What Do the Rankings Really Mean? Part 1

You and I, we’re Carnegie Mellon students, and that means we know rankings. We love rankings almost as much as we hate rankings. We particularly like our ranking, and we’d be very sad to settle for anything less than something US News and World Report approved. But when it comes to law school, should a school’s ranking be the primary factor in determining whether it’s right for a wonderful and talented CMU alum like you?

I would be lying if I said that rankings didn’t matter, because they do matter. To me. To you. To law schools. To the guy or gal who will decide whether or not to give you a job. However, it is important to understand that rankings are not the ONLY thing that matter to your law school search. And it’s important to understand them.

Have you ever taken the time to read US News and World Reports’ Methodology for law school rankings? Here’s are some Cliffnotes: 40% of any ranking is a “Quality Assessment by law school officials (specifically: “law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments, and the most recently tenured faculty members”) and prominent legal professionals. They rate peer institutions on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being “outstanding,” and they are given a “don’t know” option. 25% is made up of a school’s “Selectivity,” or computations of a school’s median LSAT, median undergrad GPA, and acceptance rate. Yet another 20% is based on a school’s “Placement Rate,” which factors in Employment Rates for Graduates (taken at graduation and again 9 months later) and Bar Passage. Finally, there are other smaller factors like Faculty Resources, Expenditures per Student, Library Resources, and Student/Faculty Ratio.

Many of these factors make sense as far as statistical analysis goes, but since we are all aspiring lawyers here, it’s important to point out some logical flaws. Perhaps number one of these is: Where’s the student’s opinion? Without it, we cannot know the quality of professors or student satisfaction with job prospects. And not only are students not directly involved in the methodology, but they are actively hurt by the system it creates. For example, the rankings are designed such that a school can improve its own ranking by admitting only students with the best GPAs and the best LSAT scores. This makes law school more competitive for you and me (sigh…) and leaves less room for schools to admit well-rounded students with a low score but high potential.

Some other less-than-honest ways the system can be worked include the ability of law school officials to vote down other schools in order to increase their own standing and the potential for law schools to offer stipends to students still searching for jobs to increase their employment rates (which we mentioned in a previous blog post). You can find a circa 1998 legitimate analysis of the US News and World Report methodology here.

Despite these possible pitfalls to the US News and World Report system, the value that law firms place on these rankings is not going to go away by the time we receive our acceptance offers. Currently, there is no better alternative (despite what many slighted applicants may write on their blogs), and it’s hard to dismiss US News and World Report’s methodology when it is the best on the block. So what should we do? What percent of our decision should be made up by the rankings? Tune in next week to find out…