Adam’s post has generated a slew of comments suggesting that the administration needs to figure out a way to respond to our drop in the rankings. Rather than graft that conversation onto the existing thread, I thought we could move the discussion over to a fresh post.
I don’t think the administration should do a thing. GW is GW. I’m of the mindset that if you are confident in your own ability, then there is no reason to flaunt and tell others about what you are capable of doing. Or for that matter, try to explain away some weakness. The same should go for GW. The strongest message that we an send is to ignore the rankings and keep on doing what we have been doing all along: show confidence in the legal education we provide and receive here. That would speak volumes about what we think about the rankings and what we know the value of our education to be.
Every year around the time the rankings are released, many law school deans publish a joint letter saying they don’t care about the rankings. This year should be no different. Dean Lawrence should not dignify the rankings with any response. Without the pressure of catering to a ranking system that everyone agrees is flawed, this can be GW’s time to shine.
i’m not really worried. I checked the Thomas Cooley rankings and we’re still top 10.
hahaha
In the interest of transparency, I’m a PT 4L getting ready to graduate.
From my limited experience in the DC legal job market, I don’t think our move to 28 will matter, assuming we bounce back to somewhere closer to <25 at some point and this is not a long-term trend. Some firms may check the rankings, but GW has an excellent reputation among employers in DC. Look at any BigLaw firm with an office in DC and you’ll find partners on hiring committees with GW bona fides.
Bottom line – this is a great school with a great faculty and lots of excellent alumni connections out there.
All of that said, our drop to 28 still doesn’t make sense (to me at least) if you compare GW’s and G’town’s FT and PT admissions data on the ABA guide website. Assuming the drop is due to including PT admissions data, what would justify GW’s slip to 28 while GULC retained its usual spot at 14?
GW 75/25 GPA (FT): 3.86 / 3.40
GT 75/25 GPA (FT): 3.82 / 3.44
GW 75/25 LSAT (FT): 168 / 165
GT 75/25 LSAT (FT): 171 / 167
GW 75/25 GPA (PT): 3.77 / 3.22
GT 75/25 GAP (PT): 3.75 / 3.33
GW 75 / 25 LSAT (PT): 165 / 160
GT 75/25 LSAT (PT): 167 / 160
The PT numbers don’t look all that different. This leaves me to question 1) the USNWR methodology; 2) the data GW provided; or 3) the data GULC provided.
One of the number of theories I read yesterday around the intarwebs was that it was less about including the part-time rankings and more about a hit to our numbers in jobs after graduation. Perhaps that would explain the difference with Georgetown, not the part-time inclusion (or at least not exclusively)?
To the extent that this is true, I’d suggest the school’s response be to keep doing what they’re doing, and improve (as far as helping us get jobs) — especially now. Whether or not the rankings go up as a result is immaterial as long as I’m not destitute and homeless in 2 years 😉
I say Dean Lawrence goes “Cooley” on USNWR and starts his own ranking system. GW to T14. GULC to TTT.
That said, I agree with the OP. The prudent thing to do is to ignore the rankings, continue to hire top-notch faculty, continue to be very selective in admissions, and work hard to raise money. I somehow doubt that prospective 1Ls who were thinking of GW are now going to drop their hopes of DC make a mad dash to Bloomington, Indiana.
I came to GW to be in DC but as an Indiana University alumni, I can definitely say that Indiana is a beautiful school with a lot to offer. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people do decide to go there if they take the time to visit the school, especially with the $60,000,000 the law school has to throw around from donations last year.
I second David. Anyone who’s ever been to Bloomington has at least considered maybe going there instead. If I hadn’t wanted to be in DC so badly, I probably would’ve gone to IU and, assuming these rankings are legit (which I’m still skeptical about), would’ve had a better ranking upon graduation. With 1/4 of the debt. Interesting prospect.
The US News rankings are total b.s. There’s really no upside for them to mix things up too much with the “T14” but they have to sell copies somehow by creating a few “WTF?” moments.
amen, JW. the fact that USNews is a commercial enterprise is a huge factor. does the aba or some other non-commerically-invested org do rankings? i’d put a lot more stock in those, if they exist.
Also, combining all the factors US News relies on and creating a linear ranking is at best a questionable statistical method.
I could be dead wrong, and probably am because I don’t think our gpa/lsat numbers actually went down but;
One idea which I thought was silly was the early decision scholarships. I thought it took to much money away from other scholarships which would be given out, hurting our yield rate. My hypothesis is that a lot of borderline people who would have fully committed had they gotten some scholarship money probably hung out on other wait lists a lot longer and bailed towards the end.
The real reasons our ranking dropped
– no double sided printing
– graded lrw
– 3 hour cdo meetings
– temperature control
– wireless internet
don’t forget the lack of soap in women’s restrooms
ah good point – broken soap pumps (in mens and womens)
Looks like Professor Barron will have the last laugh (he tried to get rid of the PT program when he was Dean of the law school).
One more reason to like Professor Barron. The part time program is just a way for the school to make more money. Unfortunately, it has its costs too.
Another option is just to raise our admissions standards for the part time program, and make it exclusively available to people who actually work full-time (not just people who couldn’t get into the day program, have no job, and are only taking a couple classes a semester because they have nothing else going on).
