Expert rank-wise guidance for 5-year integrated and 3-year LL.B admissions. We cover CLAT and the NLU consortium counselling, AILET for NLU Delhi, and state-level and private law college routes — so you build the right strategy from day one.
CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) is the dominant national exam for law admission in India, with a genuinely centralised counselling process — but one major National Law University sits entirely outside it, and a large private/state college landscape exists alongside it.
CLAT feeds a consortium counselling process covering 21 of the 22 National Law Universities (NLUs) — you fill preferences across these NLUs and seats are allotted by rank, broadly similar in spirit to JoSAA. NLU Delhi is the exception — it runs its own separate exam, AILET, and does not participate in CLAT counselling at all.
Beyond the NLUs, many private law schools (Jindal Global Law School and others) and state institutions run their own separate admission processes — some accepting CLAT scores, some using LSAT India, and some via state-level CETs or direct merit.
Each exam opens a different set of doors — know which ones you actually need.
All NLUs share the brand, but reputation, placement strength and CLAT cutoffs vary meaningfully by institute.
After CLAT results, the consortium runs a preference-based seat allocation process across 21 NLUs, with multiple rounds.
Approximate relative difficulty across NLU tiers, based on recent CLAT trends. Actual closing ranks shift every year — treat this as a starting framework, not exact figures.
| Tier | Examples | Relative Difficulty | Typical CLAT Rank Band (Gen)* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top-Tier NLUs | NLSIU Bangalore, NALSAR Hyderabad, WBNUJS Kolkata | 🔴 Very Hard | Top few hundred |
| Established Mid-Tier NLUs | NLU Jodhpur, GNLU Gandhinagar, NLIU Bhopal | 🔴 Hard | Low thousands |
| Good Mid-Tier NLUs | HNLU Raipur, RGNUL Patiala, RMLNLU Lucknow | 🟡 Moderate–Hard | ~2,000–4,000 |
| Newer NLUs | NLUs established in the last decade | 🟢 Accessible | ~4,000–8,000+ |
*Illustrative bands for General category only — OBC-NCL/SC/ST/EWS lists have separate, generally more accessible cutoffs. NLU Delhi (AILET) is excluded from this table since it uses a completely separate rank system from CLAT. Always check the specific NLU + programme + round combination on the official consortium portal before deciding.
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