Bloggers Debate the Law School Rankings
Since I wrote the blog post Changing the Law School Ranking Formula in late June, there has been a wide variety of views—pro and con—expressed on the subject. Listed below is a very small sampling of those opinions. It's a debate worth continuing.
The widely read TaxProf blog, edited by Paul Caron, associate dean of faculty at the University of Cincinnati law school, regularly covers the U.S. News law rankings. One of his latest posts is U.S. News Considers Two Changes to Law School Rankings Methodology.
Jason Solomon, a legal professor at the University of Georgia, has written numerous articles on the law rankings on Prawfs Blawg. His most recent take is Stanford, Harvard, Yale: A Sample Voters' Guide for This Fall's U.S. News Survey.
William Henderson, a law professor at Indiana University, chimes in with How has the Part-Time "Loophole" Affected Part- and Full-Time Enrollment? The Data.
Daniel J. Solove, a law school professor at George Washington University, writes the Concurring Opinions blog. His article is Should the US News Ranking Include Part-Time and Evening Law Students?
The Legal Research Plus blog, done by a team of advanced legal research instructors at Stanford Law School, weighs in on the deeper meaning of our law rankings. They recently wrote Of Rankings and Regulation: Are the U.S.News & World Report Rankings Really a Subversive Force in Legal Education?
The Shark, a blog written by students at many California law schools, has covered this issue extensively. One of their posts is How does the inclusion of part-timer data sway rankings, and what should we do about it?
The widely followed legal blog Above the Law offers U.S. News Mulls Over Methodological Modifications.
The online version of the ABA Journal has weighed in with Should LSATs for Evening Students Count in Rankings? It quotes former George Washington University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg's blog post for the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which Trachtenberg argues that U.S. News should not include part-time admission data in our familiar law school rankings but that we should consider doing a separate ranking of part-time law school programs.
Tags: blogs | law school | rankings
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Reader Comments
Bob Morse is no statistician! A fifth-grader could do better!
Is the 2010 part-time law ranking methodology meant to be a joke?
Morse spends all this time building up the anticipation of the "all new part-time law rankings" and then flops in the end? I thought the idea was to get an accurate guaging of part-time programs using actual submitted data and not an 8th grade popularity contest.
Hey Bobbo, if you are going to resort to popularity contests (like the dilettante that you are) and ask school admins to "rank up to 15 schools" then (hint) only post the rankings for the top 15 schools! A fifth grader could come up with a better ranking methodology than you. These new rankings are nothing short of disgraceful and I am not referring to any particular school but, rather, the childish methodolgy which detracts from the credibility of all of the rankings in general (if it ever existed).
PT
It is a conflict of interest for GULC and GWU authors to argue against separate PT rankings without disclosing how much they rely on PT.
They can't have it both ways - either publish separate rankings, or include the PT data in the JD program.
And yes, I'm at a school with no PT. We've never gamed this system.
An Overlooked Point
At any decent law school, for every good student who transfers out, there's another one who excelled at a different school and wants to transfer in. So schools can replenish their talent through a kind of "trickle-up" system, where only the weakest law schools as designated by their inability to produce at least a small group of overacheiving students - will suffer, because of their rankings.
Even so, not all transfers are for "upgrade reasons" (the simple desire to attend more prestigious or higher-ranked schools); some students make what can be termed "lateral moves" to similarly ranked and prestiged schools for geographic or personal reasons.
Moreover, part-time, working students may wish to remain in school but take job relocation, giving other schools compelling reasons to accept them.
Still, a third reason the "Triple-A Farm System" you speak about may not be so is the existence of "visiting students", who will receive their degrees from their original schools, but, for various reasons, wish to study at different law schools for their second and/or third year(s).
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