Pass rate for inaugural NextGen UBE administration hits 72.7%, NCBE says
Despite disruptions in two states, the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam’s pass rate for the inaugural 2026 administration hit 72.7%, within 4.3 percentage points of every July national pass rate from 2021 through 2025, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
In July, the new skills-based exam, issued on computer rather than the traditional pencil-and-paper test, was administered in 10 jurisdictions. According to the NCBE, 2,630 examinees earned an official UBE score, the national mean score was 640.6 and the median score was 640. Unlike the legacy bar exam, which compiles a score based on different components, the NextGen UBE produces a single score ranging between 500 and 750. Each jurisdiction establishes its own passing score.
So far, 52 of the 56 U.S. jurisdictions have adopted the NextGen UBE, which will be fully rolled out by July 2028, when the legacy exam will sunset.
Washington’s July administration of the exam was scrapped after technical issues. But the NCBE found the performance of those who were able to complete the July administration was consistent with comparable examinees nationally, the release states.
And in Missouri, test-takers on the first day faced a long delay, with some waiting several hours before they could start, followed by a modified schedule the second day to make up for lost time. Again, the NCBE release says those examinees performed in line with the rest of the test-takers.
“Any disruption has the potential to affect the testing experience,” Kara Smith, the NCBE chief product officer, said in the release, “so we’re using what we learned in July to strengthen readiness and reduce operational risk in future administrations.”
Since the July administration, the NCBE has implemented both technical and operational changes to strengthen exam-day readiness, the release states, and details on those changes, along with a broader overview of the inaugural administration, will be available in a forthcoming report.
First-time examinees had a pass rate of 85.2% for the NextGen UBE, but for repeat examinees, it was 41%, according to the release. Historically, first-time test-takers pass at a higher rate than repeat examinees.
Notably, who counts as a first-time examinee has changed. Under the legacy exam, where test-takers could be counted as a first-time examinee if they were taking the exam for the first time in a jurisdiction even if they’d taken it elsewhere. For the NextGen UBE, first time examinees are only those who had never taken a bar exam in any jurisdiction.
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