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As a group, New York law school graduates who took the bar exam for the first time in February saw an especially high success rate.

The passing rate for those 340 candidates was 74%—an increase of 2% from last February and the highest passing rate for this group for a February administration since 2010, according to the New York State Board of Law Examiners on Friday.

But for everyone else taking the bar for the first time, it wasn't a record year. The passing rate for the 426 graduates of out-of-state ABA-approved law schools who took the exam in February for the first time was 70%, a decrease of 2% from last year. The overall pass rate of all 766 graduates who took the exam for the first time was 72%, the same passing rate for this cohort as last year.

The board said it examined a total of 3,563 candidates, including U. S. domestic-educated candidates and foreign-educated candidates, first-time and repeat takers, during the two days of testing in late February. Of those candidates, 1,430 passed for an overall passing rate of 40%, down from the overall passing rate of 45% on the February 2019 examination, the board said.

The board said that the decrease in the overall passing rate is "largely attributable" to the performance of the repeat-takers and foreign-educated candidates who sat for the examination. The passing rate for the 2,254 repeat takers of the bar examination in February was 28%, and repeat takers accounted for 64% of all candidates who sat for the February examination. Foreign educated candidates, totaling 1,649 or 46% of all candidates, had a passing rate of 31%, the board said.

Candidates who sat for the exam were notified of their results Friday.

Anyone wishing to take the next New York exam will have to wait longer this year. The July 2020 New York State Bar Examination has been pushed back to Sept. 9 and 10, due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19.