The Shark

more rankings, more problems: us news to blame for high tuition.

[cynthia]

According to a study released by Government Accountability Office, we can all gather 'round and blame US News (and its less popular siblings) for the rapid clip of tuition increases in the last few years.

According to my much-loved Tax Prof, the study (which came out Monday) pinpoints rankings, not accreditation, for your big bills.

From the GAO:

"According to law school officials, the move to a more hands-on, resource-intensive approach to legal education and competition among schools for higher rankings appear to be the main factors driving the cost of law school, while ABA accreditation requirements appear to play a minor role."

Prior to these revelations, the Internet was awash in ABA-blame for the problems modern law schools face. Instead, unsurprisingly, it is not the gargantuan, antiquated bureaucracy that is to blame, but the trend-obsessed and more nimble law school administrations that have subjected their institutions to the whims of PR.

A page from the study says it all: 

Of course, to add to the absurdity, as ATL calls it, this last week has seen news that federal loan levels are remaining stagnant even as tuition prices inflate. Where are you all getting the money to feed the US News monster? It's certainly not coming from your state government, anyway.

princeton rankings the boring try-hard older sister of us news.

[cynthia]

When the Princeton law school rankings came out last year, we were in the middle of rankings delirium. This delirium involved a lot of whining about how US News has too much power, how arbitrary the whole process is, how prestige-obsessed law school administrators are, etc. 

I was visibly disappointed by how non-controversial the Princeton 2009 rankings were. The most exciting part of Princeton's rankings was the methodology, which seemed to be a "burn on US News." Well, I'm even more bored this year, because they've ditched the methodology in favor of a lengthy "User Guide" that says nothing remotely snide about "other rankings." Snore.

Regardless, I bring you this year's Princeton rankings, with very little fanfare, courtesy of The AmLaw Daily: 

Best Career Prospects -- Northwestern University School of Law 

Best Classroom Experience -- The University of Texas at Austin School of Law 

Best Environment for Minority Students -- University of Hawaii at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law 

Best Quality of Life -- University of Virginia School of Law 

Most Liberal Students -- City University of New York--Queens College CUNY School of Law 

Most Conservative Students -- Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School 

Most Competitive Students -- Baylor University School of Law 

Most Diverse Faculty -- Florida International University College of Law 

Most Chosen By Older Students -- City University of New York 

Best Professors -- University of Chicago Law School 

Toughest To Get Into -- Yale University Law School

You can check out the rest of each of those lists here.

george washington shows would-be part-timers the door.

[cynthia]

In an admitted effort to boost its US News ranking, George Washington has turned on its part-time program.

It's at least true that the move is meant to directly and quickly impact George Washington's ranking, according to the independent student newspaper The GW Hatchet.

Senior Associate Dean Greg Maggs told about a dozen law school alumni at "The State of Law School" address that the school's fall from 20th to 28th was caused mainly by an unannounced change in the way U.S. News and World Report tracks part-time law student GPAs.

"U.S. News, for the first time, without giving us any notice, said they wanted to count full-time and part-time students mixed together," Maggs said. "Both our GPA and our LSAT [scores] fell substantially from previous years."

Maggs said taking fewer evening students was a short-term solution to getting back up the U.S. News Ranking.

"We've been able to address that in a very simple way," Maggs said. "We've taken less evening students."

US News introduced the changes as a response to criticisms that schools were "gaming" the rankings by admitting less qualified students into part-time programs, saving the achievers for the full-time programs, where they could help boost rankings.

Dean Maggs, for his part, appears to be confirming US News' suspicions.

the best value for your loan dollars.

[cynthia]

Yesterday I was directed, thanks to TaxProf, to a list of the National Jurist's list of law schools that give you the "Best Bang for your Buck."

While generally unmoved by the top 25 (which you can see, sorta, here), I did find it interesting that Hastings, despite its near-constant tuition increases, is holding it down for California at #54. 

