The Law School Rankings Debate, Part 2

Robert: I blogged a critique of this proposal at:

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/07/should_the_us_n.html

You ask: "aren't law schools the sum of all their students (full-time, part-time, and transfer), and shouldn't the profile of the entire law school be the basis under which ranking comparisons are made?"

Yes and no. It is true all students are part of the same school, and they earn the same degree. But in other respects, evening programs are markedly different from day programs. They involve students with a very different profile than day students. They are 4-year programs with a very different schedule than the regular day programs. Law schools also offer LLM programs, JSD programs, etc. Some offer special programs for journalists who want to study law. Shouldn't these count too if the goal is counting every living body that is taught at the school?

In a comment to my post, one person suggested that there be a separate ranking of evening and part-time programs. This might make sense. But joining these together tries to create a one-size-fits-all picture of law schools that really is distorting.

Regarding the proposal to include transfers, I think that his would put a damper on transfers. Many students with low LSAT scores who really excel in their first year of law school will transfer. But if their low LSAT score gets computed in with the rest of a law school's scores, then it will deter schools for admitting that student -- they'd be in the same position as if they admitted that student initially.

Here's the problem -- US News measures the quality of the student body in a rather coarse way (LSAT and GPA). It is certainly understandable why this is so, as other factors are too subjective to readily be quantified. The US News rankings have already had the effect, I believe, of making law schools rely perhaps too heavily on LSAT scores and GPAs to the detriment of other factors. For the student without a high LSAT score or GPA, the evening/PT programs and transferring are ways to overcome weakness in these factors. The proposed change is likely to eliminate this outlet, and that's a real shame in my opinion. It will really hurt many students, and make the LSAT/GPA the end-all and be-all of law school admissions.

Perhaps the way to prevent the gaming is to penalize schools that have evening/PT program students or transfer student LSAT/GPA averages that are significantly below their day average. So allow schools some room for a lower average in scores for evening/PT programs/transfers, but when the average gets too far below the day average, that's when there's gaming going on.

Daniel J. Solove of DC 5:49PM July 02, 2008