The percentage of people who passed California's July 2024 bar exam ticked up to 53.8%, marking the second highest pass rate in 11 years, according to statistics released by the state bar early Friday evening.

The success rate rose from 51.5% in July 2023 and from 52.4% in July 2022. The 4,458 applicants who recorded a passing score of 1390 or better will be eligible to take the attorney's oath once they complete other requirements, such as obtaining a positive moral character determination from the bar.

About two-thirds of those who sat for the July exam were first-time test-takers. And, as is typical, graduates of American Bar Association-approved schools in California taking the test for the first time had the highest pass rate: 81%.

Repeat test-takers lodged a 23.5% pass rate.

Like California, states across the country saw their July bar exam pass rates jump year over year. Sixty-nine percent of those who sat for the New York exam passed, an 11-year high. Texas' pass rate inched up to 74.5% from 71%. Georgia's overall pass rate of 70.4% was the highest in a decade.

The higher scores were also reflected in results on the July multistate bar exam, the 200 multiple-choice section that California and most other states administered. The national mean scaled score on the test produced by the National Conference of Bar Examiners was 141.8, an increase of about 1.3 points from the July 2023 sitting.

In a statement issued in August, NCBE director of psychometrics Rosemary Reshetar credited the higher test scores and overall state exam pass rates to double-digit increases in law school enrollment in recent years. When law school admissions are more competitive, accepted students tend to have higher Law School Admission Test scores, which are a good predictor of bar exam scores, Reshetar said.

California's July exam is the last that will use the MCBE, as the state transitions to a new multiple-choice section prepared by testing company Kaplan starting in February 2025. The state bar on Friday administered, through a vendor, a limited, experimental version of that exam as a sort of test run. The practice test sittings continue on Saturday.

The bar is scheduled to release a list of those who passed the July exam at 6 a.m. Sunday.