Hamilton may not care much about the rankings (“We’re Still Here!”), but I do. It’s not the be-all and end-all by any means, but rankings add the prestige which in the end does help get interviews. It’s up to the individual at that point to get the job–a high ranking in US News won’t do that for you–but it does (as far as I’ve been told by a couple recruiters) matter to an extent.
Assuming that the US News people don’t compute the rankings in the manner that GW Law Revue comedically said they do, how do they do it? I have no idea, but they do take certain data into account (see here)… so let me take a moment and give you my evaluation of these pieces of data (especially for those now applying to law school who are the ones who most rely on these rankings).
Peer/Lawyers/Judges Assessments: I guess this is a good indication of how the school is viewed within the profession, so it gives one an idea of how people will react when they say what school they attended. But really, does someone’s opinion really correlate to the education given at a certain school? Doubt it. This just seems like another way for the top ten to concretely establish themselves. It would takes years of constant progress for any school to move up in this area, but could move down quickly with one year of mishap… just like grade point averages! Conclusion: of interest, but in my opinion shouldn’t be a top concern when determining what law school to go to, nor should it be included in computing the overall ranking.
GPA and LSAT score: This gives you a pretty good idea of how intelligent or hard working the students are at the school. I think this is a decent listing because it gives prospective applicants the opportunity to see (generally) whether it’s worth it or not to apply a certain school. If your numbers are out of both of the GPA and LSAT, you’ll have a very hard time getting admitted (partly, I believe, because the admissions offices care about the rankings and don’t want to have lower average numbers from the year before). But if you’re below just one of the ranges, you can offset the other with a higher number. I will readily admit that I was not within one of those (not even close) and I got admitted to GW. While I have no idea why they admitted me, I would assume it had something to do with my professional career after undergrad, a higher score in the other area, and my essay/personal accomplishments. Conclusion:helpful more in determining where to apply not in ranking the school. But don’t go strictly by the numbers, they’re just an average and not a rule.
Acceptance Rate: I think of all the data used in computing the rankings, this is the most worthless data. All it is, is another way to measure prestige. Places like Harvard, Yale and Stanford have a rate around 10% because almost EVERYONE applies, just hoping to be a one of those that gets admitted by falling through the cracks (crack babies as they were called in the greek system at the University of Arizona) even if their chances are slim. So what if a billion people applied and only 100 were accepted? Why does a school’s measure depend on how a bunch of 20-something year olds (on average) view the school? Really, No Name University Law School could have great numbers in this area by just offering a free application, free tuition and a lollipop to those that apply, getting tons of apps and then just admit a few. Conclusion: worthless.
Student/Faculty Ratio: I personally put a lot of weight in this data because the lower the ratio, the better chance of having more courses offered and/or smaller class sizes. GW is at 14.9 students per professor, which I think needs improvement, especially given our high tuition and the large size of the admitted class. Schools in the top 10 (well, top 11 really because of the tie at #9) average 10.68 students per professor and within the top 25 the ratio is 11.76 to 1. Then again, you can have a good ratio with a lot of ineffective professors, so it’s not fool proof data. Conclusion: generally important as it hints at class sizes and possible number of courses.
Employment Rate (at graduation and 9 months after): Good idea to take a look at this. Gives you an idea of how effective the school is at preparing students to be a lawyer, how helpful the career development office is and, in some ways, how the field perceives the law school. Basically, this is an effective method to use the Peer Assessment data as this data actually means something: what the likelihood is that you’ll have a job after spending 3 years eating, drinking and sleeping law. Unlike Peer Assessment, it’s not someone’s opinion but a fact. Conclusion: if you’re going to law school to get a job and not as a vacation, then this data definitely matters.
Bar Passage Rate: Well, seeing as how you have to pass the bar to get a job as a lawyer this definitely is important. This indicated how effective the school is at preparing students for passing the bar. Therefore, I think it’s valid that US News uses this in their rankings. The one thing that interested me/scared the bejesus out of me: No school (even UC Berkeley, Stanford, USC or UCLA) has a higher percentage rate of passing the CA bar than 88.7%. I knew the California bar was tough, but wow. As I’m thinking of taking the CA bar when I graduate and opting into DC this gives me great pause. Anyway, enough about me. Conclusion: if you want to be a lawyer, I’d say this matters.
What’s Missing: I think that if US News is going to include data so arbitrary as Peer Assessment and Acceptance Rate, they ought to have a sociability index, indicating how socially adept the students are. I guess they’d have to do random interviews with students at each school, but when I was looking at law schools I cared about the student population. Not just how smart and determined they were, but whether they liked to get outside the library from time to time and if the students can carry on a conversation with someone with as less awkwardness as possible. Also, and more importantly, where’s the graduation rate? It definitely would matter to me if I learned that only 70% of those that enrolled continued on to graduate. This would show how much academic, financial and social support the school provides. The fact that US News omits this data is an indication of the fact that these rankings should not be relied on too heavily.
Conclusion: All of this of course is my opinion, for whatever that’s worth (I’m guessing very little). I think the rankings in and of themselves are rather arbitrary. Instead, I think the data used to compute the rankings are a better indicator of the school. If I were to do the rankings I would include graduation rate, financial aid given, bar passage rate, employment rate, and student/professor ratio to determine how good a law school is. Maybe even add number of publications (professor and student) and how often those publications are cited. Quick to go: Peer/Lawyer/Judge Assessment and Acceptance Rate. For those readers applying to law school, take a look at the little breakdowns per school in the back of the US News magazine where it notes where the students are from, how much financial aid is given and the percentage of males/females (had I known that I’d be attending a 60% male school I might have decided otherwise… ok not really, but I was disappointed when I showed up the first day of school and saw that the 1L class is like a post office: a lot of male). So take it all with a grain of salt and just pick the school where you think you’ll have the most enjoyable time and will set you up for a good job after graduation… BALANCE. Being successful but miserable (or happy but unemployed) won’t do much for you in the end.
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?JosefStalinJosef Stalin
People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.JackNicholsonJack Nicholson, As Good As It Gets