'Wall Street Journal' Joins the Law Debate
Updated 7/25/08: Paul Caron's Tax Prof Blog has just posted "Deans React to Call for U.S. News Rankings Boycott" which comments on Case Law School's Dean Gary Simson's call to arms against U.S. News.
I was asked yesterday to comment on criticisms of the U.S. News law school rankings raised in an article Dean Calls on Peers to Unite, Kick U.S. News Rankings to the Curb that was published on the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog. Here is the entire response I submitted to them:
My blog post "Changing the Law School Ranking Formula" about the possibility of U.S. News modifying our law school ranking formula to include the admission credentials of all of a law school's entering students, both in full and part-time J.D. programs (U.S. News currently only uses full-time students' LSATs, GPAs, and acceptance rates) continues to stir-up a healthy debate about the effect such a change would have on the both the rankings and part-time legal programs.
In his op-ed in the National Law Journal titled Say 'enough' to 'U.S. News', Case Western Law School Dean Gary J. Simson does raise a number of points we'd like to address. First, of course, U.S. News is not forcing any law school dean to change school policy in order to improve in the rankings. Each law school's admission and financial aid policies are determined by the school itself, not by U.S. News. One hopes that the proper education of potential lawyers is the driving force in such decisions.
The U.S. News rankings also do not, as the dean implies, have a negative impact on legal education and law school admissions. The rankings provide prospective law school students with information about the relative merits of law schools that is not available from any other source. Going to a law school is a very expensive and time-consuming process, and our rankings provide one tool for students to use in choosing the best school for their needs.
If a law school refuses to provide U.S. News directly with statistical data from their annual American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation data questionnaire, then U.S. News still can get almost all of that school's official ABA data from the ABA website. U.S. News would still be able to rank a law school, even if it refused to participate.
The next U.S. News law school rankings aren't published until late March 2009, and we do not plan to make a decision on this issue until fall 2008 or early 2009. As we have done in the past before we change our methodology, U.S. News will carefully consider the impact of any such modification.
Tags: law school | rankings | law | Wall Street Journal
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Reader Comments
Nothing interesting, dont read. 123
Nothing interesting, buy thank you. azvpo124
Prospective Student's Thoughts
As a prospective student I have to disagree that the rankings do not have a negative impact on education and the admissions process. Although, I think that what the dean believes is a negative impact and what the reality is are two different things.
First I would like to say that I'm a non-traditional student. I have spend 10 years in the military as and officer.So more than any brand new undergrad applying I understand why there are ranking and why there is numeric data to compare entities. I also understand that a lot of the comparative information is subjective and you can make nmumbers say anything you want them to. So I do not fault law school deans, or US News for their support of lack thereof for the rankings system.
Secondly, as a minortiy applicant this is where I feel the negative impact is the highest. There are a few very popular websites out there where prospective student can post their LSAT, GPA, Undergrad, Extra-curricular status and much more. They can also say which schools they've appplied to and been accepted or rejected. In almost every instance whenver a minority candidate (known as a URM) post LSAT/GPA number below the school posted medians (according to reports like US News) they are harassed and belittled with comments on line about how they're not good enough to be in a T14 or a Tier 1 school. And if that applicant is accepted there are comments about how the post must be fake (or flame).
This information is disheartening. When you have the law schools saying these reports and those numbers aren't the only important factors the fact remains that at some point in time all of these students are going to come together on the first day of class. And when a candidata at a US News' T14 think that he/she got in because of a 180L LSAT and 4.0 that person also feels like it's okay to assume that only people with the same numbers should get in.
The point is that these numbers are not 100% reality. But you can't explain that to a student who doesn't know anything other that what US News tells them. You can't tell them that there are actually students at Yale and Harvard that scored below the 99th percentile. They don't want to hear that law schools are looking at the whole person. And this is what creates the negative learning environment. This is what causes the ranking to affect potentially good law school students from applying to good law schools. These rankings (along with those who place too much empahsis on them) will inevitable steer many away.
Why not offer the information in it's entirety? Put out there the lowest LSAT score of a student accepted. So people can know the truth. Either the school cares only about scores or they actually look past the numbers and admit qualified candidates based on something more. Let prospective students see more than medians. Remove the deception behind the rankings and maybe you will remove the negativity associated with them.
US News is not to blame
US News is not responsible for the catering of law schools to rankings as the above commenter implies. If the US News stopped ranking schools, another source would quickly become the new definitive ranking. The demand by future students for more information about schools is to great to go unmet. Making it sound like the US News is somehow unethical for compiling and interpreting data is absurd.
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