Albany Law School

OPEN TOPIC WITH TWO SUGGESTIONS: 'A personal statement is required. Your personal statement should be written in your own words and limited to 2-3 pages on a topic of your choice that will provide additional insight into your qualifications and interests. While there is no required topic, if you are unsure of a topic, you may consider sharing: why you are interested in pursuing a law degree. what your anticipated career goals/interests are.' page_limit records the top of the stated range, which is phrased as a limit ('limited to 2-3 pages') rather than as guidance. No font or spacing requirement is published. 'WRITTEN IN YOUR OWN WORDS' IS THE ONLY THING RESEMBLING AN AI POLICY on Albany's admissions pages — generative AI is never mentioned by name, so this is recorded as the school's own wording rather than as a ban. A WHY-ALBANY ESSAY IS OPTIONAL AND LIVES IN THE ADDENDA, not here — see the addendum entry, which invites applicants to 'share why you are specifically interested in pursuing your goals at Albany Law School' if it is not already in the personal statement. No separate why_x_essay row is recorded because the school offers it only as one possible use of an optional addendum.

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TWO KINDS, ONE REQUIRED WHEN TRIGGERED AND ONE BROADLY OPTIONAL. (1) CHARACTER AND FITNESS, required and with an unusually specific evidentiary standard: 'If you answer "yes" to any of the character and fitness questions, you must submit a statement reciting, in detail, the facts and circumstances of each reported event. The statement should include dates, exact name and location of courts (if any), and final disposition of all matters. Proof of final disposition is preferred, when available. If not available, please explain the reason. Your statement must be attached in order to submit your application. Failure to provide sufficient description and/or explanation of reported events may prompt the Admissions Committee to request additional information from you, thereby causing a delay in the processing of your application.' The application cannot even be submitted without it. Albany also warns about downstream consequences: 'Inconsistencies between your law school application and your application to the Bar may cause difficulty with bar admission.' (2) OPTIONAL ADDENDA, which at Albany absorb the perspective statement, the why-school essay, and the conventional explanatory addendum all at once: 'Albany Law School values a wide range of lived experiences and perspectives that our students contribute to our community and classes. We also acknowledge that many applicants have overcome obstacles or hardships to achieve their current level of education. If you feel there is information not shared elsewhere in your application that the Admissions Committee may find relevant to their review process, you may choose to submit an optional statement and/or additional addenda. Brief optional addenda may also be useful to explain LSAT score discrepancies, grade inconsistencies, gaps in work history, or to provide context for reviewers on any other topic you feel is relevant to their decision. If not already included in your personal statement, you may also wish to share why you are specifically interested in pursuing your goals at Albany Law School.' No length limit is published beyond the word 'brief'. That is why this file records no separate perspective_statement or why_x_essay row. A CONTINUING DUTY OF ACCURACY applies to everything: 'The applicant has an ongoing obligation to promptly notify the Albany Law School Admissions Office should there be any change to information included in this application, supporting documents, or attachments, even after acceptance or enrollment.'

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'Two letters of recommendation, preferably from faculty who can address your academic and intellectual abilities. Letters from employers or professional recommendations are also acceptable, especially from applicants who received their undergraduate degree five or more years prior. Only two letters are required, but up to four will be accepted.' The five-year mark is Albany's own dividing line between when a faculty letter is expected and when a professional one is equally welcome. Letters route through the CAS report.

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'Two letters of recommendation, preferably from faculty who can address your academic and intellectual abilities. Letters from employers or professional recommendations are also acceptable, especially from applicants who received their undergraduate degree five or more years prior. Only two letters are required, but up to four will be accepted.' The five-year mark is Albany's own dividing line between when a faculty letter is expected and when a professional one is equally welcome. Letters route through the CAS report.

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Required, and the instruction is a content list rather than a format rule: 'Please include all employment, publications, any substantive extra-curricular activities, and community and volunteer service.' Note 'all employment' — the same completeness expectation Albany applies to its character-and-fitness disclosures. No page limit or format guidance is published, so none is recorded.

