Definitions:
Whiteness is defined as Caucasian only plus students who failed to disclose a racial identity, Hispanic Whites, Biracial, and Multiracial were counted as nonwhite. Questions have been raised about the methodology of calculating Unknowns as White students. If we did not include these students as White, then schools with a large number of White students who failed to report their race would look less White than they were. I decided to count Unknown as White to avoid penalizing schools where most of the applicants report race; to avoid rewarding schools for reporting many students as Unknown; and to have a consistent methodology.
State population is the total population. This differs from the 2004 report that was limited to the college-age population.
LSAC application pool is the total number of LSAC applications from persons who list a particular state as their home state. This also forms the basis for regional LSAC applications.
Historically White law schools (HWLS) have traditionally been de facto White with no significant history of proportionately serving nonwhite students. Of the 200 schools in the database, 191 (95.5%) are HWLS. Excluded from being classified as an HWLS are:
| District of Columbia, University of |
| Florida A & M University |
| Hawaii, University of |
| Howard University |
| North Carolina Central University |
| The Pontifical Catholic University of P.R. |
| Puerto Rico, University of |
| Southern University |
| Texas Southern University |
Public/Private designation was based on the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar listing as a public school or private ownership. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legaleducation/resources/abaapprovedlawschools/
Regions are defined according to the ABA/LSAC Official Guide. There are 10 regions: Far West, Great Lakes, Midsouth, Midwest, Mountain West, New England, Northeast, Northwest, South Central, and Southeast.
Tier designation. Schools are divided into four tiers based on the U.S. News and World Report annual ranking of law schools. Deans, ABA, and LSAC all reject the ranking. However, law schools and applicants, all rely on the ranking as a measure of external worth.
