Regional Bias in US News ranking

[colorando]

I imagine this has been touched on before... but I was wondering if anyone could comment

I'm looking at the rankings and I see that UC Davis is ranked significantly higher than UC Boulder and based on their stats I don't see any real reason for this. I guess I should also note that I understand that after the T14 the distinctions get fuzzier, but there seems to be a fairly clear downward trend of GPA and LSAT as you move down the list.

I'm looking at schools in the West, so obviously I'm showing my own bias in interpreting the rankings, but it seems to me that Boulder gets an unfair shake. On Law School predictor it seems to be significantly harder to gain admission into than its peers.

Is the California factor huge? The fact that Colorado, and the rocky mtn west in general have fewer of the big money oppurtunities that many law students gun for.

Another thing. Although they are closer this year in the rankings, University of Washington vs Boulder. Again their admisssions #'s are almost identical but last year Washington was 30 and CU was 45.

Again I know that regionally the distinctions aren't important but when considering where to go I'd like to attend a school that opens as many doors as possible and a 40 year old law school in a cow town in Cali ranking much higher than one with a former Supreme court justice and nationally ranked programs just doesn't add up

[Grizz]

The question you should be asking: Does the difference in rankings matter?

Answer: No.

[Law Sauce]

US News uses a lot more criteria than just Lsat and Gpa

Also CU is harder to get into cause its the best school in the region and UC Davis is the 4th best in its region. Also because UC Davis has spent more money gaming the rankings