New York University School of Law

(NYU)

Ranked #7
nyu.edu
New York, New York

Admission Process

User Avatar Ethan Madore

NYU’s admissions dean passed away last year, and the community is still reeling from the loss. NYU doesn’t interview and the review process has been painfully slow in recent years. Be prepared to hear back notably later than other schools.

Traditionally, NYU is a little more open to international students than the average T14 school.

It’s often hard to write Why X material for New York schools: everyone wants to go for essentially the same reason. And NYU has no insecurity: it knows the people who apply want to attend. We don’t recommend spending time in your application on Why X material.

But there’s one exception. New York is a hard city to live in: it’s expensive, hard to find an apartment, and potentially overwhelming to navigate and adjust to. If you’ve lived in a large city before, then you’re probably ready for it. But when someone applies to NYU or Columbia from a rural or small-town background, administrators do need to ask the question: “Okay, is this person ready to hit the ground running in New York?” Both of NYC’s top law schools have had their share of 1Ls who’ve hit the wall of city-living hard and faced unexpectedly severe homesickness and anxiety. If it’s not clear from your application that you have experience with this kind of life, you should find a place on your application to emphasize your excitement and readiness for big-city life.

Application requirements

Deadline
Feb 15, 2026
Recommendations
2 to 3
Updated for 2025-2026 application cycle

Essay prompts

What's actually different about NYU's application

User Avatar Ethan Madore
  • Any length goes for your PS. If you’ve ended up with a 3-page version that you like more than your two-pager, feel free to submit that, though our analysis suggests that there’s no advantage to extending your PS for NYU (unlike for Berkeley.)
  • NYU doesn’t really ask for your perspective statement, but you can give it to them. If it’s good, we recommend attaching it.
  • There are a bunch of scholarship essays due at the time of submission. These are prestigious, named programs filled by the best applicants. NYU uses these programs to poach top students from Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. They don’t confer an admissions advantage and are only read if you’re going to be admitted anyway, so we don’t recommend spending your time here unless you actually are in the top 5% of applicants and predict needing to pick between NYU and one of the top three. If NYU is already a reach for you, skip these essays and focus your effort where it will make a difference.
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