Have the U.S. News Law School Rankings Been Game-Changers in Law School Admissions?

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First and Foremost, all GPA's are leveraged against the 4.0 grading system. The new GPA permits each selection committee the opportunity to identify the law applicants potential.
One qualifies for law school with a leveraged GPA of a 1.0 and a LSAT test score of a 120. In solving the problem for the selection process into law school, the missing step has always been identifying the opportunities within the US and its territories and then matching the resource to the law applicants. The US and Texas Attorney Generals along with the DOJ have the complete set of details as recorded in case no# DJ 169-73-0.
Just because the USNWR fails to print the complete story with definitions of their information, does not indicate a failure by our government to seek a solution to this problem.
The law schools have always fail to play by the rules and with no oversight by the Council, the game continues.

John A Silvi of TX 2:30PM March 07, 2010

So law schools should dumb down LSAT and GPA scores so there is more diversity? That would just make legal education more screwed up. How about writing about something that actually matters like lack of jobs for graduating law students or how law school and the bar exam do nothing to prepare you to actually practice law.

John of VA 11:44PM March 06, 2010

"U.S. News believes that our law school rankings are not hindering diversity at law schools since we use the median (or midpoint) LSAT scores and undergraduate grade-point averages, instead of averages, as ranking factors. The median gives schools considerable flexibility to accept students with very low LSAT and undergraduate grades without lowering the school's actual median LSAT and grade-point average—and in turn, without negatively affecting their U.S. News rankings."
Statistics fail. Enrolling students with very low numbers can most certainly lower a school's median LSAT or GPA. What I think you meant to say is that a very low LSAT/GPA doesn't penalize a school as harshly if an average was used instead of a median.
School A, Four students - 170, 169, 167, 164
If this school enrolls Diverse 120 LSAT, the median for the five student class is 167. However, Diverse 120 brings the average LSAT score down to 158.
If this school instead enrolls Vanilla 160 LSAT, the median for the five student class is STILL 167. However, Vanilla 160 ONLY brings the average LSAT score down to 166.
Vanilla and Diverse have the same effect on the median, but not the average.

5th Grader of AR 6:33PM March 05, 2010