The first NextGen bar exam belongs to ten pioneer jurisdictions. The second wave is where the map really starts to move: on July 27–28, 2027, twelve more states administer the NextGen exam for the first time — and if you're a rising 2L or 3L in one of them, your bar exam changed formats whether you've been watching or not.
This is the wave's complete guide: who's in, what's announced, the one genuinely hard decision on the calendar, and the month-by-month runway from here to exam day.
The twelve
Per NCBE's decisions table (the same source our full adoption timeline is verified against), the July 2027 wave is:
| State | NextGen passing score | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona | TBA | Online Arizona-law course required for admission |
| Iowa | 610 | Lowered its legacy cut to 260 in July 2026 |
| Kentucky | 616 | — |
| Minnesota | TBA | Court guarantees 620+ passes wherever the final cut lands |
| Nebraska | 620 | — |
| New Mexico | 610 | State component planned, format TBD |
| North Dakota | 610 | — |
| Oklahoma | TBA | — |
| South Dakota | TBA | Already accepts 620+ NextGen transfers |
| Tennessee | TBA | Already accepts 620+ NextGen transfers |
| Vermont | 620 | — |
| Wyoming | TBA | — |
West Virginia was in this wave until its Supreme Court of Appeals moved its first NextGen exam to July 2028; it already accepts transferred NextGen scores of 620 or more.
Where a score is TBA, plan against 620 — the top of NCBE's recommended band — and let the announcement only ever be good news. Each state's page tracks its own number, components, and deadlines as boards publish.
The February fork: the wave's defining decision
Every candidate in these twelve states who could sit either administration in 2027 faces the same fork, and it's sharper than it looks:
February 23–24, 2027 is your state's final legacy UBE administration. Take it, and you're taking a mature exam with two decades of materials behind it — but with a brutal tail risk: if February doesn't go your way, your retake in July is a different exam. A failed February means re-preparing for new question formats, a new scoring scale, and a partially different subject list, on a four-month runway. Double preparation is the exact scenario a rational plan avoids.
July 27–28, 2027 is your state's first NextGen administration. Take it, and every hour of prep from now on aims at one exam — with the advantage the pioneers never had: by the time your prep starts in earnest, the first real NextGen results (published from September 2026: 72.7% passed) and a February administration behind them will have turned the new exam from a rumor into a dataset.
The decision rule, borrowed from the retake analysis where it was born: if you're confident of a first-time February pass — strong practice scores, real runway, no red flags — the last legacy run is a fair choice. If you're not, jump straight to the format you'd be retaking under anyway. December 2026 graduates feel this fork hardest: a compressed ten-week runway into a last-chance legacy exam is the riskiest square on the whole board. Be honest about which candidate you are; the fork punishes optimism more than it punishes caution.
(One more transition quirk worth ten minutes: several wave states — South Dakota among them — already accept transferred NextGen scores. Depending on your plans, testing early in a NextGen state and transferring in can be a legitimate route. Check the state page before building around it.)
First local cohort — with a national head start
If you take July 2027, you're your state's first NextGen cohort: no upperclassman outlines, no local war stories, no professor who's seen the exam. That sounds lonelier than it is, because you are not the national first cohort — and the difference is everything the pioneers earn on your behalf between now and next spring:
- September–October 2026: the first pass rates in NextGen history published — 72.7% nationally, then state by state.
- February 2027: a second administration's worth of examinee reports, pacing accounts, and calibrated materials.
- Your prep window: an exam with two administrations of evidence behind it — plus NCBE's free official materials, which are the same for everyone.
What the head start does not fix is inherited materials: the outline binders and hand-me-down decks circulating at your law school were built for the exam being retired — no Business Associations, wrong treatment of the provided-resource subjects, no select-two format. First-cohort candidates should be more deliberate than average about matching materials to the exam, not less.
The runway, month by month
Counting back from July 27–28, 2027:
- Now through December 2026 (your 3L fall). The durable early work: a free diagnostic to find real weak subjects while electives can still respond (never took Business Organizations? that's a bar-prep decision now), one afternoon with NCBE's sample questions, and a 15-minute daily flashcard floor on the starred topics. The first results are in (72.7% passed); feel free to ignore the hot takes that followed them.
- January–March 2027. Registration windows open on each board's own calendar — most publish filing dates in winter; put your state's on a calendar the day it appears, because timely-versus-late fee tiers are real money. Sit the MPRE if you still owe one (the March administration fits this timeline; August cuts it close). Watch the February 2027 administration for what it teaches about pacing and formats.
- April 2027 (16 weeks out). Part-time and working candidates start structured prep in early April — the long flat runway.
- Mid-May 2027 (10 weeks out). Full-time prep begins for graduating 3Ls: the 400–500 hour build on the week-by-week schedule, written formats weighted like the half of the score they are.
- July 27–28, 2027. Doors open in twelve new states.
What to do this week
Three moves, none heroic: confirm your state's plan on its page (score, components, and dates as they publish), take the ten-question diagnostic to learn where you actually stand a year out, and put your exam date into the free study plan generator when your runway starts — it builds the week-by-week calendar from your real hours. The pioneers took the exam on faith. Your wave gets to take it on evidence; start collecting yours early.