I have to disagree strongly with some of the criticisms the part time program has been taking. I think the program serves a great purpose and our community is richer as a result of its presence. There a lot of working people out there who want to come to law school but don’t want to/can’t afford to quit working to do that. Some of these people go on to become some of GW’s most famous alums (I’m pretty sure Harry Reid was part time and maybe Senator Inouye–I couldn’t find a source for this, so please correct me if I’m wrong).
Evening/part time programs provide a great service to the legal community and I think it’s a shame that a little adjustment in arbitrary rankings would lead people to react this way. If you’ve ever taken evening classes you know that evening students bring a different perspective in to class that is, in many ways, more mature than the perspective of some day students. Obviously, many day students have work experience–even legal work experience–as well. But the juggling of work and school responsibilities brings a different level of seriousness to these students.
I think evening students add to the diversity of our law school, especially since many of them work on Capitol Hill or in other parts of government. That’s the type of diversity USNWR can’t possibly quantify and one of the (many) reasons that the rankings are limited in their usefulness. I’m lucky enough to be in a life position where I can handle being a student full time. I don’t have a family or a mortgage or anything like that. But for people who can’t handle taking on huge amounts of debt or people who are already mid career, GW’s part time program offers them an excellent education, that I hope GW keeps improving by providing tenured faculty incentives to teach in the evening program.
Sen. Reid was PT, Inouye was FT.
Thanks for your defense of the part-timers, navahs. I can’t believe that our pt credentials would be so supposedly inferior that it would cause an 8-point plummet, especially when you compare our pt stats with G’town’s. Considering that other schools with pt programs didn’t budge or actually improved, I think there’s more at work here than just including pt stats in the rankings.
As a former evening student, I agree wholeheartedly.
I have to say, I am a little disappointed to see such vitriol directed at the evening program. They are students who deserve to earn their law degree just as much as anyone else who attends this school.
Thank you, Navah, for sticking up for us.
I see this thread has quickly gotten off topic – this isn’t about casting blame on students in our school or the lack of soap in the women’s bathroom.
In the previous thread, certain commenters expressed a sense of urgency for the administration to “fix” the problem. The point of this post was to solicit ideas on what the administration should do or not do in response to the comments just referenced.
Simple Question(s):
Assuming that the school administration is of the stance that the rankings do not matter, and that they in no way determine the caliber of the school; (1)Why did the administration proudly boast that we were a “top 20” school prior to the ranking change, and (2) Why does the administration comply with reporting requests from US News in the first place?
I’m a big fan of putting your money where your mouth is. Unfortunately, I think that the school may be speaking out of both sides of thier mouth when it comes to attracting prospective students. If the rankings don’t matter let’s stop refering to ourselves as a “top –” law school, and just say that we are a great institution! Better yet (and even more radical of an idea) let’s not even participate in the US News Rankings at all!!!
The automatic anger towards evening students is a bit alarming, especially in the face of other schools’ numbers that have evening students (e.g. GULC 0, Fordham -3, Mason -3, Maryland -1, American +1). I have to hope it’s because many people don’t have time to really read this and are relying on other people’s soundbites, “blame the evening kids”?
According to this random anonymous commenter: http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/us_news_law_school_rankings_le.php?show=comments#comment-1022419
there was a significant drop in employment statistics.
I have no reason to believe from anonymous commenters that either of these reasons is right on its own or combined with the others… so people need to chill.
Perhaps if the school does anything it should be to clarify things? If the mood of the school is going to be “we hate evening students” it’s really not going to do wonders for me, also being one.
I think the administration should address the drop in some way – how, I’m not sure. Acknowledging and talking about the rankings wouldn’t be for us (current students) but rather for the incoming/still undecided students.
Those of us who are already here at GW have an opinion about both our experience at the school and how much stock we put into the rankings. Personally, I know that a drop in the rankings doesn’t reflect a drop in my education. If you’re a happy student at GW, there’s no reason why an arbitrary number should change that.
But I’m sure this looks different to students debating whether to come to GW. Maybe incoming students shouldn’t put so much value on the rankings, but they do – and the administration knows that. Especially early on in the admissions process, rankings are an easy way to narrow down the law school search. And of course our administration took advantage of that. And as “Almost 2L” pointed out, the administration loved to point out that we were a top-20 law school – and why wouldn’t they? It’s a great thing to say to prospective students.
I’m not sure what the best course of action is for the administration, but considering the facts that (1) prospective students care about rankings, and (2) the administration has a history of pointing out the rankings, I do think they need to address the drop somehow. If the reason for our drop is the inclusion of part-time statistics, then the administration should clarify that, as B suggested. If the drop is because of an actual problem (like the possible drop in employment statistics), I think the administration needs to simply be honest about it and tell students how they’re going to work to get the numbers back up.
Just wanted to clarify that I’m not trying to “bash” evening students or the evening program in general–i think we need to keep it. I’m saying we should raise the admissions standards so that they’re closer to the admissions standards for the day program. I applaud those who work full-time and then come to school on top of that. No doubt that’s a tough schedule, and one that I admittedly wouldn’t want to deal with. On the other hand, I do know that quite a few night students actually don’t work full-time, or do anything besides law school. Why don’t they just come straight into the day program? Or maybe we shouldn’t make the transfer from the night program to the day program an automatic one?
