Since we revealed the US News law school rankings, the blogosphere has been abuzz. First, the rankings were fake. Then, the rankings were maybe incorrect. Finally, the rankings were legit but meaningless. Despite that, the official release by US News has confirmed our initial "findings" and sent many law schools (particularly those who dropped) into a tailspin.
Above the Law has a pretty comprehensive/entertaining look at administrations' reactions to their new statuses. Particularly hilarious are the deans who promised students that they'll re-evaluate their school's course according to its move on the scale. It's all one big popularity contest, after all.
. . . . as someone else pointed out elsewhere, we Boalties would be speaking wisely of how foolish the rankings are if we had slid a slot or two, instead of babbling about how great it is that we bumped up a tad.
who cares?
what's true of the group as a whole isn't necessarily true of the individual, and what's true of the individual isn't necessarily true of the group as a whole. treating the relationship as though it is anything other than speculative is foolish and short sighted. I suspect that the deans who are looking into curriculums are saying that because they wish to assuage the fears of the hyper-pensive creature known as "the law student" and not because they are seriously going to tailor their program to US News.
Posted by: Patrick | March 28, 2008 at 04:43 PM
Patrick,
Let's hope so, because the legal profession (and the legal educational system, if you ask me) already gets enough flak for its predilection for outrageous pr, no? We wouldn't want the situation to get any more outrageous.
Posted by: Cynthia | March 28, 2008 at 04:57 PM