New USNews Rankings are in!

Graduate School Law School
1

<li><p>Yale University (CT)</p>

<li>Stanford University (CA)</li>
<li>Harvard University (MA)</li>
<li>Columbia University (NY)</li>
<li>New York University</li>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>University of California–Berkeley</li>
<li>University of Michigan–Ann Arbor</li>
<li>University of Virginia</li>
<li>Duke University (NC)</li>
<li>Northwestern University (IL)</li>
<li>Cornell University (NY)</li>
<li>Georgetown University (DC)</li>
<li>University of California–Los Angeles</li>
<li>University of Texas–Austin</li>
<li>University of Southern California (Gould)</li>
<li>Vanderbilt University (TN)</li>
<li>George Washington University (DC)</li>
<li>University of Minnesota–Twin Cities</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis</li>
<li>Boston University</li>
<li>University of Iowa</li>
<li>University of Notre Dame (IN)</li>
<li>Washington and Lee University (VA)</li>
<li>Emory University (GA)</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>

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<p>Boalt Hall improves three spots! Go Berkeley!</p>

3

<p>I’ve been looking at that list for a lot of years now and it is remarkable how stable it is. It’s always YHS at the top, though the order, especially between H & S, has changed back and forth. Nevertheless, as far as I know, there’s never been a year in which these three schools haven’t been the top 3 since USNews began ranking law schools. The next 3 --NYU, Columbia and Chicago --have been the next 3 for a lot of years too, though, again, the order has switched. My recollection, which may not be entirely accurate, was that initially Chicago was almost always #4 and NYU was #6. Whatever, it’s always been those three next. 7-14 have remained constant for at least 20 years too, though the order has changed. UCLA and UTexas have been #s 15 and 16 forever. </p>

<p>Below that, things have change. A LONG time ago, BU always beat BC. Then for a lot of years, BC was considered better than BU. Now, looks like BU is considered better again. BC is #27</p>

<p>Anyway, it’s interesting–to me at least–to see how remarkably stable the list of the “top” law schools has been over time.</p>

4

<p>Does anyone think Harvard could fall below top 3?</p>

5

<p>Much of it stems from the methodology USNews uses which creates a lot of inertia.</p>

<p>From USNews Website:</p>

<p>Quality Assessment (weighted by .40)</p>

<pre><code>* Peer Assessment Score (.25)
In the fall of 2005, law school deans, deans of academic affairs, the chair of faculty appointments, and the most recently tenured faculty members were asked to rate programs on a scale from “marginal” (1) to “outstanding” (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark “don’t know.” A school’s score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of “don’t know” counted neither for nor against a school. About 67 percent of those surveyed responded.

  • Assessment Score by Lawyers/Judges (.15)
    In the fall of 2005, legal professionals, including the hiring partners of law firms, state attorneys general, and selected federal and state judges, were asked to rate programs on a scale from “marginal” (1) to “outstanding” (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark “don’t know.” A school’s score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of “don’t know” counted neither for nor against a school. About 26 percent of those surveyed responded.

    Selectivity (weighted by .25)
    o Median LSAT Scores (.125)
    The calculated median of the scores on the Law School Admissions Test of the 2004 entering class of the full-time J.D. program. The calculated median is the midpoint of the 25th and 75th percentile scores.

    o Median Undergrad GPA (.10)
  The calculated median of the undergraduate grade point average of the 2005 entering class of the full-time J.D. program. The calculated median is the midpoint of the 25th and 75th percentile scores.


o Acceptance Rate (.025)
  The proportion of applicants to the full-time program who were accepted for entry into the 2005 entering class.

    Placement Success (weighted by .20)
    o Employment Rates for Graduates
    The employment rates for the 2004 graduating class. Graduates who are working or pursuing graduate degrees are considered employed. Those graduates not seeking jobs are excluded. Employment rates are measure at graduation (.06) and nine months after graduation (.12). For the nine-month employment rate, 25 percent of those whose status is unknown are counted as employed.

    o Bar Passage Rate (.02)
  The ratio of the school's bar passage rate of the 2004 graduating class to that jurisdiction's overall state bar passage rate for first-time test takers in summer 2004 and winter 2005. The jurisdiction listed is the state where the largest number of 2004 graduates took the state bar exam.

    Faculty Resources (weighted by .15)
    o Expenditures Per Student
    The average expenditures per student for the 2004 and 2005 fiscal years. The average instruction, library, and supporting services (.0975) are measured, as are all other items, including financial aid (.015).

    o Student/Faculty Ratio (.03)
  The ratio of students to faculty members for the fall 2005 class, using the American Bar Association definition.

o Library Resources (.0075)
  The total number of volumes and titles in the school's law library at the end of the 2005 fiscal year.