I’m not saying this is the only reason we dropped in the rankings (assuming those rankings are legit, but I’m still pretty skeptical). I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to require the same high standards for night students as we do for day students.
On that point, I can agree with you.
but you of course realize that requiring the same standards for the PT program is the same thing as arguing that the PT should be reduced in size. the average applicant to the PT program has lower numbers than the average FT applicant. so, to “require the same standards” would be to just take less people.
that WOULD seem like a valid response to this whole thing if it wasn’t for the fact that GTown’s (who stayed at #14) incoming class is comprised of a greater percentage of PT students. if my point isn’t clear: it doesn’t seem like the problem lies with the lower PT statistics.
and Megan, sorry if that was not actually the point you were making. if you the point you were making was that we should increase the standards in order to improve the quality of the PT student body IN FACT (as opposed to merely numerically), then i agree with you.
From people who have analyzed this more than me, it looks like the evening program didn’t wreck the placement! To the comment or two over the past couple of days trying to blame it on us PTers, I know you’re mostly kidding – probably also jealous we’re #2! woot! 😉 hahaha There should totally be a law revue skit next year with a full-time vs. part-time fight set to West Side Story music.
Anyway, GW gives you amazing opportunities, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. But life is what you make it and don’t forget that. My mom came out of a T4 school to a prestigious federal clerskship and is now at a V100 firm. Life. Is. What. You. Make. It. Continue to do awesome things here at GW, work towards more awesome things after graduation, be good to yourself and others, and we’ll all be fine.
28 is great, i think you have a fantastic attitude and agree 100%. this is the smallest of potatoes compared to what is really important in life. but, to the extent that it IS a “problem” (which is minimal, as you point out), i don’t think there is anything wrong with a constructive discussion about how to respond.
I think the original post is naive and shortsighted. If the administration actually adopted the suggestion to “ignore” the rankings (which they won’t), it would have disastrous long term effects on the school.
As many have pointed out in this thread already, prospective students place A LOT of weigh on rankings. Whether or not this reliance is misplaced is another question. The fact of the matter is that if the school’s rank remains at 28, GW will attract less high-quality applicants. This has the potential to lead to a downward spiral in which incoming students’ LSATs and GPAs are lower, which will lead to GW’s spot in the rankings dropping even more, which will eventually lead to employers re-conceptualizing their perception of GW Law. While I agree that employers aren’t compulsively looking to USNews for their recruitment decisions, if in the long term GW starts to get lower-quality students, then firms will probably become more reluctant to recruit from the school.
This prediction may seem melodramatic, but it is likely what will happen if GW doesn’t take proactive steps to move up in the rankings. I’m not going to blame the part-time program or anyone else for that matter because I honestly have no idea why the school dropped so drastically. I will say, however, that it’s essential to the continuing success of the law school to address this issue quickly.
Fair enough – the suggestion to ignore the rankings was just my own thought on the matter.
But I still pose the original question: how should the school address this issue? What steps do you think they should take?
No idea. Even in light of this rankings drop, I imagine that the administration has a better concept of how to fix the problem than we do. Maybe they’re just complacent and forgot they had to actually maintain the T20 rank and that USNews wouldn’t just give it to us by default? Who knows.
Honestly, I don’t know how they should fix it, and I don’t really care; I just think they should do something. I don’t think this is going to personally affect me that much so it’s not really my priority to think of a solution. But it will affect the school as an institution, so the onus is on them to figure out what to do. Hopefully our $40k/year tuition will provide enough resources for them to get the job done 😛
I think the answer to that depends on what caused the drop in the rankings. If it is lower job placement, then the school needs to rethink how the CDO operates, how it helps students (and doesn’t help them) and fix it.
I have plenty of complaints about the CDO, the biggest being that it neglects careers outside of big-law. What’s interesting is that I’ve heard people who work in the CDO say they don’t understand why all of us want to work in big law so much and why we won’t look at other options. As a non big-law person, I find the CDO’s take interesting, if not strange given my experience here. Regardless of how this trend happened, if placement turns out to be the big issue then the CDO needs to get more employers on campus or symplicity, including non traditional employers.
That being said, I don’t think there’s a lot the school can do in terms of rising in the rankings. It already tries to push our LSAT/GPA higher by offering lots of money to admitted students with high scores at the expense of not paying out to retain students who excel once in law school but weren’t offered money before law school. Many of the other markers used by USNWR are either arbitrary or hard to change. For example peer assessment score and lawyer assessment score. Those are long formed perceptions that are hard to alter. Perhaps we could improve our faculty/student ratio, which if these ranking are correct, is the second worst in the top 30. That to me seems like a correction that could improve student experience and our rankings at the same time.
navahs said–
It already tries to push our LSAT/GPA higher by offering lots of money to admitted students with high scores at the expense of not paying out to retain students who excel once in law school but weren’t offered money before law school.
my hero. 🙂
I, for one, wouldn’t mind seeing class sizes shrink a little bit. I think having a class of over 550 law students a year is too big.
I think the reason for the drop is pretty obvious. According to this data GW has the worst job placement in the top 30 by 5 percent.
I recently e-mailed one of the Deans here at GW, and asked about the rankings drop. This Dean kindly responded to me and gave me his take on the issue; This Dean also forwarded my concern and e-mail to another faculty member that is focused on the issue of rankings here. Here is the response in case anyone is interested.
