February Bar Exam MBE Score Sinks To All-Time Record Low — Again

Uh-oh! As noted by Reuters, the national Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) mean scaled score is back to an all-time low. This isn’t what we like to see when it comes to the bar.

Higher MBE scores from recent administrations of the exam gave those in legal academia some hope that the future would be brighter for test-takers. Unfortunately, according to the the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), average MBE scores are down to a dismal 130.8. This is (once again) the lowest February MBE score on record.

Could this have happened thanks to California’s decision to create its own exam? Here’s a statement that Bob Schwartz, NCBE’s managing director of Psychometrics, gave to Law.com.

“The decrease in this February’s mean represents a change in population and a change in overall performance. In four of the past five years, the MBE mean for California has been higher than the mean for the combined non-California jurisdictions, so it makes sense that removing California from the national pool might bring the national mean down slightly.”

Schwartz further noted that the “absence of California from the examinee pool does not affect February’s examinees in jurisdictions that administer the MBE,” he said, adding that the MBE is equated as part of the scoring process to control for any possible differences in exam difficulty or examinee population compared to previous administrations.

Per the NCBE, the blame for the decreased MBE score cannot be placed solely upon California’s shoulders. Schwartz continued, stating, “Excluding California from the comparison, we saw a decline in performance across all groups of examinees this February; first-time test takers’ performance declined by about a point, while repeaters’ performance was down by about 0.7 points.”

According to the NCBE, of the 15,350 people who took the February 2025 exam, approximately 71% were likely repeat test-takers, meaning they’d already failed the exam previously. The February administration is usually dominated by repeaters, as July is the traditional time for new law graduates to take the test. Schwartz says that for the February 2025 MBE, first-time test takers scored an average of 135.1, while repeat test takers scored an average of 129.0.

Jurisdictions are currently in the process of releasing results. We’ll have to wait to see just how bad this early indicator is for overall pass rates.

National bar exam score hit record low in February [Reuters]

February 2025 MBE Scores See Modest Decline From Prior 2 Years [Law.com]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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