    Overall Rank: Data were standardized about their means, and standardized scores were weighted, totaled, and rescaled so that the top school received 100; others received their percentage of the top score.

    Specialty Rankings: Legal educators nominated up to 15 schools in each field. Legal educators chosen were a selection of those listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers 2004-2005 Directory as currently teaching in the subject. Those schools that received the most nominations appear.
    </code></pre>

<p>Peer assessment and lawyer/judge assessment are likely to have a lot of inertia as the quality of faculties change very little with time. </p>

<p>Selectivity is highly subjective. I would disagree with GPA being counted so much since GPA means different things at different schools. A science gpa is more difficult and shows different skills from a poli sci one. A MIT gpa shows harder work than a community college one. These things are not taken into accout at USNews wheras law schools do take quality of institution into some account (they have an index which adjusts gpa’s from various school which can depend on the average lsat score from that school or from historical experience with students from certain universities).</p>

<p>Median LSAT scores is a more useful stat along with interquartile range but it is dangerously incomplete to judge an LSAT score without understanding the way the LSAT is scored.</p>

<p>A 170 is 98.5 percentile about, a 180, 99.9 percentile.</p>

<p>A 160 is around 85th percentile.</p>

<p>So the jump from a 160 to 162 median LSAT is quite different from 174 to 176, in both absolute terms and relative terms. A jump from 160 to 162 is more an improvement in terms of percentile jump. However a jump of the 75th percentile at harvard from 175 to 176 is still significant, because about 300 people make a 176, 450 make 175 (Not looking too close at the numbers so I could be way off but I think the general argument will be the same). That means about 150 of Harvard’s incoming class are among those 300 that scored above a 176 on their LSAT’s. Quite impressive, when only 50 people at Yale are able to do the same.</p>

<p>Employment rates is also heavily weighted without taking into account how much people from the class will make on average as well as national placement rates. UChicago is actually more successful at placing students nationally than Stanford is (though that may be because there are so many great jobs in silicon valley and california), and UChicago’s salary interquartile range (for employed grads) is actually better than Stanford’s.</p>

<p>As such, placement rates seems to be a bad indicator for top schools since they have nearly 100% placement anyways (and many schools game these stats, choosing to employ out of work students).</p>

<p>Anyways Leiter provides another venue of understanding statistics that is different and more interesting than USNews. <a href=“http://www.leiterrankings.com/[/url]”>http://www.leiterrankings.com/&lt;/a&gt; He’s also very smart about criticizing his own rankings and USnews wheras with USNews you would never know.</p>

6

<p>The interesting thing about salaries is that those are also an imperfect measure of quality. Granted, unless you’re going to a top school, it’s very hard to get a $125k job after graduation. </p>

<p>However, if you feel bored, you can look at Princeton Review’s guide to law schools, which lists median indebtedness and median salary. Those who are in a lot of debt often (unless they attend Harvard) don’t have the option of taking lower-paying jobs that might be more attractive (better hours, public service, better quality of life). Instead, they take the money because they don’t have many other options. </p>

<p>I made up a spreadsheet once upon a time that had a ratio of median debt and median income. For most schools, the number was eerily close to 1 (i.e. $80k debt -> $80k starting salary). </p>

<p>Now, I’ll beat Jonri to the punch: there are some jobs in the public sector that are extremely competitive, although they pay very little, such as being a US district attorney. Clerking for a judge also results in a (relatively) low starting salary, although those positions are extremely difficult to get.</p>

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<p>My apologies in advance, PA, if you understand how law school works. However, reading your posts, I’ve gotten the impression you may not.</p>

<p>Leiter’s rankings depend a lot on the quality of the faculty, which he bases largely on the number of citations of faculty’s published works. Reading your posts–and again, if I’ve simply misunderstood you, I apologize–I get the impression you think that law school works like graduate school. You, the student, pick the faculty you want to work with. So, there you are, researching the faculty at various law schools to decide which ones you’d most like to work with. </p>

<p>Not quite. Your first year–or at the very least your first semester–your schedule will be dictated to you. The professors you get for class will be assigned by the law school. Lets say you get into Harvard and for some very odd reason you are fascinated by Civil Procedure. You decide you’d like to have Professor Arthur Miller for Civil Procedure. (He’s famous.) It doesn’t matter. You might end up in the section of Civil Procedure he teaches, but the odds are MUCH higher that you will not. As far as I know, you can do nothing to increase the odds that you will be taught by Miller. Indeed, your research may have lead you to conclude that the only professor of civil procedure you wouldn’t want to work with is Sedwidge P. Polkadot, who also teaches civil procedure at Harvard. You get your class schedule–you’re in section 5 and your civil procedure prof is Polkadot. Not a darn thing you can do about it. </p>