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'Registration with the LSAC Credential Assembly Service (CAS) is required,' and the transcript rule is one of the broadest in this data set: 'Transcripts from ALL colleges, graduate, professional, or technical schools you have attended, as a matriculant or non-matriculant, whether or not a degree was earned.' Technical schools and non-matriculated coursework are both explicitly in scope. DEGREE: 'the J.D. degree program requires that, at minimum, a Bachelor-level degree has been earned prior to the start of J.D. coursework.' The J.D. admissions page adds a liberal-arts credit floor and a rare exception: 'Applicants for admission as candidates for the Juris Doctor degree must hold, or have completed the requirements for, a baccalaureate or higher degree granted by a regionally accredited institution, containing at least 45 semester hours in liberal arts and sciences. Applicants without a baccalaureate degree are admitted only with exceptional academic credentials. In such a case, the applicant must have successfully completed three-fourths of the coursework toward a bachelor's degree at a regionally accredited institution.' Albany is one of the few schools in this data set that will admit without a completed degree at all, and it says what the price of entry is. No minimum GPA is published. ENGLISH PROFICIENCY is conditional on the language of instruction rather than on nationality: 'If English is not the primary language in which your prior education was delivered, applicants are required to provide evidence of English proficiency. TOEFL or IELTS is preferred.' No minimum score is published. International applicants also file an 'International Student Financial Statement' after admission, for the I-20. NO GUARANTEE ATTACHES TO MEETING THE MINIMUMS: 'Merely meeting the minimum requirements does not, however, guarantee admission.'

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EITHER TEST, BUT THE GRE IS A FALLBACK RATHER THAN A CHOICE — Albany states the condition twice: 'Either a LSAT or GRE score is required for all JD applicants. A valid reportable score must be received directly from LSAC or ETS.' Then: 'We are currently accepting the GRE in lieu of the LSAT score for those applicants who do not have a reportable LSAT score. We recently adopted this change in order to offer more flexibility and opportunity to our prospective students who may have been impacted by COVID-19 related disruptions.' And flatly: 'Applicants are welcome to submit a GRE score in lieu of an LSAT score only if they have no reportable LSAT score.' An applicant who has ever sat the LSAT is an LSAT applicant here. GRE mechanics: 'If you wish to submit a GRE score, you must request one be submitted to us through ETS. The Albany Law School Code is 2946. You must then proceed with the remainder of our application procedures as listed on our website. All applications must be submitted through LSAC, and a CAS report requested for all transcripts, letters of recommendations etc.' MULTIPLE LSAT SCORES: 'Should you opt to take the LSAT more than once, Albany Law School will consider all LSAT scores presented by an individual applicant, but more weight is given to the highest LSAT score.' All scores are seen; the highest carries the weight. VALIDITY, anchored to matriculation rather than application: 'Test scores older than five years from the anticipated year of matriculation will not be accepted.' No last-acceptable administration is published. Albany's 2025 ABA Standard 509 report shows the mix: 233 LSAT admissions enrollees against 4 GRE enrollees out of 237 first-years, the GRE cohort far below the ABA's 10-test-taker floor so no GRE percentiles are published. No JD Next row appears and the site never mentions JD Next.

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NOTHING TO PAY, stated three times on the same page — in the cycle announcement ('The Fall 2026 application cycle begins in early September 2025. No application (EAPP) fee will be charged'), in the checklist ('Completed application (no application fee required)'), and confirmed by Albany's 2025 ABA Standard 509 report, which lists the application fee as 0. 'EAPP' is LSAC's electronic application. Recorded as required: false because there is nothing to pay and no waiver process to request. LSAC's own CAS and Letter of Recommendation Service fees are separate and are not addressed by Albany's pages.

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Recorded as the site's silence, not as a statement that Albany does not interview. No Albany Law admissions page fetched on 2026-08-18 — the admissions overview, the J.D. program admissions page, how to apply, the three-year applicants page with its full checklist and component-by-component instructions, the application dates page, or the class profile — mentions an admissions interview of any kind. The three-year page enumerates six checklist items and then walks through each component in turn, and no interview appears among them. Information sessions, campus visits and student ambassadors are offered separately, none described as part of the evaluation.

Verified 2026-08-31 · source page