Pass rate for New York’s July bar exam ticks up, as repeat and foreign-educated test-takers do better
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Corrected: The pass rate for the July 2022 New York bar exam was 66%, which is an increase of three percentage points from the July 2021 bar exam.
The pass rate is based on exam results for 9,609 people who took the July 2022 exam, according to an Oct. 20 press release by the New York State Board of Law Examiners. The number who passed was 6,350.
The pass rate in New York is higher when only first-time test-takers are considered. In this group, the bar pass rate was 75% for graduates of all law schools (down from 78% in July 2021) and 85% for graduates of ABA-accredited law schools (down from 87% in July 2021).
The higher pass rate is partly bolstered by an increase in the pass rate for foreign-educated candidates. They had a 44% bar pass rate, an increase of 13 percentage points from last year. They made up 35% of test-takers, compared to 34% in July 2021.
The pass rate also increased for repeat test-takers, a smaller percentage of whom took the bar exam than in July 2021. The bar bass rate for repeat test-takers was 23%, an increase of five percentage points from July 2021, and they made up 17% of people who took the July bar exam, compared to 25% in July 2021.
Statistics corrected Oct. 21 at 8:15 a.m.