The MEE has no standalone passing score. Your six essay answers are folded into your Uniform Bar Examination total, where they count for 30% of the number, and that combined total is what has to clear your jurisdiction’s cutoff. Across UBE jurisdictions, the minimum passing total runs from 260 to 270.1National Conference of Bar Examiners. UBE Minimum Scores
Why There Is No Separate MEE Cutoff
No UBE jurisdiction publishes a minimum for the MEE on its own. Passing or failing depends entirely on your combined score across the MEE, the Multistate Bar Examination, and the Multistate Performance Test.1National Conference of Bar Examiners. UBE Minimum Scores A weak essay performance can be offset by a strong MBE, and the opposite is also true.
The grading itself explains why a fixed cutoff per essay would not mean much. After you finish writing, human graders in your jurisdiction read each of the six responses and assign a score on a relative 1-to-6 scale. A 6 goes to the strongest papers a grader sees; a 1 goes to the weakest. Graders are sorting essays into quality tiers compared to other test-takers rather than measuring against a fixed checklist of correct answers.2The Bar Examiner. It’s All Relative – MEE and MPT Grading, That Is They look for whether you spotted the right legal issues, applied the law to the specific facts, and reached a reasoned conclusion. Reciting rules without tying them to the facts lands papers in the lower tiers.
Most responses cluster in the middle. A 3 typically means the answer was responsive but missed a major issue or muddled the analysis. A 4 signals competent work that identifies the key issues and applies the law logically, even if the writing is not polished. A 5 or 6 on an individual essay is uncommon and usually requires both strong analysis and clear organization under pressure.
How Raw Essay Scores Become Scaled Scores
Your six raw essay scores do not go straight into the final number. The jurisdiction weights the raw MEE scores under the UBE formula and then maps them onto the MBE scaled score distribution, so the essay scores share the same statistical center and spread as the multiple-choice scores in your testing group.2The Bar Examiner. It’s All Relative – MEE and MPT Grading, That Is
Scaling keeps scores comparable across administrations. If one sitting’s essays happen to be harder, raw scores drop even among equally prepared candidates, and the MBE anchor corrects for that. It also means a raw score of 4 out of 6 does not translate to a simple 67%. You cannot reverse-engineer a target raw score per essay, because a 4 on each essay might produce a different scaled result in February than it does in July, depending on question difficulty and the strength of the candidate pool.
How Much the MEE Counts Toward the Total
Under the UBE, the MEE accounts for 30% of your total score. The MBE, the 200-question multiple-choice component, carries 50%, and the MPT makes up the remaining 20%. NCBE scores the MBE centrally, while individual jurisdictions grade the MEE and MPT before NCBE calculates the combined total.3National Conference of Bar Examiners. The Uniform Bar Examination (UBE)
The MEE itself consists of six essay questions, each with a 30-minute time limit, covering areas that include civil procedure, contracts, constitutional law, evidence, real property, torts, criminal law, and business associations.4National Conference of Bar Examiners. MEE Preparation NCBE has produced the exam since 1988, and roughly 47 jurisdictions use it.5The Bar Examiner. The Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) Nearly a third of your total score rides on how you handle those six prompts, which is a different skill set than the MBE rewards.
UBE Minimum Passing Totals by Jurisdiction
Every UBE jurisdiction sets its own minimum passing total. The current range runs from 260 at the low end to 270 at the high end.1National Conference of Bar Examiners. UBE Minimum Scores
- 260: Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah.
- 264: Indiana.
- 266: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Washington, and the Virgin Islands.
- 268: Michigan.
- 270: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The 10-point spread between the lowest and highest cutoffs can decide a borderline result. A 265 passes in eight jurisdictions and fails in more than 20 others. If you plan to practice in a 270-jurisdiction, study to that standard from the start.
Aim Higher If You May Transfer Your Score
One advantage of the UBE is that your score can transfer to other UBE jurisdictions without retaking the exam, but a transferred score still has to meet the receiving jurisdiction’s minimum. Passing in a 260-jurisdiction with a 262 will not get you admitted in a state that requires 270; you would need to retake the exam.
Each jurisdiction also sets its own expiration window for transferred scores. The shortest windows are two years in North Dakota and Rhode Island. The longest are five years in places including Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas. Most jurisdictions fall in the three-year range.6National Conference of Bar Examiners. UBE Maximum Score Age If there is any chance you will relocate early in your career, aiming well above the minimum gives you the most flexibility.
February 2026 Is the Last Traditional MEE
The February 2026 administration is the final sitting of the traditional MEE/MBE/MPT format. The July 2026 administration is the first NextGen bar exam, which replaces the three-component structure with a single integrated exam reported on a new 500-to-750 scale, with each jurisdiction setting its own cutoff within that range.7National Conference of Bar Examiners. NextGen UBE Scores and Score Portability The passing-score figures and grading description above apply to the traditional UBE, not the NextGen exam.
For candidates sitting the February 2026 exam, NCBE has indicated that score portability will remain available for both the current UBE and the NextGen format from July 2026 through February 2028, and that portability of pre-NextGen UBE scores will continue starting in July 2028. A UBE score earned in February 2026 should still transfer within the normal expiration window set by the receiving jurisdiction.