2013 Rankings Forum

[lessthanjake]

Yale will always be the top school, barring seismic methodological changes, for the same reason that Irvine is going to be a top 30 school despite having a largely non-existent reputation to date: US News severely advantages small schools, with small class sizes and high faculty-student ratios.

Small schools DO get a big help in the USNWR rankings. If you're small, you have a lower student/faculty ratio and a lower acceptance rate, both helping the rankings. However, it's unclear to me whether that's a real problem with the rankings. Smaller classes tend to do better than expected in things like clerkships and academia. We can look at just the top few schools to see this. Yale is undoubtedly an incredible law school, but I truly doubt they'd be getting SUCH a higher percentage of their class into Article III clerkships and academia than Harvard if they weren't like a third of the size. Similarly, I don't think Stanford would have similar clerkship and academia percentages as Harvard if they weren't so small. Lastly, Chicago does the best in academia amongst the CCN group, likely because it is small. Small classes mean more interaction with faculty which likely means faculty pulling for the student more for things like clerkships and academia. This is a real advantage that just isn't reflected in the peer assessment and lawyer rankings.

[t14fanboy]

What in the world does small school size have to do with low acceptance rate? Shitty schools have high acceptance rates and low yields.

[dingbat]

Lastly, Chicago does the best in academia amongst the CCN group, likely because it is small.

I just figured it's because students at Columbia and NYU are mostly there because they're gunning for NY Biglaw
I guess I was wrong.

[005618502]

Just glancing at UCI's LSN for this year so far, it doesn't seem like their numbers will be up to par with the schools in the t20 or even with their numbers from previous years. Numbers wise, UCI seems more in range with schools at the bottom of the t30. Of course, this could all change based on their initial ranking. By the way, have we determined that it will definitely be ranked this year? I'm now insanely curious as to what that ranking will be, especially considering it's one of my better offers this cycle.

It is very unlikely they will be ranked this cycle. I think people are saying it will be another year before they are ranked

[bernaldiaz]

Shouldn't they be out very soon?

[Tiago Splitter]

Shouldn't they be out very soon?

March 13th.

[lessthanjake]

What in the world does small school size have to do with low acceptance rate? Shitty schools have high acceptance rates and low yields.

All things being equal, a school will have a lower acceptance rate if it is filling a smaller class. Imagine if Harvard randomly decided to cut their class size in half. They'd have to accept half as many people to fill their class. Do you think they'd get half as many applications too? Of course not. The acceptance rate would just go down.

I just figured it's because students at Columbia and NYU are mostly there because they're gunning for NY Biglaw
I guess I was wrong.

I don't know if this is sarcasm, but you are right, there probably is some element of self-selection determining why Columbia/NYU do worse than Chicago in academia, but I truly think the small class size plays a part.

[dingbat]

What in the world does small school size have to do with low acceptance rate? Shitty schools have high acceptance rates and low yields.

All things being equal, a school will have a lower acceptance rate if it is filling a smaller class. Imagine if Harvard randomly decided to cut their class size in half. They'd have to accept half as many people to fill their class. Do you think they'd get half as many applications too? Of course not. The acceptance rate would just go down.

I just figured it's because students at Columbia and NYU are mostly there because they're gunning for NY Biglaw
I guess I was wrong.

I don't know if this is sarcasm, but you are right, there probably is some element of self-selection determining why Columbia/NYU do worse than Chicago in academia, but I truly think the small class size plays a part.

I love your logic (inference) Unfortunately it doesn't account for the TTTTs that have very small class sizes, or the fact that half the T6 have ginormous classes. Do you think that if Cooleys were to cut their class by 75%, they would suddenly shoot up the rankings?
I can see an argument made the other way, but if a school like Chicago were to gradually increase their class size (over many years) I doubt they'd experience any significant drop, if any.

[bk1]

I can see an argument made the other way, but if a school like Chicago were to gradually increase their class size (over many years) I doubt they'd experience any significant drop, if any.

Well it depends. As it stands right now, the disparities in USNWR raw scores among the T14 are mainly function of per student spending. If Chicago could ramp up spending accordingly then yeah they'd be fine, but if spending stayed static they likely wouldn't.

[Case2L]

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... w-rankings

Looks like they're up now. Texas is officially T14.

[Bronck]

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... w-rankings

Looks like they're up now. Texas is officially T14.

Lol what? Those are the old ones. It even says "Ranked in 2011" at the top.

[83947368]

.

[5ky]

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... w-rankings

Looks like they're up now. Texas is officially T14.

