Changing the Law School Ranking Formula
More ideas have come in on ways to improve the U.S. News law schools rankings. U.S. News is seriously studying these two ideas for implementation in the upcoming rankings. Please weigh in with your views.
The first idea is that U.S. News should count both full-time and part-time entering student admission data for median LSAT scores and median undergraduate grade-point averages in calculating the school's ranking. U.S. News's current law school ranking methodology counts only full-time entering student data. Many people have told us that some law schools operate part-time J.D. programs for the purpose of enrolling students who have far lower LSAT and undergrad GPAs than the students admitted to the full-time program in order to boost their admission data reported to U.S. News and the ABA. In other words, many contend that these aren't truly separate part-time programs but merely a vehicle to raise a law school's LSAT and undergrad GPA for its U.S. News ranking. We have used only full-time program data because we believed that the part-time law programs were truly separate from the full-time ones. That no longer appears to be the case at many law schools. So, it can be argued that it is better analytically to compare the LSAT and undergrad GPAs of the entire entering class at all schools rather than just the full-time program data.
Another idea was proposed in the 1998 report "The Validity of the U.S. News and World Report Rankings of ABA Law Schools" commissioned by the Association of American Law Schools. The proposal calls for U.S. News to compute our bar passage rate component (school's bar pass rate/jurisdiction's bar passage rate) using only the data of first-time takers who are graduates of American Bar Association-accredited schools. Currently, our "jurisdiction's bar passage rate" uses the rate of all first-time test takers from a state regardless of the ABA accreditation of their law schools. This distinction is perhaps most meaningful for the state of California, which has a large number of non-ABA-accredited schools. Many people say the non-ABA students are causing the California pass rate to be lower than if calculated just from first-time test takers from ABA-accredited schools. Because we rank only ABA-accredited schools, it makes sense that we should compare only ABA graduates when doing the bar passage rate analysis. If U.S. News implements this idea, the method would be used for all states.
Tags: law school | rankings | ABA
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Reader Comments
Stop polling faculty, judges, and big firm partners
So much is weight is placed on the opinion of a select group of faculty, judges, and big firm partners. Do you seriously think this is objective? How can any of these people realistically assess the quality of a law school, especially if they have not been sitting in a student's chair for 20 or more years? How can faculty members be considered objective when law school rankings impact their career?
If you want an honest assessment: poll the students of each school and ask about their experience. Stop polling faculty, judges, and big firm partners.
BAR Passage Rates
I wholeheartedly agree that a state's BAR passage rate should be calculated only according to "first-time passage" of graduates of ABA accredited law schools.
On the one hand, one culd argue that law school applicants tend to under-value California schools because of the state's lowered overall passage rate.
On the other hand, it could very well be the case that the Cali-4 look a lot better because they cross a lower threshhold to exceed the state's passage, so the relative comparisons between California law schools are somewhat skewed. Addressing the latter issue is of most concern to consumers: how do the ABA approved California Law schools stack up relative to each other as well as the BAR passage rate?
LSAT GPA Response
Keep in mind that the LSAT is supposedly designed to see what skills one has developed and is aimed at determining the likelihood of success in law school. I've always been at a loss why the LSAT or GPA would have anything to do with how good a school is or what their rank/quality is. I suppose it gives a glimpse of a particular group of entering students, but wouldn't the bar passage rate be a reflection of how good a law school is at turning out quality lawyers, not the admissions GPA or LSAT scores? Come up with a formula that actually looks at the success of a program and let the schools worry about who they can educate appropriately. Put less emphasis on the GPA and LSAT. If a school can take a bad test taker or a less than average student and turn them into a successful law school graduate, then they will have proven they deserve a high ranking. In other words, if they can turn a rock into a gem then they deserve to shine.
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