“Here are some quick thoughts. (1) Our drop in rankings is
ikely due to the fact that US News started including LSAT and GPA numbers of part-time students. Our part-time students are very gifted, but because many went to school years ago and did not have time to study for the LSAT full time they have a slightly lower statistical profile that the full-time group. Most people in and out of legal education knew that this change in methodology was coming and consequently the move will not likely affect the way most people see G.W. (2) Employers are, despite what you might think, quite unlikely to care very much
about rankings. They choose schools to visit based on the
performance of past graduates. By that measure we have little cause for concern. (3) Note that GW’s reputational rank did not really move in this survey. That means that we are perceived by the constituencies that count as just as good as we were last year.
I would spend my time studying for exams, not worrying about this. Its just noise in the system.”
If you can’t reveal the name of the professor looking into this, perhaps you can make him/her aware of the discussion we are having here on the blog. I think some of the comments in the last two threads might be of interest to whoever is looking at this.
I have just sent an e-mail making note of the discussion that the GW student body is currently having on this blog.
Thanks!
Not a problem; our concerns and possible remedies are def worth reading.
>our concerns and possible remedies are def worth reading.
More than definitely worth reading and I’ll tell you that the school is aware of your thoughts. Like you, the admin/faculty/staff are both concerned about the drop but confident in our school.
The discussions you’re having are important ones, and not because of rankings. Think of this as a good reason to point out things you think work well and things that could work better.
The rankings are embargoed until later this week. I know you’ll hear from the administration soon and hopefully you will continue to pass on your thoughts. Post here or contact the Dean directly, any of his assistant deans, your SB rep, whoever – just make sure to share your concerns and ideas.
i wish people would stop referring to the “quality” of students as if such a thing could be conclusively measured–or, worse, determined–by lsat and college gpa. in large part, law students are what the school makes them. and the education at gw is top-notch. that’s not going to change anytime soon. and as long as gw grads continue to perform well in their jobs, their employers will continue to recruit from the school.
Ideally, this is how it should be. But the reality is that”quality” to USNews DOES mean LSAT and GPA of the incoming 1L classes. And, even more unfortunately, “quality” students to employers are those students that come from high ranked law schools. That’s the way it is. If for some reason over the next 10 years, GW was hovering more towards 40-50 in the rankings, I guarantee employer recruitment would slow down.
2L said, “the reality is that ‘quality’ to USNews DOES mean LSAT and GPA of the incoming 1L classes.”
let’s note that the lsat/gpa part of the methodology is called SELECTIVITY, and not quality. (it also includes the acceptance rate.) QUALITY ASSESSMENT, by contrast, is done by measuring the reputation of the school among peers and lawyers/judges, and is worth significantly more in the rankings. so, what people think of the school–and of the students after they graduat–is worth more than the raw numbers they come in with.
i wouldn’t be surprised to see employers rely on the rankings if they don’t have experience with the school. but for employers who DO have experience with gw and with gw grads–especially local ones in DC–i think even a huge drop in rankings wouldn’t make a big difference.
You’re missing the point here. When I initially said that GW’s lower rank will detract “high-quality” students away from applying, I wasn’t referring to how US News specifically labels its own rankings criteria (i.e., selectivity, quality). I was referring to high quality students as those with higher LSATs and GPAs because these two numbers are heavily weighted factors in the US News rankings, and is therefore an indicator of what they view to be a “high quality” student body (regardless whether they label it).
Look, I understand your underlying qualm with equating high quality students with LSAT and GPA, but you must realize that this is exactly what law school admissions is all about, right? Students at higher ranked law schools have higher LSATs and undergrad GPAs; it’s a fact. I’m not saying that these students are better students/lawyers because of their numbers, but they certainly have a leg up with regard to employment opportunities.
Does anyone know how this years graduating class is doing regarding employment??? I suspect if last year was bad and dropped us in the rankings, that with this year may be worse. Has anyone heard anything?
Here are a few that can serve as a basis for debate……
1. Decrease the incoming classes. Many ‘people’ including Vault see GW-Law as a ‘lawyer factory.’ Also, less students at a very well regarded school will help with the employment prospects of GW Students.
2. Keep the PT program, but increase the admissions standards. I am pretty sure GW is currently doing this from what was posted on an earlier thread regarding what a prospective student learned from the admin. Has anyone else heard this?
Other than that, I do not see anything else that can be done. Year after year GW attracts top notch students and have a top faculty and administration as well. Because raw scores in schools ranked 20-30 are so close (a score of 66 is ranked ’20’ and I think we are 63 which equates to ’28’), these changes may really help. Comments???
I agree with these suggestions. If anything, the school will lose a bit of tuition money. But seeing as how much it is anyway, I don’t think that’s a big deal. 😛
Anybody calling for “raising admissions standards” of the evening program needs to figure out about how much they care about numbers, and just be honest about it. You can’t say that the rankings don’t matter on one hand only to focus their thoughts on undergrad GPA and LSAT scores on the other. The evening section consists of the most experienced, well-connected students at the law school. A far greater proportion of them have vastly more work experience than the full-time sections, populated mostly by kids straight out of undergrad. Everybody at this school cares so much about “networking,” yet consistently either ignore or underestimate their peers with the real connections – on the Hill, in nearly every major executive department, at the White House, and at the BigLaw firms that the “increase admissions standards” proponents are gunning for.
