Law School Rankings Methodology

ranking inflation

US News ranking system is a perpetual feedback system, where high input contributes to high output, which gets fed right back into the input and this cycle continues indefinitely... thus, the rankings are eternally skewed.

consider this parallel;

US News rankings is like the Federal Reserve... they print currency and whatever value they put on the paper (input) is what value that paper will have (output); and since they don't have their money backed with gold, they can keep printing more (input) and the currency is thus inflated (harvard, yale, berkeley keeps staying in the top)...

the top 20 is definitely inflated... full of hot air and BS...

Suffolk Grades

Suffolk's grading policy compared to the "better ranked" schools is ridiculous. It makes no sense for lower tier schools to freely give C grades, those that go to lower tier schools need all the help they can get in the job market. My guess is Suffolk has ruined many a pro legal career with its grading system.

including 'reputation' as part of the ranking methodology

..is nothing but a self fulfilling prophecy.

It is obvious that that most notorious schools will rank highly again and again - regardless of the actual quality of lawyers they produce.

Also - it's high time that the rankings reflect the difficulty of study - or in more laymen terms - the grading curve.

Just one look at NYU Law's grading curve will explain why 57% of graduates graduate with a gpa of 3.4 or higher - it's required.

Columbia for example, requires that 30-33% receive grades higher than B+.

A look at the 'lower ranked schools' will show you that the grading curves require class averages at the 2.75 area..

This is an important factor for those selecting a school - knowing that even those who receive a B+ score on the final (and only) exam of the semester are likely to take home a B- grade.. (W/O mentioning the school, in one class I received 92 on the only exam for the semester and took home a B) - anyway - just for that reason - it's better to try to get accepted to the higher ranked schools since they are very generous with their grading.

more people left out than included

the list, including most law schools, inevitably will frustrate more people than those it makes happy. what's sad about how it's designed, however, is that it includes a reputation factor into a school's ranking... well... that's gotta be the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

essentially, reputation is affected by this list, so including it is pretty must a testament that the designers of this list only care to sell publications than they do to advance legal education. shows, too, since legal education has far from a model of cognitive and skills development.

as far as i'm concerned, irrelevant rankings that include peer-reptuation into their statistics which affect peer-reputation, only add to the problem: they not only fail to address the problem, they make it worse.

These rankings are ridiculous

I'm a Suffolk law student, and I received advice from a partner of a major law firm in Boston, and I would tend to agree with his assessment of schools rather than this bogus list. Suffolk is clearly a better school than New England School of Law in Boston, and its not even close, yet they're in the same tier. When firms recruit at those two schools, over 100 good size firms come to Suffolk, only about 30 go to NESL. I was offered a full scholarship to go to NESL but was advised by that firm partner to go to Suffolk because I would not be able to get a good job coming out of NESL. Outside of MASS, Northeastern has more name recognition, but all of Boston (judges, govt. lawyers, etc.) is run by Suffolk lawyers. Suffolk is on par with Northeastern and arguably better than Northeastern (especially considering Northeastern is a pass/fail school). Suffolk has the 2nd highest bar passage rate in the state (second only to Harvard), and Suffolk produces the best litigators by far. These rankings are ridiculous. U.S. News ought to do some better research before posting this garbage.

law school employment and income data is bogus

the law schools falsify their stats. US NEWS knows this, too.

.02%?

I agree with the first response - I think it says alot regarding the wieght of legacy and "old boy" sentamentalism that we give 40% of the overall score to completely factorless and description-free criteria ("quality"), yet arguably the greatest marker of whether or not a school teaches students the law - bar passage rate - is a legligible factor in determining rank. I hate to question the ranking of such reputable schools as Yale, Harvard, NYU and the like, but it seems like they are gaming the system by having a system created that keeps them on top just for being who they are. What incentive structure have we created when such weight is given to schools that have no pressure to be anything more than they already are - Ivy League. Sure, they get the top LSAT scores, but how does Yale explain why it's #1? It does not give grades, yet it remains on top. I'm not saying it's not a great school, it just seems intellectually dishonest to hold schools with such reverence without articulating any reason other than "they're great because they've always been great".

How does one use the rankings?

Ranking weights (.4) for "quality". But what qualifies as "quality"? Is it purely subjective or an objective measure?

Some schools would meet the subjective test (i.e. Yale/Harvard due to prior reputation) irrespective of actual objective measure.

It is interesting to note that important factors such as employment rate and bar passage which can be objectively measured is weighted less.

As a student, I would find that more useful in measuring a school. I am not interested in adding a school name to my resume. I am more interested in a return on investment. Let face it most go to law school for the big firm salaries (and that is probably the main reason for the huge demand in schools).

Ask yourself this question if an attorney's salary was equal to that of someone with a bachelors degree, would you go to law school.

Brooklyn Law School -- False LSAT Data

From Lawschoolheadlines.com 4/22/09: DId Brooklyn Law School Game The Rankings?

"Today, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog published excerpts from an interview with US News Data czar Bob Morse. In the interview, Morse confirmed that part-time and full-time admissions data were combined in the 2010 edition:

“In the past, we’d just used full-time [admissions data]. But some schools we think were gaming the system. There were some part-time programs that were set up just for US News reporting purposes.”

This new policy is likely to blame for the rankings decline of schools such as Fordham and George Washington. The one school seemingly not impacted by this new policy? Brooklyn. As many of our readers noted, Brooklyn’s part-time program was missing from the new Part-Time Rankings. Our readers further claimed that Brooklyn’s LSAT spread did not match up to the school’s combined program LSAT spread.

Our readers were correct. The LSAT spread found on the US News Rankings (162-165) matches the full-time spread found on the Brooklyn Law website (162-165). It does not look like the part-time spread (158-160) was factored into the new rankings. According to the latest LSAC data sheet, Brooklyn’s full-program LSAT spread should have been 159-164.

Currently, Brooklyn is sharing the 61 spot with a cluster of other schools. A one or two point shift in their overall score would drop the school 5-10 places in the rankings.

So, did Brooklyn game the rankings by not including their part-time program for consideration? Probably. We emailed every dean listed on the Brooklyn website; we will update this post if any respond."

Question for Mr. Morse: Whose error is this -- US News' or the schools'? What is your mechanism for correcting such a clear error which goes to heart of your rankings, now that it has been brought to your attention?