The qualifications for making it on the list were pretty strict:

• Public schools with a maximum of $25k annual tuition
• Private schools with a maximum of $30k annual tuition 
• 85% employment rate upon graduation 
• Higher bar passage rate than state average  

The schools were then ranked according to these statistics, with North Carolina Central University edging out BYU for the top slot. 

The saddest part of this piece, however, was the headline of the piece that came directly after it: "Is Anyone Hiring Now?" As if to say "What the hell does it all matter, anyway?" If you're asking yourself that question, you might want to check out these 100 blog posts.

george mason and others make big jump in rankings according to job placement data.

[cynthia foster]       

In light of our recent post on US News rankings alternatives, I thought I'd direct your attention to an interesting post by TaxProf from Monday. He's got a different version of the rankings: the "Placement Success Rankings." He uses a weighted ranking according to three components: the "Employed Nine Months After Graduation," "Employed at Graduation" and "Bar Passage Rate" numbers from the US News data.

This may be one of the more accurate metrics for choosing a school based on your job prospects after graduation, as opposed to to trying to measure the nebulous value of going to a 12th ranked school vs. a 23rd ranked school.

Of course, there's some debate about whether or not schools accurately reported their placement information, but if we can move on from that for just a quick second, we'll see that the top 10 from the Placement Success list vary pretty wildly from the US News' top 10. And here they are:

US News	Tax Prof/Placement Data
1. Yale	1. Stanford
2. Harvard	2. Duke
3. Stanford	3. NYU
4. Columbia	4. UCLA
5. NYU	5. Penn
6. Berkeley Law	6. Boston U
6. Chicago (tied)	7. Michigan
7. Penn	8. Yale
8. Michigan	9. Northwestern
9. Duke	10. George Mason

Columbia, which is ranking fourth according to US News, makings a significant drop to #22 on TaxProf's list. Boston University, ranked sixth according to TaxProf, barely makes the top 20 on US News. Another shocking number was George Mason. It's ranked #41 overall, but appears in 11th slot on the Placement Success rankings.

I put in some calls earlier this week to BU, George Mason, and Duke (who jumped from #10 overall to #2 on the placement data rankings) to try to shed some light on what the schools are doing to get these kinds of placement numbers, but we haven't heard back.

What say you, readers? Why is George Mason, for instance, so amazing at finding its students jobs, when it is not what US News would call a "so amazing" school?

instead of the koolaid, how about some caprisun? rankings alternatives.

[brian lauter]

Okay, ready for a rankings update?  It turns out a lot of the information schools give to U.S. News is bogus and U.S. News didn't crunch the numbers correctly this year.  Consider yourself updated.

In most of my rankings posts I've criticized the U.S. News methodology and talked about alternative ranking systems that folks interested in evaluating law schools could use.  I haven't really provided much information on where to find these alternative rankings or what their methodologies are, so that's today's task.

• First, of course, there's U.S. News, which isn't alternative at all.  U.S. News takes into account:  a peer assessment score, a lawyers/judges assessment score, a median LSAT score, a median GPA score, acceptance rate, employment rates, bar passage rates, expenditures per student, student/faculty ratio, and library resources.  This year, statistics for part-time programs were added to this mix.

• Next, there's the Brian Leiter rankings.  This year Professor Leiter focused on peer assessment and lawyers/judges assessment, noting that only 70% of peers and 31% of lawyers/judges responded to the U.S. News surveys.

• Then, there's the Liberty and Light rankings, also known as the 53% rankings.  These rankings take into account a peer assessment score, a lawyers/judges assessment score, a median LSAT score, and a student/faculty ratio score.  Notably excluded are median GPA, acceptance rate, employment rate and bar passage rate, since these are not really comparable from school-to-school or state-to-state.

• You could also check out the Hylton rankings, which take into account only the peer assessment ratings and a median LSAT score.  Looks pretty bare bones, but the assertion that all other stats used by U.S. News are arbitrary or redundant, does seem to have some merit.  I haven't seen a 2009/2010 version of the Hylton rankings yet; the link above is to 2007/2008 version.