I don’t mean to sound too, too bitter about the FT/PT rift, but I will admit to being quite perturbed about an 8-spot drop in the rankings. And the administration’s first reaction probably will be “rankings don’t matter,” even though they ranked each and every one of us before we got here, and have continued to do so every semester we’ve been here. The hypocricy is sickening, even when we all know we’ve chosen to play the game. If I were a 1L with VA residency, I’d be looking real hard at GMU right now. Regardless, I expect Georgetown will be getting more transfer apps than usual from GW kids. The administration better be prepared to pony up some money next year for retention efforts. Too bad those costs will probably get passed along with tuition increases shortly thereafter.
It would be self defeating to reduce the size of the evening program if employment statistics caused the drop because many (most?) of the evening students already have jobs. If you wish to change admissions, start by requiring some real work experience.
I can see why people would want to cut class size, but lets say they cut from 550 to 500. Thats $6 million in lost revenue over three years. Thats a lot of bricks to buy and arches to name just to keep pace. If anything, I think enrollment will go up. Add 50 more students, add another 6 mil.
I was thinking that we should cut back the size of the class by 100 or more! Ha! I would do that irregardless of the rankings, because I happen to think that a smaller school is better.
But let’s think about that for a second… one of the USNWR criteria is selectivty – so if we cut back our class by 100, our selectivity rate would rise dramatically. That could be one way for the school to respond and get the rankings that no one else cares about back up.
Hamilton,
A cut in the class size as substantial as you suggest might leave people who use the term “irregardless” out to dry.
😉
I don’t care whether this school has a yearly class size of 500 or 200. All I care about is that most of the courses aren’t 100 people large (tax, con law II, etc.). They can add more students to the school to get more money, but they also better hire more professors or offer more class times. GW Law has one of the worst student to professor ratio in the USNews top 30.
For all the doubters out there, myself included, USNWR just confirmed that the leaked rankings were correct.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/04/22/here-it-is-the-2009-us-news-law-school-ranking/
I think the school should at the least address this topic and tell us what they think happened and what they might do to make amends. I agree with the class-size issue. I understand it’s a lot of money, but the space issues are getting to be a bit ridiculous.
While GW continues to have a strong reputation among employers, as stated by a few posters above, this kind of drop in rankings is sure to affect recruiting. Ranked at 20, GW can legitimately compete with schools in the 15-25 range, while poaching kids who might have gone to a T14 school by offering some money. Moreover, GW is uniquely situated to do that because we’re in a city that is more enjoyable to live in than many other schools in the rankings.
Whatever anyone says, continued student quality (along with faculty quality) is the lifeblood of a law school, and this kind of drop affects that and consequently the value of our degrees. Because we entrust the admissions office to guard that value, they should at the very least address this. Can’t the SBA president speak with a dean at least and get some kind of comment?
ultimately, we should be studying for finals anyway. Lets hope this came out too late to affect this year’s rankings and next year we’ll be right back up to our natural spots.
To solve the problem we should go the UC-Irvine approach. Drop tuition to $0 (including current students) and watch the quality of applications skyrocket.
I mean come on – $40,000 – that breaks down to $100 / credit hour. Or roughly $1.8 / minute.
No wonder we’re dropping.
almost $2 a minute? damn
That’s more than some 900 numbers.
Not that I’d know…
Wow – I feel extra screwed now. Woulda gotten more bang for my buck if I spent the last three years on the phone.
At some point during 1L year I did the math and realized I could be airborne on Southwest for the same length of time I spent in the classroom and be saving money.
…and Bucky wins the best comment award.
Although this might not hurt students’ employment prospect in the short run, it might hurt GW’s general reputation and employment prospect in the long run. If this drop does not get fix and remains for years, recruiting will suffer. Quality prospective students (who I think, unlike employers, develop a religious belief in rankings) will scoff at a school ranked 28 and go for Top 15/20. GW might not be able to attract the same quality of students in the long run. If the quality of the new students drop persistently, it is likely to have some long run effect in terms of GW reputation in employers/academia eyes. Once the reputation in the eyes of those who matters suffers, the number 28 position will be justified, because thats the actual respect that GW gets.
Thanks to navahs and others for their comments about the PT program. I work FT, have a spouse, kids, mortgage….and there is no way I could have managed law school any other way. As a PT law student, going to GW has been one of the best experiences of my life. Are there areas in which the school could improve that would better serve students and increase our USNWR rankings? Absolutely! However, I hope the school does not take any steps to eliminate the evening program because of this.
The solution to this is to make the PT program as competitive as full time… which may be what direction schools are going anyways now that USNWR is changing.
how about making the FT program as “competitive” as the PT program by requiring 3 years of pre-school work experience and working at least 20 hours/week during the school year? the increase in connection- and networking-based employment would more than make up for the drop in us news-related prestige. plus then maybe students would allocate their attentions more wisely, aka pay less attention to year-to-year us news drama.
some full time students also have kids and some work part time. others have worked several years before coming to GW Law or gone to grad school. none of those are admissions factors for us. please don’t think that FT students are immature, inexperienced students straight out of undergrad.
