Changing the Law School Ranking Formula

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As is my habit, I approached this proposal by crunching numbers. I took the median gpas and LSAT scores (as reported in the 2009 ABA/LSAC Guide to Law Schools) for full time students; I ranked them and assigned ordinal numbers for both gpa and LSAT, then combined the ordinals, counting 40% of grades and 60% of LSAT score, to mirror US News's approach as closely as possible. I then performed the same operation for the medians for all students (i.e., full and part-time combined.)
I discovered that schools such as Georgetown and George Washington, which are commonly perceived as using their part-time programs as consolation prizes, will suffer little or no change in their ranking, since the "second place" applicants have gpas and LSAT scores nearly as high as the "first place" applicants.
Meanwhile, schools whose part-time program operates to offer advancement to people who work during the day will suffer much larger displacements. Fordham, SMU, Rutgers-Camden and Toledo will be forced down much lower than other schools, because their part-time programs' medians are noticeably lower than the medians for the full-time program.
After pondering this result, I realized that it makes perfect sense. Schools that use the part-time program as an overflow of the full-time program will necessarily have similar numbers; why would a school reject applicants with a high LSAT score in favor of a low one if it intended to admit the "almost good enough" applicants?" Likewise, schools with much lower medians passed over applicants with higher numbers, proving that they are looking for legitimate commitments to an alternative program.
I agree that schools "game the system" in many ways, large and small, but the perception that part time programs are a major factor in this game are almost certainly misplaced, and revisions in the rankings based on this perception will hurt genuinely separate programs while having little or no effect on schools whose part-time program is an adjunct of the full-time class.

Loretta B. DeLoggio of WA 1:09PM July 19, 2008

Why not rank the part-time people separately? Part-time students have kids, family, career, and bills to pay. Of course they will have lower LSAT scores, because they will have less time/money to prepare for the test. There are many employers out there who are more than happy to recruit law school graduates who have established a career field outside of just law school.

titoCA of CA 12:51AM July 10, 2008

My view is that the primary value of the U.S. News rankings is to provide information for consumers of legal education who otherwise find it difficult to assess the quality and value of legal education. Rankings focused on scholarly reputation, for example, would measure only that; U.S. News seems to aspire to a broader measure. If the goal is to better inform consumers, then the rankings should heavily weigh the views of alumni 5, 10, and 20 years out of school of the value of the education that they received. Alumni are in the best position to assess the value of their own institution's education to their subsequent careers. Such rankings would be to some extent backward-looking, but they would be far more likely to measure the true worth of the institution to consumers given that rankings appear to be relatively constant over time. Such rankings would also be more difficult to game than the current rankings (though admittedly not impossible), since alumni lose their stake in their own institution's ranking as time goes by.
Disclosure: I teach at Chapman University School of Law

Larry Rosenthal of CA 7:55PM July 09, 2008

I support USNWR goal of accuracy and hope that you will not be disauded by critics claiming that including PT stats in the rankings will lead schools to drop PT programs. The arguments they make (that PT students are older and bring life experience to the table) are valid only if the PT program truly is a separate program and not a back door into the FT program for 20-somethings with bad GPAs. It would make sense to allow an institution that does not allow PT to FT transfers to have their PT program ranked separately from their FT program. But for any school that allows (or indeed encourages) such transfers, the scores of students in both programs should be combined.
The same goes for second-year transfer students into FT programs, with the exception that those students' records from the first year of law school should be allowed to offset their undergrad records.

of DC 10:15AM July 08, 2008

It is surprising to me that USN&WR has failed to include the part-time statistics up until now. To the extent that the rankings have any value to the public at large (i.e., as opposed to applicants), I would think that they are used to advise readers of the "academic qualifications" of admitted students. As dellastreet of NJ implicitly notes in the above posting, members of the public, licensing authorities, Martindale-Hubbell, etc. do not make a distinction between attorneys that attended law school full v. part-time. Accordingly, I am at a loss as to why USN&WR makes this distinction in its ranking calculations insofar as it would seem to be misleading (assuming there are differences in the statistics, which I was unaware of before reading this article). Similarly, I must respectfully disagree with the the poster that characterized part v. full-time programs as "apples and oranges." While that might be true in terms of the qualifications of admitted students (again, I have no idea if it is usually, or for that matter, ever, the case), it is not so with respect to the great majority of readers.