"I really don't like any of those," you might say. 

• Well, maybe the Hemholtz rankings (.pdf) are more up your alley.  The Hemholtz rankings factor in a peer assessment score, a median LSAT score, and a median GPA score.

• If you really like self-serving rankings, check out the Thomas Cooley rankings.  The Thomas Cooley rankings take into account over 32 variables, the two most important being the size of the school and whether or not the school is named Thomas Cooley School of Law.  Amazingly, Thomas Cooley School of Law still came in at 12th here, a 169 spot difference from its U.S. News ranking, but a surprisingly low showing considering.

• Last, but not most ridiculous, is the Google American Law School rankings.  This system takes into account which schools come up first on a Google search for "law school."  I know this sounds unscientific, but don't worry, they used a "clean browser" and "appropriate filtering," so the results are about as methodologically sound as the U.S. News results.

Well, there's the round-up.  I'm not sure if anybody cares about my personal preference here, but I'm going to go ahead and throw it out there. 

GPA standards vary by undergrad school, so GPAs are not a reasonable way to compare law school quality.  Bar passage rates vary by state due to differences in bar exam difficulty, so they are also not a reasonable way to compare law school quality.  I don't see the relationship between acceptance rates and law school quality either.  Factoring in library resources seems particularly ridiculous considering most legal research happens on online databases these days. 

Peer and lawyer/judge assessment scores, median LSAT scores, and student/faculty ratio seem reasonably related to law school quality, so I'm going with the Light and Liberty rankings until I see something better.

possible rankings shake-up ahead: are there data errors?

[brian lauter]

Well, we've hit stage three of the U.S. News rankings cycle.  For those of you unfamiliar with the process, stage three is the part of the cycle where we discuss administrative reactions to the rankings.

So far the reactions seem to be relatively sane, which is disappointing from an entertainment standpoint.  That could all change, however, because, according to TaxProf, U.S. News is currently investigating possible errors in the rankings of at least two schools.  

TaxProf Blog also has a handy compilation of law school reactions to the 2010 U.S. News rankings.  Here's hoping some geeked-up law school dean loses his cool.  Good luck in stage three!

another set of us news rankings, another set of dean opinions.

[brian lauter]

Last week I argued that refusing to publish the U.S. News rankings, a la Brian Leiter, is not the way to diminish their influence.  This was convenient, I'll admit, because The Shark was likely going to publish them with or without my support.  

Convenience aside, I honestly don't think that ignoring the U.S. News rankings does anything to combat them, and today I got the mandatory rankings email from Davis' Dean Kevin Johnson with press release attached, which I thought struck the appropriate balance.

The second paragraph of the press release reads:

"The U.S. News ranking, probably the best-known (if sometimes criticized) rating of American law schools, also placed UC Davis 25th in the “peer assessment ranking” category that is based on surveys of law deans and professors nationwide and 20th in the racial diversity of the student body.  The peer assessment ranking of 25th coincides almost perfectly with the rating of 24th given to UC Davis Law School by the most recent comprehensive faculty quality ranking undertaken by Brian Leiter, a law professor at the University of Chicago whose on-line assessment of law faculty productivity and influence is often regarded as the most systematic quantitative evaluation of law schools, and the best-known law ranking system other than the annual U.S. News survey." 

So, being a practical man, living in the "real world" of law school administration, KJ announces King Hall's ranking, notes that the U.S. News system has its detractors, and also discusses an alternative ranking system.  

Longtime readers may remember that I also enjoyed Sexy Rexy's email to King Hall students last year regarding the rankings.  This is not some perverse campaign of mine to promote King Hall deans.  This year's response is an excellent example of how law school administrators can deemphasize the U.S. News rankings while being realistic about the impact the rankings have on their schools.

