Washington and Lee University School of Law

Required. The website publishes no verbatim prompt — the prompt and formatting guidelines appear in the LSAC application itself. Per the admissions FAQ: 'As our application indicates, personal statements should be no more than three pages (doubled spaced and Times New Roman 12-point font).' The admissions office's advice page frames it as: 'tell us something about yourself that we won't discover otherwise' — imagine the committee choosing between two files with identical numbers, with your statement read aloud. Explicit advice: don't summarize your resume, don't write a why-W&L essay ('We know about us; tell us about you'), and don't discuss LSAT/GRE scores or grades (use a separate addendum). No blanket AI prohibition, but the school discourages reliance on LLMs and expects the work to be the applicant's own.

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Optional Ethical Dilemma Essay. The FAQ describes it: 'we offer applicants an opportunity to discuss an ethical dilemma they dealt with in an optional essay' — tied to W&L's student-run Honor System. The verbatim prompt is not published on the website (it appears in the LSAC application). The admissions advice page calls it '500 more words' — recorded as the page's phrasing, not an explicitly stated limit — and says the school is 'perfectly happy' to review applications without it, with no penalty attached, though submissions are 'often extremely illuminating' and 'almost always' to the applicant's benefit.

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Optional. Per the FAQ: 'We have a fairly liberal supplemental statement policy, and we will gladly review any such statements, addressing any aspects of your file you believe necessitate further explication.' The advice page directs applicants to explain GPA or LSAT/GRE issues in a separate submission rather than in the personal statement ('We accept any number of explanatory attachments to your application'). No length limit is published.

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'We require one letter of recommendation and accept up to four. Most applicants apply with two or three.' The school recommends at least one letter from a professor or someone who knows the applicant's academic abilities, and advises against submitting the maximum just because it is allowed. The LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service is strongly encouraged (included in CAS registration); alternatively a recommender may mail a letter directly to the school. The file is considered complete once one letter is received.

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Optional — the FAQ's completeness checklist lists 'Resume (Optional),' unusual among law schools. The FAQ adds that, like the optional essay, the resume is 'often extremely illuminating, informative, and helpful' to the committee. No page limit or formatting rules are published. Updated resumes may be emailed to lawadm@wlu.edu as a PDF attachment after submission.

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All applicants must register with LSAC's Credential Assembly Service — including GRE-only applicants — and have transcripts sent to LSAC from every college or university attended, then direct CAS to send a law school report to Washington and Lee. Postsecondary work completed outside the US (including territories) or Canada goes through LSAC's foreign transcript service, with a Foreign Credential Evaluation by AACRAO incorporated into the CAS report (work of one academic year or less is simply forwarded; study-abroad work on a US/Canadian transcript is excepted). A bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university is a prerequisite for enrollment; no specific major is required.

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LSAT or GRE accepted: 'W&L Law does not prefer one test to the other, and either will be given equal consideration.' Applications are not eligible for review until scores are received. GRE applicants send scores via ETS institution code 2937 and must submit all GRE scores from the past five years (CAS registration is still required). LSAT scores are reported automatically through CAS and will be considered even for applicants who also took the GRE; if an applicant takes the LSAT after being admitted on a GRE score alone, the school reserves the right to revisit the decision and/or scholarship. Greatest weight is placed on the highest score, and the class median is calculated from highest LSAT per ABA guidelines. If an applicant with a reportable LSAT score is registered for a future LSAT, the default policy is to hold the file until the new score arrives (the applicant may request review without waiting, but a denial will not be revisited based on the later score).

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No application fee: 'we have made the necessary arrangements with the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) so that no fee will be assessed when you apply. For this admissions cycle, applying to W&L Law will be free of charge.' The school's 2025 ABA 509 report likewise lists the application fee as 0.

Verified 2026-08-17 · source page