Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

THERE IS NO CONVENTIONAL PERSONAL STATEMENT HERE — this is the most structurally unusual essay requirement in this data set, and an applicant who submits a standard personal statement has not done what McKinney asked. The school's wording: 'Many factors are important in assessing an applicant's potential to distinguish themselves and engage in the educational process and the legal profession. Therefore, students will be asked to complete a Statement of Motivations and Goals in lieu of the personal statement. The following questions aim to add context to your numerical indicators and aid us in matriculating students who will assist us in fulfilling our mission at the law school. Respond to each prompt. You may write up to 450 words per prompt when preparing your Statement of Motivations and Goals.' WORD LIMIT IS PER PROMPT, NOT TOTAL: word_limit is recorded as 450 because that is the only number published, but both prompts must be answered, so the real ceiling is 900 words across two short essays. A WHY-SCHOOL ESSAY IS BUILT INTO PROMPT 2 and is not offered separately anywhere on the site, which is why this file records no why_x_essay row: 'why do you want to attend IU McKinney in particular?' is half of the second required answer. Applicants reusing material from schools that ask for a standalone why-school essay should expect to compress it into roughly half of 450 words. HOW MANY PROMPTS — THE SITE CONTRADICTS ITSELF. The preparing-your-application page numbers exactly two prompts and says 'Respond to each prompt.' The FAQ says three: 'Your application will include three, short-answer statements of motivations & goals, a resume, character and fitness explanations (if applicable), and optional statements.' Worse, the sentence immediately before that one in the same FAQ answer describes the old requirement it replaced: 'Your application will include a personal statement, resume, character and fitness explanations (if applicable), and optional addenda.' Two contradictory sentences sit back to back. The preparing-your-application page is preferred here because it is the page that actually prints the prompts; the FAQ appears to be mid-revision. An applicant should check the live LSAC application for the count. WHAT THE COMMITTEE WEIGHS: 'When considering your application, the Admissions Committee will look first at your undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and LSAT or GRE score. A formula combining these factors (derived annually from a study comparing the UGPA and LSAT or GRE scores of current students with their subsequent law school performances) is used to predict your success in law school.' Other listed factors include 'The quality and strength of your undergraduate program', 'Worthwhile community and extracurricular activities', 'Employment during and after college', 'Graduate work', 'A written Statement of Motivations and Goals', and 'Letters of recommendation'.

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A CAPPED MENU, which is unusual — most schools leave optional essays open-ended. 'You may include up to three (3) optional statements of up to 500 words each as attachments to your application if there is additional information that you would like the admissions committee to consider. The optional statements are limited to the following topics: Statement of Academic Record, Statement of Socioeconomic Background, Statement of Responsibilities, or Statement of Interest Area.' Four topics are offered and at most three may be submitted, at 500 words each. No pressure is applied: 'These statements are optional. Failure to complete an optional statement will not negatively impact consideration of your application.' A GAP IN THE SCHOOL'S OWN PAGE: four topics are named in the list, but only three are then explained — the Statement of Socioeconomic Background is offered by name and never described, so an applicant choosing it has no prompt to answer. Recorded as published; the three prompts that do exist are quoted above in the school's own words. TWO OF THESE ABSORB WHAT OTHER SCHOOLS SPLIT OUT, which matters for reuse across a list: the Statement of Academic Record is McKinney's GPA-and-test addendum by another name, and the Statement of Responsibilities is the closest thing the school offers to a perspective statement. This file records no separate perspective_statement row because there is no separate document — it is one of four topics inside a single capped mechanism. The FAQ frames the same invitation loosely: 'Applicants are encouraged to include, in writing, any additional relevant information you wish the Admissions Committee to consider in making its decision,' and gives examples including applicants whose 'UGPA does not reflect their real academic ability because they were employed during college' and applicants 'disadvantaged because of economic, educational, racial, or cultural circumstances.'

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CHARACTER AND FITNESS ONLY, and required only when triggered. The FAQ lists what an application contains and includes 'character and fitness explanations (if applicable)' in both of its two competing sentences, so the requirement survives whichever version is current. No prompt, length limit, or format for the explanation is published, and the preparing-your-application page does not mention character and fitness at all. Recorded as required: false because it applies only to applicants with something to disclose. NOTE ON WHERE OTHER ADDENDA GO: McKinney does not publish a general addendum invitation. The FAQ's older sentence refers to 'optional addenda' while its newer sentence refers to 'optional statements', and the preparing-your-application page offers only the four capped optional statements — so a GPA or LSAT addendum at this school is the Statement of Academic Record, filed under the optional_essay entry and subject to its 500-word cap and its three-statement limit.

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'Submit two letters of recommendation to LSAC.' Two is stated as the number both on the requirements list and in the Early Decision completeness checklist ('Two letters of recommendation'). NO CEILING IS PUBLISHED — the site never says how many will be accepted, so count_accepted is omitted rather than guessed. Routing is through LSAC. PREFERENCE, stated only in the FAQ and only in passing: the committee weighs 'letters of recommendation (particularly those from faculty)', and adds that 'letters of recommendation from persons in a position to make candid evaluations of an applicant's motivation and drive may be helpful.' REAPPLICANTS must refresh them: 'at least one new letter of recommendation (unless LORs are over 2 years old)' — as published, which reads as requiring a new letter unless the existing ones are more than two years old.