<p>Oh, well, you say to yourself, I’ll get a job working for Miller. Well, he liked Joe Cool, who was in his Civil Procedure class, and wrote the best final–the one Miller chose to be the model answer for next year’s students. Not having had Miller for CP means you may have virtually no chance of getting any sort of research job with him. Many profs do hire students to do research, but they tend to be students who were in the section they taught. </p>

<p>Ah, well, you say, I’ll write a paper for him. Well, maybe. At many law schools, there is some kind of written work requirement and you are more or less guaranteed that a professor will work with you on a one to one basis on your paper…but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the prof you want as a supervisor. Now, if you are Editor in Chief of the Law Review your odds are high, but the odds of being EIC are rather small. If your interest is a common one–say constitutional law, especially a First Amendment issue–the odds of you getting THE NAME to supervise your work if you are in the middle of the class are not overwhelming. In a class of 560, maybe 10 will get to write a paper one year on con law working with Professor Tribe at Harvard. (I don’t know the actual number and don’t claim to, but I’m certain that it’s less than the number who want to.) The classes at Yale and Stanford are smaller, but not everyone who wants to get Amar at Yale or Lessig at Stanford to supervise his writing assignment on con law will be successful. </p>

<p>Your best bet is to sign up for a seminar taught by the faculty member you’re enthused about. But…faculty members tend to have several different areas of interest. So, while you may want to take a class on con law with Lessig at Stanford, his seminar may be on Eastern European maritime law the year you can take it. ( I’m inventing. I do know Lessig has an interest in Eastern Europe but I don’t know if he’s ever taught a seminar having anything to do with Maritime law.) </p>

<p>Whether required to by the law school or not, there are certain courses you’ll probably take to give yourself a good shot at passing the bar. And, to some extent, it really won’t matter who is teaching them. I mean you’ll like them better if someone good teaches them…but you’re probably going to take an Evidence class no matter who is teaching it. Caspar Friendly Ghost may be a visiting prof teaching it, but you’re going to have to take it and pass on the fascinating seminar offered at the same time on international adoption taught by Professor Savetoddlers, whose writings on the topic are cited once every 12 seconds in America. (It’s not going to be on the Illinois bar exam and evidence will be, so Ghost it is.) You are USUALLY not going to be able to take 6 courses on various issues of constitutional law. Even at the rare school where you can do it, you’re probably not going to because you do have to learn some of the less interesting nuts and bolts.</p>

<p>And, at top law schools, some STUDENTS come with reps. You want to to write a paper with Professor X about law and economics or legal philosophy, but he’d rather work with your classmate who has a Ph.D. in economics already or is in a joint J.D./Ph.D. program in philosophy. </p>

<p>Second, these days…CLINICAL classes tend to be very important. These are the classes in which you go out and act the part of a lawyer with supervision. You might represent someone charged with a misdemeanor in court, with a faculty member supervising you. At some law schools at least, the clinical profs aren’t the kind who sit around writing articles for law journals. So, I may be wrong, but my understanding is that clinical offerings have almost no impact at all on Leiter’s ratings. The quality of the clinical offerings matters a lot to a lot of law students and it is something that I would suggest you take into account in choosing a law school. </p>

<p>Anyway, i’ve probably overdone it, but you should understand that enrolling in Old Widget where Professor Plum teaches is no guarantee he’ll ever learn your name.</p>

8

<p>As I said, I know the weaknesses of Leiter’s rankings but he also points most of them out as well when he lists them.</p>

<p>USnews does not, and many people who are uninformed decide to pick law schools largely based on USNews rankings. As such, there’s a lot to criticize about both rankings but combined, they help offer a student a better idea about what to expect, even though this is still an incomplete kind of ranking.</p>

<p>I don’t know how law school works and my post wasn’t intended to point out what the experience is like but problems with US News ranking alone. Most of my knowledge revolves around how the admissions process works which I’ve gleaned from a lot of various sources, but I’m glad you pointed out how law school is really like because I haven’t been able to find much on that.</p>

9

<p>Yeah, thanks for that post, jonri. It was interesting and informative.</p>

10

<p>I’m surprised more people aren’t commenting about the recent rankings. What has Boalt Hall done in the past year that would propel it past the tie it was in with Duke and Cornell for the #11 spot and bring it with a tie with Michigan and Virginia for #8. In law school rankings you usually don’t see a jump that high. Also, NYU tying Columbia is a big win for them I would think, since this would give them a bit of an edge in the cross-admit battle. Also, why the lack of US News love to UChicago? They seem to have the best of a lot of things, and yet have not cracked the top 5 in recent memory…any thoughts?</p>