You’re right. Which is why suggestions that we eliminate or increase standards for PT are just as silly as Sai’s suggestion that we do the opposite. Debates over PT vs. FT really miss the point and aren’t going to solve the rankings problem, if you want to believe there is one (which, I still maintain, there is not).
Knowing Sai’s commenting “personality,” I think that was her point.
Right Sai?
thanks fish. 🙂
One wonders what would have happened with this year’s rankings had the administration taken steps to re-sod the quad earlier than it did.
bless you adam. i was just noticing how lovely it looked out there today.
It’s not just the PT program that hurt GW’s rankings. If you compare the data from the last two years (using the links below), you’ll see that the PT program hurt us, assumedly, in the 25% area of GPA (3.40 down to 3.28) and selectivity (19.8% up to 23%). However, the biggest discrepancies in the numbers between the two years is in the employment data.
According to last years numbers, GW had 95.1% of grad employed at graduation, but only 88.2% this year. Employment percentages nine months after graduation went from 97.1%, down to 92.8%.
That worries me much more than the PT program numbers. Only 3 other schools in the top 50 report below 95% in the 9 month category. So, it’s not just admission that need to rethink their strategy, it’s CDO as well. And as a soon-to-be-graduate, I care much more about CDO’s strategy than I do Admissions’.
2009 – http://brightcoast.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/rank1.gif
2008 – http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/ca/USNews.pdf
How about this: cut the size of the incoming class substantially (both PT and FT) and make up for it by accepting more transfers. That way the school looks like it’s being more “selective” with regard to the incoming 1L class (for US News purposes) without having to lose too much in tuition money.
Although this is technically gaming the rankings, it’s highly doubtful USNews would ever include transfers’ stats into consideration for a number of reasons. First, transfers are accepted based on their 1L grades (the rationale being that performance in law school is a better indicator of law school success than LSAT and GPA). So it doesn’t really make sense to include their pre-law school numbers in the rankings. Second, if USNews attempted to include transfer numbers in the rankings, schools that accept a lot of transfers like GULC, Northwestern, Columbia, and WUSTL would plummet in the rankings. As such, I imagine there would be a lot of backlash to such a proposal.
Eh? Think about it GW.
GW –
Work on getting every single graduating 3L a job, getting the smartest undergraduates to matriculate, and maintaining the faculty so we can continue to have a strong curriculum.
Don’t do anything just to cater to USNWR. This new ranking shouldn’t change a thing b/c presumably, these are the things that the administration has been working on. Maybe this will just make them work harder.
Focus on what’s important, and the rankings will come to us.
When you get a survey asking you whether you have a job, ALWAYS say “yes, I have a job”.
Even if you don’t have a job, you are just making yourself more unemployable by degrading the value of your degree.
good job
Now only if someone could get this idea out to the entire 3L class so that this data can help boost us for next years rankings . . .
The administration would never condone this strategy, but I see no reason why the SBA can’t give the 3L class a wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
Excellent idea. As an almost-3L, I vow to always say that I have a job. I encourage other vows in this forum.
You’re all joking right?
Not at all.
If I have to choose between putting food in my mouth and making an untrue statement on a US News survey, I am going to choose food.
This lie would be justified.
Anyone else think this is just totally Orwellian? I wouldn’t be surprised if we were #19 next year and the administration changes its tone towards the rankings…
I was thinking about that today. It’s in the magazine’s interest to keep the rankings somewhat stable. Too much fluctuation makes the system look less legitimate than it already is. An 8-point slide for one school is acceptable if it happens occasionally, but jumping back up to 19-20 next year? I don’t think that’s very likely solely considering the magazine’s interesting in preserving an image of legitimacy. But who knows?
I think if GW’s numbers are top-20ish, USNews would have no choice to put us there. I mean, I think it looks worse for USNWR that schools like Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana are above us . . . that makes a lot of people I know cringe.
Law Revue had a great skit about this last year. I can’t find the link on YouTube…
I think the unfortunate thing is that firms will take this seriously when they decide where to send their recruiters for OCI.
As a 0L – I just want to point out that, however superficial, I really enjoyED telling friends and family I am going to a Top 20 law school.
It really still is…GW has top-20 salary, faculty, peer assessment ratings and opportunities. Also, when employers here ‘GW’ they all still think top-20. Next year we will be back where we belong.
How about you just tell them that you go to GW? That means just as much as any ranking ever could. This is a phenomenal school, (except for the wireless internet, of course 🙂 ) so you aren’t making the wrong decision in any way.
Has the administration thought of withholding the PT statistics from US News? Apparently this is what Brooklyn did despite their huge PT program. In all honesty, I don’t think they (the admin) should have any reservations about doing this given that US News unfairly undervalues the PT students’ work experience and graduate degrees.
here is a hypothetical: most schools penalize applicants from certain racial groups during the admissions process. Does diversity show up on USNWR? what if a school switched to a colorblind application system? what would it do to their ranking?
lol now we attack the minorities… this thread is insane.
no need to cry racism, its a legitimate question. we’re all law students here, we can analyze situations like big boys and girls. If a school applied a colorblind standard to admissions, LSAT and GPA would likely go up. What about employment statistics? It would not be a net rankings gain for the school if employment statistics went down. I don’t know the data on affirmative action, hiring, law schools, etc.