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'Submit two letters of recommendation to LSAC.' Two is stated as the number both on the requirements list and in the Early Decision completeness checklist ('Two letters of recommendation'). NO CEILING IS PUBLISHED — the site never says how many will be accepted, so count_accepted is omitted rather than guessed. Routing is through LSAC. PREFERENCE, stated only in the FAQ and only in passing: the committee weighs 'letters of recommendation (particularly those from faculty)', and adds that 'letters of recommendation from persons in a position to make candid evaluations of an applicant's motivation and drive may be helpful.' REAPPLICANTS must refresh them: 'at least one new letter of recommendation (unless LORs are over 2 years old)' — as published, which reads as requiring a new letter unless the existing ones are more than two years old.

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Required, and named as part of the application itself rather than as a separate upload: 'Submit a completed Law School Application (including Statement of Motivations and Goals and resume) no later than May 15 of the year in which you seek admission.' The Early Decision completeness checklist lists 'Résumé' among the six items that make a file ready for review. No page limit, format, or content guidance is published anywhere on the admissions pages, so none is recorded.

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CAS is the only route in: 'please complete the application through the Law School Admission Council's Credential Assembly Service (CAS). CAS registrants can access the electronic application at no additional charge beyond the CAS fee,' and 'Applications are only accepted via the CAS electronic application service.' Transcripts: 'Forward your transcripts from any institution you have ever attended to LSAC' — every institution, not only the degree-granting one. DEGREE REQUIREMENT WITH A DEADLINE ATTACHED: 'Have received a baccalaureate or equivalent degree from an approved college or university by the first day of the fall semester,' so the degree need not be in hand at application. The FAQ states it as 'a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited college or university.' NO MAJOR IS PREFERRED: 'No particular areas of undergraduate study are required or recommended... We recommend that applicants take courses which develop research and writing skills, analytical thinking, critical reading and problem solving.' INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS carry an extra, easily missed step beyond the usual CAS foreign-credential evaluation: 'International applicants are also required to complete the Indiana University Graduate Application.' English proficiency: 'You must have ETS or IELTS send TOEFL or IELTS scores to LSAC to be included in your CAS report. If you are from or graduated with a degree from a college or university in the US or other English-speaking country, you may be exempt from submitting a TOEFL.' No minimum TOEFL or IELTS score is published, and no minimum GPA is published. International applicants also face the earlier March 1 deadline rather than May 15.

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BOTH TESTS ACCEPTED, BUT NOT EQUALLY — McKinney is unusually candid about the hierarchy. Requirement: 'Take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) or the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). For GRE applicants, IU McKinney's GRE DI Code is 3977.' The FAQ confirms acceptance — 'Yes, we do accept the GRE in lieu of the LSAT' — and then states the preference outright: 'Both the LSAT and the GRE are accepted for admissions decisions; however, the LSAT is a test specifically designed to assess an applicant's readiness for law school. Thus, the LSAT does carry more weight in an admissions decision. If an applicant takes both tests, the Admissions Committee will assess using the LSAT score.' A GRE applicant is also asked to self-report: 'If you decide to take the GRE instead of the LSAT, you are encouraged to notify the Office of Enrollment Management at lawadmit@iu.edu to ensure the Admissions Committee receives your score.' MULTIPLE LSAT SCORES: 'We use your highest score.' VALIDITY: 'An LSAT score is valid for five years for purposes of applying to Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.' TIMING GUIDANCE: 'We strongly advise applicants to take the LSAT in the summer of the year preceding the year in which they plan to apply for admission, and not later than April of the year they wish to start law school,' tightening to the October administration for Early Decision. McKinney's 2025 ABA Standard 509 report shows the mix in practice: 273 LSAT admissions enrollees, 6 GRE enrollees (1 full-time, 5 part-time — below the ABA's 10-test-taker floor, so no GRE percentiles are published), and 1 enrollee under 'NON-LSAT, GRE OR JDNEXT'. No JD Next row appears, and the site never mentions JD Next.

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NOTHING TO PAY. The requirements list ends with a flat sentence: 'There is no application fee.' The FAQ says the same thing for international applicants, though in language that hints it is a per-cycle decision rather than a permanent policy: 'Q: What is the application fee for foreign students? The law school waived the application fee for this admission cycle.' IU McKinney's 2025 ABA Standard 509 report independently lists the application fee as $0. Recorded as required: false because there is nothing to pay and no waiver process to apply for. LSAC's own CAS and registration fees are separate and are addressed only obliquely — 'CAS registrants can access the electronic application at no additional charge beyond the CAS fee.'

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Recorded as the site's silence, not as a statement that McKinney does not interview. No IU McKinney admissions page fetched on 2026-08-18 — preparing your application, early decision, the FAQ, the JD program overview, the part-time hybrid page, or the class profiles — describes an admissions interview of any kind. The only interviews named anywhere on the site belong to Career Services' On-Campus Interview Program, which is employer recruiting for enrolled students and has nothing to do with admission. The one conversation the school does mention as part of the process is remedial rather than evaluative and applies only to reapplicants, who 'may also need to have an advising call with an admissions advisor to discuss ways to strengthen their application.'

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