PER of MA 10:43AM July 05, 2008

There is no distinction between part-time law school alumni and full-time law school alumni. All students earn the same J.D. That is a compelling reason for all part-time and full-time students to be included in the admissions data.

dellastreet of NJ 10:23AM July 03, 2008

I do not agree with including the GPAs and LSAT scores of part-time students for a couple of reasons.
First, your assertion that PT programs are not being operated as separate programs is based on anecdotal evidence. As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid making decisions based on anecdotal evidence/hearsay. Have you spoken to law school officials to get their perspective on their motives for having part-time programs? Take for example GULC. The reason they have a part-time program is because the school was actually founded as a part-time program. How about Loyola in Los Angeles? Well, they are in many ways a commuter law school. So, it makes sense that they would have a part-time program. I believe that most law schools have honest motives for running part-time programs.
Second, If part-time numbers are counted, schools that are operating these programs will likely allocate less resources to these programs and will probably scale them down. This will hurt part-time students, the very people who either need the part-time format or substantially benefit from it.
Third, I don't understand why this issue is of so much importance to US News. Only a handful of the top 50 law schools in the country have part-time programs. Implementing this change would have more costs that benefits. Costs that would hurt students in the real world as opposed to some small benefits that would occur in the non-real world of rankings. Simply put, paying attention to this small issue is a misallocation of resources. US News should prioritize its resources against more important issues. Finally, implementing this change would open pandora's box because you would next have to tackle the "transfer" issue. Best to leave this one alone, you will regret it later.

George of CA 10:28PM July 02, 2008

Students in part-time evening programs tend to have been in the workforce and out of school for some time. This has three consequences. First, because of grade inflation, a 3.3 earned 10 years ago might actually be better than a 3.5 earned today. Second, older applicants' LSATs tend to be lower in general, because they're not used to taking standardized exams. Nevertheless, it is common for an older student with a 158 LSAT and 3.3 GPA to outperform a straight-through student with a 160 LSAT and 3.5 GPA. Third, evening programs commonly take what students have done since college into account in admissions decisions. They tend to prefer students who have demonstrated responsibility and a strong work ethic in the interim. This means that an additional filter operates in part-time admissions that is not generally used in day admissions. Even ignoring systemic differences between day and evening LSATs and GPAs, therefore, on average an evening student with incoming stats identical to a day student is likely to outperform that day student.
Lumping the two together would therefore mix apples and oranges. Because of the systemic differences between the two pools, it is likely that a school would have to admit an evening student body BETTER than its day division just to stay even in the rankings.
This would create enormous pressures to end evening programs. One of the great virtues of the American system of higher education is that it offers opportunities for students who want to change careers later in life to do so. (Many European systems, by comparison, do not.) It would be pity if American law schools were to give up providing such opportunities just to respond to ranking rule changes.

Theodore P. Seto of CA 2:02PM July 02, 2008

Re your comment "sounds like dellastreet of NJ was not quite smart enough to get into a legitimate full time program." Dellastreet made law review in a fabulous full-time program! You are the one who jumped to an irrational conclusion!!!

dellastreet of NJ 7:29AM July 02, 2008

I think that the admissions numbers for the full time and part time programs should be presented separately and weighed differently. Every law school with a part time program is likely to take a significant hit in this area if you choose to include these numbers. That's not a reason to not do it, but to give students a truly accurate reflection of the class, students should weigh the program's credentials against one another.
Sounds like "dellastreet of NJ" wasn't quite smart enough to get into a legitimate full time program. The bitter are always the quickest to jump to irrational conclusions.

of NY 6:41PM July 01, 2008