Those are last year's, chief

[cdelgado]

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... w-rankings

Looks like they're up now. Texas is officially T14.

[Case2L]

Damn - I guess I didn't even look at last year's rankings! I had no idea Texas was in the top 14! I've been out of law school for a few years, so I quit paying attention.

[Case2L]

US News will now have to stop the presses and drop Case a few points for my comment...

[071816]

I can see an argument made the other way, but if a school like Chicago were to gradually increase their class size (over many years) I doubt they'd experience any significant drop, if any.

Well it depends. As it stands right now, the disparities in USNWR raw scores among the T14 are mainly function of per student spending. If Chicago could ramp up spending accordingly then yeah they'd be fine, but if spending stayed static they likely wouldn't.

Its so retarded that usnews rewards schools for being inefficient with their spending.

Hold up. Are you a mod now?

[junm]

Tag... Hoping to see GW go up

[traehekat]

Dropping in for the annual "fluctuations in rankings don't matter because employers don't care about them" post.

Although, I am a LITTLE curious to see what happens to Illinois after that whole admissions data scandal.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

The $$$ per student has got to be the worst part about USNEWS. No single factor has contributed more to the rising cost of a JD, and thus the crushing debt.

[lessthanjake]

What in the world does small school size have to do with low acceptance rate? Shitty schools have high acceptance rates and low yields.

All things being equal, a school will have a lower acceptance rate if it is filling a smaller class. Imagine if Harvard randomly decided to cut their class size in half. They'd have to accept half as many people to fill their class. Do you think they'd get half as many applications too? Of course not. The acceptance rate would just go down.

I just figured it's because students at Columbia and NYU are mostly there because they're gunning for NY Biglaw
I guess I was wrong.

I don't know if this is sarcasm, but you are right, there probably is some element of self-selection determining why Columbia/NYU do worse than Chicago in academia, but I truly think the small class size plays a part.

I love your logic (inference) Unfortunately it doesn't account for the TTTTs that have very small class sizes, or the fact that half the T6 have ginormous classes. Do you think that if Cooleys were to cut their class by 75%, they would suddenly shoot up the rankings?
I can see an argument made the other way, but if a school like Chicago were to gradually increase their class size (over many years) I doubt they'd experience any significant drop, if any.

The things that are helped by small class size (acceptance rate, spending per student, student/faculty ratio) account for only 16.75% of the ranking. If Cooley cut their class by 75%, they'd definitely get higher scores in those things, but the fact that those three things do not comprise a massive part of the ranking would stop them from shooting up the rankings very much; their reputation scores and job numbers would still be bad.

And half the T6 have big classes, but they're ranked highly because of massive reputation and employment scores. They don't do badly in acceptance rate, student/faculty ratio, and spending because they are big schools with a lot of resources that many kids apply to, but that's why I said "all things being equal." A big class size won't make a fantastic school get a low ranking, but it could leave it behind a school of similar quality with a smaller class.

If Chicago increased their class size gradually, I don't think there would be a significant drop. If they were able to hire some more faculty and ramp up their spending alongside the increasing class size, then they'd likely be fine. They'd likely end up with a slightly higher student/faculty ratio and a bit less spending person student. Meanwhile a bigger class WOULD lower their acceptance rate, and I personally think they'd find it hard to keep their LSAT/GPA medians steady with a significantly bigger class, even if it were done gradually. As such, I imagine it might hurt them a little bit (but in the possibly going 5th -> 6th sorta way, not a dramatic way). I do think their academia numbers would start to look significantly worse though.

[flyingduck]

Not sure if it's been posted but theres a countdown clock on the US News website. I guess the rankings come out on Thursday.

[bobbyh1919]

Not sure if it's been posted but theres a countdown clock on the US News website. I guess the rankings come out on Thursday.

Yeah that countdown suggests around midnight on Thursday. Wonder if they moved it back or if people were just throwing around an inaccurate date.

[Tiago Splitter]

Not sure if it's been posted but theres a countdown clock on the US News website. I guess the rankings come out on Thursday.

Yeah that countdown suggests around midnight on Thursday. Wonder if they moved it back or if people were just throwing around an inaccurate date.

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... h-march-13

[pret]

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-gr ... aw-schools

1. Columbia University (NY)
2. Harvard University (MA)
3. New York University
4. Stanford University (CA)
5. University of California--Berkeley
6. University of Chicago
7. University of Michigan--Ann Arbor
8. University of Pennsylvania
9. University of Virginia
10. Yale University (CT)

ABC order of the top 10!