However, I do think a top 100 school will soon announce that they are doing colorblind admissions. Either by choice or court mandate. Many people take the John Roberts view and do not believe this is racist, so I don’t think it will hurt the school in applications. I think it would hurt that law schools reputation with more progressive law firms.
The ranking might go up, but at a significant cost to other factors that are difficult to quantify.
That’s true. Discussion in my 100 person classes would really suffer from the lack of perspective. 🙂
It might help us in the USNWR rankings, but it would be at the expense of our coveted T10 Cooley ranking.
Just my two cents….
I truly think GW is a fantastic place to study law. We have top-notch faculty and an extremely accomplished student body. I seriously hope the school pays no attention to the “jettison the part-time program” threats from angry students in response to arbitrary (though admittedly powerful among law students) rankings. GW is the oldest law school in DC; we’re better than this. I know we all pay attention to these rankings, how can we not? But cutting the part-time program, though not likely to happen, is NOT a good response to this problem. I would like to see the faculty respond to this anger in some way; people who just a week ago had absolutely no feelings one way or another about evening students are suddenly full of vitriol about us, all because of US NEWS and its rankings system. This is ridiculous. I’m a LOT more worried about the employment issue and our apparently dismal statistics, which seem to be a huge factor in the rankings, and we all should be. I’ll be (pleasantly) surprised if the school administration addresses that factor, though. If part-time credentials are really dragging us down, though, then I’m all for raising admissions standards – for EVERYONE at GW.
Everyone is talking about PT scores, but ignoring employment rates. Why is GW’s rate so much lower than any other top 50 school? And why is it also lower than every other program in the DC area – including schools ranked well below it? A 92% employment rate is very worrisome to me, when everywhere else is 95% and above — to get a lower score, you have to go down to #87, Loyola Chicago.
The precipitous drop in the rankings can be attributed to a number of factors; placing blame squarely on the PT program is inconsistent with the numbers. However, the PT program certainly did affect our placement. It is worrying, however, that our employment rate is subpar compared to similar institutions — especially given our school year internships and the like.
Re: the change in methodology to include PT numbers. This decision is clearly based on the fact that our student body includes PT students; though I don’t know if the statistic is available, I would estimate that at least 1/3 of Fall 1L pt students transfer into the FT program. As such, it would appear that including these students in the rankings is only fair. I do, however, encourage USN&WR to include years of work experience prior to law school in the rankings; our admissions office more than likely includes such information in deciding admittance and so the quality of student could be more broadly defined in the ranking.
To put it quite frankly, my concern is not that the quality of our school has gone down, but rather that it will go down. Will a student admitted to both GW and BU, or GW and BC still choose GW over one of those schools. Similarly, why go to GW over Emory. The rankings, unfortunately, may be a self fulfilling prophecy. To that end, if I were choosing between a school whose employment numbers were notably less than that of other similarly ranked schools, I would not be choosing the school with lesser placement — especially in the current job market.
Students have been complaining about CDO’s honesty and forthrightness for years. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate the CDO staff; I have received consistently good advice from some counselors and consistently vague advice from others. Perhaps student reviews of CDO are in order; we should be doing all we can to improve that office.
The flip side of the coin is that perhaps the new “average LSAT” will encourage more students to apply to our school, which means a lower acceptance rate. We all know that a 162, without a mitigating factor on your application, is not getting you into GW FT, and likely not PT either. If applicants believe a 162 is good enough then guess what, we will be seeing an increase in applicants with a 160-162 which means more kids to reject. Of course, in turn, that makes GW Law “more selective”. Ah, the rankings fallacy.
Also, keep in mind that the School remains ranked in the top 10 for international law programs and the top 5 for intellectual property programs. I would also add that many things that students here value are devalued by the rankings; for example, adjunct professors are not given value by rankings whereas GW depends on them. And, to be honest, many students prefer to learn from practitioners. GW prides itself on turning out lawyers, not academics, and so learning from practitioners is perhaps more valued by the school than by the rankings.
Ultimately, the pt program is worth at least $16 million to this school. It isn’t going anywhere, and it won’t become more selective. However, the school can greatly improve the quality of the CDO and I hope proper attention is placed on CDO services in the coming years.
Here is a link to a discussion on Top Law Schools. An admitted student received a letter from GW after putting down a seat deposit; this letter is explaining the current drop in GW’s rank to #28 . . . comments???
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=69832&p=1536950#p1536950
that’s ridiculous
~GW,
Ha Ha! That was a good one! You’re kidding me, right? You must be joking.
You really think that minorities at GW are admitted with lower numbers because they are “minority” students? And you’re telling me that minority admissions are actually lowering the average GPA and LSAT at GW, thus having an effect on the USNWR Rankings? I’d really be interested in your research. In fact please post the LSAT and GPA averages that you are speaking of.
I actually believed that “minority” students are admitted to GW because they are academically qualified, or that they would be a valuable addition to the legal community. Thanks for reminding me that they are just here because GW decided to give them a leg up by specially lowering their admissions standards.
I find it interesting that there is this pervasive belief that the small percentages of minority students at GW or in law school were somehow given a lower threshold when it comes to the admissions process. The most interesting thing is that people feel comfortable projecting this belief, as if it were fact, when they possess no real numbers to back it up.
