Changing the Law School Ranking Formula
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.
Too much emphasis on LSAT & GPA as the key criteria for rankings of law schools
While I understand the importance of ranking law schools, as someone who went to MBA school eons ago and is now considering going to law school, I think for law schools there is FAR too much emphasis on the LSAT and GPA as sole criteria for rankings nowadays. The LSAT is viewed as a key gatekeeper (which turns off a lot of older students, creating a more homogenized, younger, less experienced student-body nationwide at law schools). I personally find this to be a very disturbing phenomenon (since I don't think standardized tests are necessarily indicative of someone's performance in graduate school and I think law is a very important field to have real-world experience in prior to graduation).
As such, I personally think that including part-time admissions statistics in the US N&WR criteria would further muddy the waters (as I think the US N&WR criteria should encapsulate more aspects than just LSAT and GPA as the key criteria for rankings of law schools nationwide).
In business school, there seems to be a more holistic view of candidates and the rankings of business school are not solely / mostly based on the 2 numeric criteria of GMAT and GPA. Rather, the rankings definitely take into account the number of years and the quality of the student body's work experience, the types of resources / programs offered at the business school, the quality of instruction and access to professors, and the placement of students in high-demand jobs (typically based on the proxy of salary). I know that some of these factors technically affect law school rankings, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of emphasis of 2 numbers - LSAT and GPA - in determining rankings for law schools (at least compared with business school's use of the GMAT & GPA).
IMHO, by emphasizing real-world work experience in the law school rankings, you would end up with better discussions in law school classes and better prepared lawyers at graduation (since many of their clients will be businesses, and if a lawyer has never worked in the real-world, it is hard to marry up legal theory with practical operations of their clients). It would also create a much more attractive admissions process for the applicant and create a more well-rounded class (things that are attractive to me as an older - mid-to-late 30s - person considering law school). When I attend law school, I want to learn from both fellow students & professors.
I think "soft factors" including diversity (and, no, I am not just or even mostly talking about race or socio-economic status but more about real-world life experience) of applicants should play a much stronger and important role in law school rankings.
As the legal world and the business world continue to intersect due to more complex deals being done, I think that Northwestern and other schools that are thinking "outside the box" in developing alternative tracks & criteria for admissions decisions are spot on (e.g. NW's accelerated JD program).
Though the U.S. News and World Report should publish admission statistics for part-time programs these statistics should not be included in the comparative ranks of the law schools.
Part-time programs represent a minority of a law school's students; though part-time programs share facilities and some faculty they are in many ways an entity unto themselves. Frequently, night students are in separate sections than full-timers. The full-time students and the part-time students are not ranked together by the schools. The list goes on -- the availability of financial aid for part-time students is dissimilar; frequently part-timers are older and their work experience is more relevant than a dated undergrad transcript.
Of course we all want a USNWR methodology that provides an accurate portrait of the comparative ranks of America's law schools. To move from reporting no information on part-time programs to combining these separate programs would muddle the picture rather than making it clearer.
affirmative action
the real scandal would be to continue protecting these PT programs for fear of hurting attempts to give opportunity to students with alternative profiles of various sorts, while continuing to punish affirmative action for similar students in the full time program. As it is now, if you want to be flexible with students of different class, educational, race, ethnic background, better do so in PT program, not FT. Result: segregation. Intensely strange system to be protecting. Either count the PT students here, or exempt students with alternative profiles in the FT program. No reason for US News to protect making room for those students in the second class program while continuing to discourage admitting them to the first class one. Very, very disturbing balance the US News criteria have struck.
Not as simple as lumping everything together
First, I think we need to know exactly what the purpose of rankings really is? As far as I know, they are for students considering the quality of education they will get and for employers who need to know the value of a given student's GPA so they can compare one student at school A to another student at school B to decide who is better if all else, besides the law school attended, is equal.
Assuming those are the main functional goals of these ranking systems, then I do not think an aggregate LSAT and GPA achieves these goals. To do so, the full-time day, part-time day (i.e. students who take 1-2 fewer classes alongside the full-time day students), and evening programs would have to be equal programs. In other words, students in each program would have to be under the same pressure. Only full-time and part-time day students ever compete against each other, at least in the first and by far most important year (i.e. the year that summer associateships are handed out which can dictate much if not all of a lawyer's remaining career regardless of performance in the next 2 years of law school). A full-time student is most likely more academically talented than a part-time student, BUT there is a major equalizer--part-time day students have 1 less class to prepare for at night, 1 less class to take during the day, and 1 less outline to create during exam time. That adds up to a tremendous number of hours for those students to prepare for the classes they do have, additional outline time, and more time to take practice exams which is essential for law school success.
In many, many cases, this additional time actually allows part-time day students to perform better than the full-time day students (especially those at the lower end of the full-time day program) and actually receive higher grades.
The USNWR ranking should provide students with a number that describes the academic rigor they should expect to face. I argue that the LSAT/GPA scores are only relevant to each respective program. If a student expects to go into the full-time program, then they need to know the level of students they will face in that same program. Many students in the part-time program could--even with lower level of academic achievement--perform better given their extra time. In essence, the part-time day program can actually make the full-time day program more difficult and not actually a lesser program.
In the same fashion, the evening program LSAT/GPA scores should represent that group only. Again, those numbers would tell a student in that program the level of achievement they should expect given their own scores. The day students do not care what type of students go to the evening program because they do not have any interaction with them until possibly the second year when some classes are taught only at night.
Due to space limitation, I will conclude by saying employers themselves need to weigh not only the school, but the student's program.
Agree with the change
US News should strive to give readers an accurate portrayal of the student body. By including the part-time students, it will accomplish just that.
I am FOR the formula change.
U.S. News Considers Changing Its Law School Ranking Formula
The Journal has a story on the consideration U.S. News is giving to counting entering part-time students along with full-time students. For what it's worth, I think the problem is with law schools that have started bogus part-time day programs to admit students who don't otherwise have the proper credentials. Long established part-time evening programs, like George Mason's, tend to have students with a bit weaker academic credentials than their full-time counterparts, but with vastly more real-world experience. I've had, for example, evening students in their 40s and 50s who have successfully built multi-million dollar businesses. Does it make sense to judge them based on their undergraduate GPA from twenty years earlier?
I was also struck but this line: "Mr. Morse of U.S. News says the magazine will run tests of how the change would play out in rankings, and then decide in January." If the change is methodologically valid (or not), it shouldn't matter "how the change would play out in rankings." It's bizarre to first decide what you think the rankings should look like, and then create (or retain) criteria to meet that preconceived notion.
What I'd like to see is a separate ranking of part-time programs, especially given that most part-timers are working professionals who are choosing among part-time programs, and do not even consider full-time admissions. Not only would this provide very useful information to such students, but schools that, say, are revealed to have nine part-time day students out of a class of 200, with an LSAT 10 points below their full-time median, will be called out for abusing the system.