If most law school administrators approached rankings in this fashion, I think the influence of the U.S. News rankings, over time, would be greatly diminished.  However, if you still want to ignore the rankings completely, you can check out the Brian Leiter approved U.S. News information.  Full email from Dean Johnson after the jump. 

Ed. Note: And for someone who is SUPER DEE DUPER stoked on this years rankings, check out Dean Kaminshine of Georgia State.

the rankings dance: do you know the steps?

[brian lauter]

This is my second time blogging through the U.S. News rankings cycle, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

First, the rankings are leaked.  Then, everybody over-analyzes the rankings, looking for patterns and whatnot.  After that, we discuss law school deans' reactions and overreactions to the rankings.  Finally, we forget about the rankings themselves, but spend the rest of the year talking about all the new methods law schools have come up with to game the system.

Right now we're in the second stage.  So, I bring to your attention, TaxProf Blog's list of the biggest movers this year.  Starting with the standouts from the first tier:

-Indiana-Bloomington #23 (+13)  (Biggest move:  From "Who?" to "Oh, I've heard of them.")
-UC-Davis #35 (+9) (Now only three spots down from when I got here!)
-North Carolina #30 (+8)
-Utah #45 (+6)
-Cardozo #49 (+6)
-BYU #41 (+5)
-Washington & Lee #30 (-5) (Guess U.S. News doesn't value practical experience either?)
-Arizona #43 (-5) 
-George Washington #28 (-8) (Where did that come from?)
-Colorado #45 (-13)

And my selections from the second tier list:

-San Diego #61 (+21) (Daaamn!)
-San Francisco #98 (+14)
-Loyola-L.A. #71 (-8)
-Florida #51 (-5) (Fell just out of the top tier...That's got to hurt.)
-Santa Clara #85 (-8)
-Indiana-Indianapolis #87 (-19) (What the hell is going on in Indiana?)

Pretty exciting.  Stay tuned to see the rest of the U.S. News hoopla play out - we'll have analysis tomorrow, when the rankings officially hit newsstands.  A full list of all of the U.S. News moves this year, according to leaked copies of the rankings (which have nonetheless been blessed by WSJ's Law Blog), can be found here.

has the hysteria hit you yet? stay calm amidst the ranking craze.

[julie anne ines]

An update on the US News leak:

Trickle, trickle: U.S. News and World Report law school rankings reportedly leaked

News: The folks over at Above the Law are reporting the rankings for U.S. News and World Report’s top law schools has been leaked by a blogger. Again. Not news: The schools that have historically been up top are on top. Again.

The Critical Badger - a blogger who identifies himself as a University of Wisconsin-Madison Student – is boasting that he has received the rankings early for the third straight time and even provided a link to what appears to be a scan of the first page.

ATL tried to confirm the validity of the document, which, despite its truthiness, has an air of legitimacy to it. Despite the doubts one might have about the document, it could very well be the real thing because it looks real. U.S. News, however, declined to comment.

And while I perpetuate the mild, mass legal hysteria that has been building in blogs and law school forums since news of the leak broke Sunday by writing this post, the rankings themselves aren’t really all that exciting.

I’m not one to indulge in conspiracy theories, but I wonder if anyone has questioned if the leak, happening just days before the release of the real rankings, is a way for U.S. News to build the buzz around a product that has come under a lot of scrutiny in the past couple of years and that now has its number of detractors, like Brian Leiter of Brian Leiter’s Law School Rankings.

If you missed it, Leiter encouraged bloggers earlier this month to fight the power and refrain from blogging on the U.S. News rankings. He wrote:

The law school rankings combine “too many factors, in an inexplicable formula, and much of the underlying data isn't reliable, and some of it … isn't even relevant.  You all know this.  So don't report it.  The fact that this garbage appears in a major 'news' magazine doesn't change the fact that it is garbage.”

Ouch.

I don’t know about you, but fake rankings, real rankings, I’m just going to take them all with a grain of salt.