University of St. Thomas School of Law

Listed as one of six things 'Prospective J.D. students are required to submit': 'A personal statement.' THAT IS THE ENTIRE PUBLISHED REQUIREMENT -- St. Thomas gives no prompt, no question, no themes, no page or word limit, and no formatting, spacing or font instruction anywhere on its admissions pages. No prompt and no page_limit are recorded rather than inventing either. The only guidance on what the committee is reading for sits in the framing above the list and in the scholarship criteria: 'Our admissions committee thoroughly reviews every application to understand the strengths, skills and unique potential of each prospective student. All information you submit is considered, and we encourage you to be thorough and straightforward,' and scholarships go to applicants showing 'broad strength in a combination of LSAT, undergraduate GPA and mission fit.' MISSION FIT IS THE DISTINCTIVE NOTE at this school and the personal statement is the only place to establish it -- St. Thomas is a Catholic law school whose scholarship page twice describes 'a compelling fit with the mission of the law school' as a criterion. NO SEPARATE ESSAYS: there is no perspective or diversity statement, no standalone 'why St. Thomas' essay, and no general addendum invitation, so those types are omitted from this file entirely per docs/CURATION.md. The one extra piece of writing the school does invite is scholarship-specific; see the optional_essay entry.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

The Access to Justice Scholars essay -- optional, but the only additional piece of writing St. Thomas invites, and it is attached to substantial money: 'Awardees are granted up to a 90% tuition discount each year of the J.D. program.' Recorded as optional_essay rather than why_x_essay because the subject is the applicant's commitment to a kind of practice, not to this school. Eligibility is gated twice over: it is open to 'All academically qualified applicants', and the programme is 'for individuals who have an interest in and commitment to pursuing legal practice in a small-town or rural setting', with St. Thomas working 'with the Minnesota State Bar Association to match Access to Justice scholars with a mentor experienced in small-town or rural practice.' TIMING MATTERS -- 'The essay should be submitted with the application for admission,' so unlike a supplemental statement that can follow later, this one has to be in the original file. No length limit or formatting requirement is published. Submitting it also triggers an interview; see the interview entry. Note that the school's other named awards (President's Scholarship, full tuition; Dean's Scholarship, up to 90%) require no essay and no separate application at all.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

'Two letters of recommendation' is one of the six required submissions. NO OTHER GUIDANCE IS PUBLISHED -- St. Thomas states no maximum, expresses no preference for academic over professional recommenders, discourages no category of writer, and says nothing about what the letters should address. count_accepted is left unset rather than guessed, and the absence of a preference is recorded as silence rather than as a deliberate neutrality of the kind California Western states outright. Letters travel in the CAS file, which the same list requires.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

'Two letters of recommendation' is one of the six required submissions. NO OTHER GUIDANCE IS PUBLISHED -- St. Thomas states no maximum, expresses no preference for academic over professional recommenders, discourages no category of writer, and says nothing about what the letters should address. count_accepted is left unset rather than guessed, and the absence of a preference is recorded as silence rather than as a deliberate neutrality of the kind California Western states outright. Letters travel in the CAS file, which the same list requires.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

'Your resume or CV' is one of the six required submissions -- required, not optional, and St. Thomas explicitly accepts either format. No page limit, format, or content guidance is published, so none is recorded.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

Two of the six required submissions cover this: 'A completed CAS file from LSAC, including a reportable LSAT score' and 'A copy of all transcripts from post-secondary institutions.' Applications are filed through LSAC. St. Thomas publishes nothing about international transcripts, foreign credential evaluation, TOEFL, or IELTS; nothing about when a bachelor's degree must be conferred; and no minimum GPA -- all recorded as silence rather than as absent requirements. This is one of the thinner admissions sites in this data set, so an applicant with a non-standard academic record should expect to ask rather than to find the answer published.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

LSAT ONLY, and by silence rather than by refusal -- the distinction matters per docs/CURATION.md. The required-submissions list names 'A completed CAS file from LSAC, including a reportable LSAT score', and no St. Thomas page fetched on 2026-08-18 mentions the GRE as an admission test; there is no statement that the GRE is not accepted, so this is recorded as the school never having addressed it. Same for JD-Next. The 509 corroborates the practical picture: all 166 first-year enrollees are reported as LSAT admissions enrollees, and the report prints no GRE and no JD-Next row. Note the word 'reportable', which excludes a cancelled or withheld score. Nothing is published about score validity windows, superscoring, averaging, LSAT Writing, or a minimum score. The scholarship page confirms the LSAT's weight in the decision -- awards attend to 'broad strength in a combination of LSAT, undergraduate GPA and mission fit.'

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

THERE IS NO APPLICATION FEE: 'Apply online through the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). There is no application fee.' The school's 2025 ABA Standard 509 report independently certifies the application fee as 0. Recorded as required: false because there is nothing to pay and nothing to waive, and St. Thomas states it outright rather than leaving it to be inferred from the 509. No fee-waiver process is published because none is needed. LSAC's own CAS and registration fees are separate and the school does not address them.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page

ST. THOMAS DOES INTERVIEW, BY INVITATION, AND THE INTERVIEW IS ABOUT MONEY RATHER THAN ADMISSION -- which is an unusual arrangement worth understanding. For scholarships generally: 'Applicants may be invited to participate in an optional interview prior to the scholarship decision.' Note both hedges -- invitation-based and optional even once invited -- so declining is permitted, though an applicant hoping for an award would be unwise to. For one named award the interview is not optional at all: Access to Justice Scholars applicants who submit the required rural-practice essay are told 'Applicants will be invited to an interview with the faculty admissions committee.' required is recorded as false because no interview is needed for a complete application or for admission itself; the admissions process page lists six required submissions and none is an interview. No format, length, or timing is published beyond 'prior to the scholarship decision'.

Verified 2026-08-18 · source page