No one is “crying racism.” The only legitimate question that you posed is how, at an institution based upon an analysis of facts and rules, you were able to concoct a bullshit nonsensical baseless argument and then gather the balls to post it as if it were the truth.
I concede that diversity may be A FACTOR in law school admissions; however it is illogical to say that considering race lowers admissions standards any more than considering involvement in varsity sports or any other extra- curricular activity. It would be ludicrous to say that GW lowers its admissions standards for those involved in Speech & Debate. So why then is it fair to say that by considering diversity in admissions that GW is specially lowering its admissions requirements. I think that if you looked at the actual numbers of your minority classmates you’d be surprised.
One thing I do find interesting though is that how whenever we find ourselves in a time of difficulty we find some cohort to blame. First the part-timers, now the minority students. Whats next? Are the women lowering our admissions standards too? Maybe its the Hot Dog Cart lady? She seems a bit suspicious, right?
Well said.
Right on.
On the other hand “diversity statements” are taken into account for journal applications. I was pretty frosted to find out that I was at a disadvantage to get on a scholarly journal because I come from a white, middle class family and my parents didn’t have the decency to emotionally scar me to a degree that I had to “overcome adversity.” Just average upbringing and average emotional scarring for me. Too poor to study abroad and become a “citizen of the world” and too well off to pull myself up of the projects.
I wore pink running spikes in high school because they were on sale and that’s all my mom would buy for me. Ok, they weren’t pink. They were white with a pink swoosh. Does that count as adversity?
Damn you diversity statement, damn you!
For the journal competition, competitors were asked to optionally provide “information including, but not limited to, cultural background, nationality, personal adversity, physical or mental disability, race and ethnicity, religion, prior experience, linguistic abilities, or any other factors that may enhance the diversity of the publication.”
It’s hard to get much broader than that. I think everyone could’ve written something about themselves that is unique and relevant to being on a journal.
The point is a diversity of perspectives, not skin colors or bank accounts. No one wants an army of clones, and we are already significantly stratified by being who we are and where we are right now. The ability to set yourself apart isn’t just valuable for journal, it’s valuable for jobs and beyond. Try not to think about it in terms of “traditional” diversity and more in terms of “what do you bring to the table that’s different” diversity.
You’ll be happy to know that a recent decision means that rather than a maximum of 5 people getting a diversity bump, up to 10% of the competitors in the competition will.
Are you saying that thats a good or a bad thing?
Depends on whether you are getting the bump. 🙂
Well, the Hot Dog Cart lady does put way too much mustard on my dogs. Can the administration do something about that?
I think that GW should open their own hotdog cart, staff it with Profs, and pass the savings on to us!
It seems silly to argue the obvious, but here are some Michigan Law numbers: http://www.ceousa.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=234
Also, here is a general LSAT breakdown: http://www.lsacnet.org/research/LSAT-Performance-Regional-Gender-Racial-Ethnic-Breakdowns-1999-00-2005-06.pdf
Now, that does not mean each individual has lower test scores, but that is the problem–all are assumed to have lower scores.
So the “obvious” that you speak of is that on average, minorities score lower on the LSAT than whites. I get it.
But I don’t see how posting a general breakdown of LSAT scores by race, and an ethnic breakdown of admitted students from another school (albeit higher ranked school)relates to a lowering of GWs lower ranking.
It seems that the prior argument was that a jettison of minority students would equate to an instant increase in USNWR rankings. Please connect.
If you will assume the GW breakdown is similar to Michigan’s (this seems like a safe assumption), the connection is that the LSAT & GPA numbers will go up. Because LSAT & GPA play a big role in the rankings, the ranking should go up if the change is significant. But without actual numbers there is no way to know how much of a difference it would make. Even so, there is no merit to arguing it would not change 25/75/average LSAT & GPA scores. The better argument is Adam’s above.
I am not contesting the accuracy of the argument. I am speaking more to the validity of the proposal. Simply put, the argument is a slippery slope.
I’d bet that if you pay a statistician to run regressions for an infinite amount of sub-classes, he will find that there are an infinite amount of groups who’s score is on average less than the mean. For example, I assume that geographical diversity is of importance to GW, and that assumption would lead me to believe that students on the west coast may arguably have lower numbers.
I’d bet if admission to GW was limited to white males, from a protestant background, with a household income of $200,000+ the 25/75 LSAT & GPA numbers would surely increase. Heck, get rid of personal statements, you’d get the same results. I’m sure there are some who would love to attend such an institution but it still does not make it a valid solution.
The key to my statements are to think broader. The minority argument is low hanging fruit. Minorities score lower on standardized tests for reasons which are valid and beyond the scope of this conversation. So do applicants with families, and non-traditional students who have had a career prior to entering law school. If we have the least bit of sense, we all know the contributions that these students make to a diverse and well rounded community—contributions that cannot be recognized by a moving averages chart.
Don’t fall victim to a Sean Hannity sound bite, or the paradoxical beliefs of the Ward Connolly’s of the world. There are schools ranked much higher than GW with a larger minority student population. Minority students are not the problem here, and lowering the number of minority students at GW is certainly not the solution.
Glad I stumbled into this article! Finally, got what I was looking for to put on my school report… Thanks for sharing this