'Wall Street Journal' Joins the Law Debate

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.

T. Holmes of IL 11:15PM August 08, 2008

"The U.S. News rankings also do not, as the dean implies, have a negative impact on legal education and law school admissions. "

Thats not for you to decide. You aren't part of the process. You don't know.

K of NV 2:56PM July 25, 2008