11

<p>One thing further that I would like to add, with Boalt climbing the rankings- is it possible that it closes in on the Top 5 within the next few years with it’s new initiatives? Boalt is currently engaged in aggressive fundraising tactics, and plans on building a new legal center that will integrate its legal department with its strong business department, along with some other departments. It seems like with the extra funding that will be available in the near future to generous donations and aggressive fundraising techniques, Berkeley’s professional schools might be on the way up, no?</p>

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<p>Not really. NYU, as has been known for a while, has the best law school for those who wish to focus on jurisprudence; their recent hiring of Jeremy Waldron (I think) from Columbia will only boost their ranking even higher.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t say that anything has really ‘happened’ at Boalt in the last year or so. Instead, I would say that Boalt is just reclaiming its old mantle. Boalt was a top 10 school for a very long time until just recently (in the last 2 years) when it dropped out to as low as, I think, #12. Now it’s back in the top 10. So by you saying asking what Boalt has done in the last year to move it into the top 10, I could just as easily ask what happened 2 years ago to drop it out of the top 10.</p>

<p>I think a better way to look at the rankings is to take an average over the last 10 years. Law school rankings don’t really move around that much. </p>

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<p>It’s possible, but it is also possible that it might just drop out of the top 10 again. </p>

<p>Look, USNews fluctuates. A better way to deal with the rankings is just to look at the average rankings over a period of time. Hence, that way, you can see that Boalt is a lower top 10 school.</p>

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<p>Well you can analyze the specific aspects of USNews rankings and their methodology.</p>

<p>A big part of it is the quality of the student body, (GPA to LSAT, even though GPA’s mean squat without knowledge of what degree and college). </p>

<p>Peer assessment is 40% and is largely static. And it also has a time lag, as leiter points out. It doesn’t take into account recent changes in faculty.</p>

<p>Selectivity is 25% and has changed quite a bit. If you look at the gpa’s and lsat’s used, there has actually been LSAT inflation among all the scores in the top 14 in the last few years due to the increase in Law School applications. Its not much, maybe .5 to 1 lsat point a year but significant if you’re on the cusp for these schools.</p>

<p>If you interpret each part of these scores you can see what is causing the changes if you look at previous scores. For example NYU has had a large spike in reputation as it has been increasing the quality of its faculty. I don’t know what was responsible for boalt’s downward trend but you can look up previous indexes and compare them if you wish.</p>

<p>I think the ranking also left out important information about salary range. UPenn is high but its interquartile salary range is 80k to 110k or something like that wheras uchicago is 125k to 125k. It will give you an idea of how much you will be able to make once you graduate.</p>

<p>And the most stable way of ranking is usually by academic reputaiton.</p>

<p>You will see that harvard and yale are a step above stanford. I believe that ranking by academic reputation is the clearest representation of the quality of those schools.</p>

15

<p>Some people criticize US News for putting salary, and i think other “non-academic factors” on ratings for Law (and I think I read business) schools. Event though, as some say, it favors rich, small schools, I think it’s a legitimate factor. What do you guys think about non-academic factors? SHould they be included, and to what extent?</p>

16

<p>Well law school is a professional school and considering that the cost of these schools is extremely expensive, people should consider the salaries they can expect to make coming out of law school.</p>

<p>I would be a little bit more put off if they did a salary ranking for a medical school, even if it is professional school, since medicine is often looked at as semi-social work. Law however is usually considered a simple profession just like any other in most respects; though it does hold some prestige.</p>

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<p>The obvious massive problem with this is that it wouldn’t tell you anything about the school’s actual placement (which a lot of people have recently tried to measure). If a large share of a school’s graduates choose to work in secondary markets or public interest jobs, their starting salary numbers will appear weak even if all their grads are hired by their top choices.</p>

18

<p>That is very true, but any indication is better than none, and you would hope the large sample size would mitigate those things.</p>

<p>As you move down the law school ranking chain, you can ill-afford to do badly in your classes and still expect to make the same amount of money. If you do badly at Harvard you will still have a 6 figure salary. At Upenn, you will probably be much less likely to do as well financially if you are at the bottom of your class.</p>

<p>Though you’re right that individual statistics would be much better, its hard to do it without violating the privacy of students. Some info is better than no info I say, as long as you know the statistical weaknesses of that info.</p>

19

<p>Even though Stanford and Yale are ranked higher the general population will still list Harvard as the top school (in anything). Btw: I’m a junior in high school with no chance at Harvard. After all in Legally Blonde she went to Harvard, not Yale. (This could be because of the producer going there or some other such reason.)</p>

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<p>But if you’re going to law school you’re focusing on landing a job / career in academics so what the general population thinks shouldn’t matter.</p>

<p>Also, Legally Blonde was originally written for UChicago. Anyway, UChicago did not like a scene where a professor sexually harasses a student and so they refused to let the filmmakers use the school. So they had to pick a different law school.</p>