Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is generally considered to be one of the most prestigious in the world. The school is ranked third by the U.S. News & World and Report. Its acceptance rate was 15.4% in the 2013–14 admissions cycle, and its yield rate of 66.2% was the second-highest of any law school in the United States. It is ranked first in the 2016 QS World University Rankings. Harvard Law admitted 16.5% of applicants in its most recent class, compared to 9.2% at Yale and 11.2% at Stanford. The school has a considerably larger class size than most law schools – each class in the three-year J.D. program has approximately 560 students, the largest of the top 150 ranked law schools in the United States. With a current enrollment of 1,990, HLS has about as many students as its three closest-ranked peer institutions: first-ranked Yale, second-ranked Stanford, and fourth-ranked Chicago, combined. The first-year class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students, who take most first-year classes together. Harvard's uniquely large class size and its prestige have led the law school to graduate a great many distinguished alumni in the judiciary, government, and the business world.