of Law Undergraduate Program
California Western School of Law Application

The Facts

California Western is a rather small, private institution located in the city of San Diego, California, and is home to over 984 graduate law students. The school is only a law school, and is not affiliated with a larger college or university. The average age of enrollment is around 26, and it is quite rare for any student to enter directly from their undergraduate education. The school is perhaps best known for its diversity, its amazing research resources and library, as well as for its professional connections throughout the legal community of Southern California. The school offers degrees in the 2 to 3 year JD, the MCL/LLM in master of comparative law or master of laws on comparative law, as well as the 1 year LLM in trial advocacy. The school also offers a wide range of joint degrees including the 4 year JD/MSW in master of social work, the 4 year JD/MBA in business administration, as well as the JD/PhD in philosophy in political science or history. Some of the most popular programs of study include courses in the areas of biotech law, constitutional law, creative problem solving, criminal law, environmental law, family law, human rights law, intellectual property law, international law, labor law, taxation, as well as telecommunications law.

Admission to the California Western School of Law is quite competitive among the many students who apply; last year, over 4,000 students applied for admission to the school, and approximately 1,125 of those students were accepted. Eventually however, only about 275 of the admitted students actually enrolled for the coming semester. The admitted students had an average LSAT score ranging from 152 to 157, as well as an average undergraduate GPA of about a 3.2. Students are notified of their admissions status on a rolling basis, and there is currently no early application program in place.

The California Western School of Law has 85 faculty members, and students agree that they are very approachable, and have enough wit and experience to make classes very interesting and engaging. The school also has a manageable student to faculty ratio of 19:1, however, some students complain that their classes are larger than they should be.

Employment Facts

Students at California Western seem to be dissatisfied with the lack of job availability. Students say that the Career Services office needs to work a lot harder to attract firms to the school to recruit. However, over 88% of the most recent graduating class were able to find jobs within a few months of receiving their degrees, and had an average starting salary of about $55,000. Students are most frequently hired by employers such as private, public, and nonprofit organizations including firms and corporations.

What's Good

"For me, the faculty is absolutely the best part of the school. They really know how to engage you and keep you engaged."

"The location is excellent, as there is a lot going on in the Southern California legal scene."

"Students really push each other to do well."

What's Bad

"People can get ridiculously competitive, particularly because there aren't many jobs around."

"The career services are terrible, and you feel totally left out on a lurch."

"Parking is impossible!"

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