Chicago has great rep scores and pretty damn good student numbers, but if they want to increase those numbers, yield, and selectivity they need only spend a few million dollars once. Chicago is a small class so if they want to raise their medians getting maybe two or three dozen kids who might otherwise go to columbia, nyu, harvard could make a huge difference. basically, i'm suggesting that for one year chicago offer maybe 50 or so kids 150k fellowships and free housing. if they did that they could quite possibly move up to the 4 spot in just one year. after that they wouldn't really need to do it again as the rankings are pretty self-perpetuating, especially for a school like chicago that with its rep scores and faculty makes sense that high anyways. So a big fellowship push to raise their gpa median to 3.8 and lsat to 172 or 173 and then they'd just probably be able to keep those numbers naturally (kids follow the rankings, especially for a school like chicago that many people love but don't choose because of its lower rank than cnh). Chicago's academic ratings by leiter are higher than columbia, stanford, harvard, and nyu so if they could manage to push up their student number artificially for one year they really could permanently move much higher.
I imagine not many student admitted to columbia would go there if chicago offered them full tuition and free housing for 3 years. that, with the much lower cost of living in chicago, higher scholarly rating, and equal job prospects, equals a $250,000 savings with equal or better education and same prestige and job opportunities. I imagine they'd even be able to pull in a dozen or so hls kids, especially those interested in legal academia. Chicago alums give tons of money recently. In past few years several 100 million + donations, one for a giant glass dome underground library with a robotic arm librarian... If I were a Chicago law alum with several million to donate I'd just give them like 7 or 8 million and ask that they make themselves a top 4 school. hell for 20 million they could be top 3 again.

the natural response might be that its a frivolous use of so much money, but really its pretty clear that usnwr ranking (even difference of 2 or 3 spots) effects the school's overall reputation, which has many profound effect on the school overall.
but one issue is that it would just cause other schools to throw money around in defense and would just end up costing everyone a lot of money for no net effect.

Benito, Benito. You restate your entire argument like four times in this passage. Anyway, don't you think Chicago's aware of the possibility of using scholarship money to raise their numbers?

It's not the only school whose reputation score seems to a bit of above its ranking peers. I think schools may be hesitant to do this sort of thing overtly as they don't want to start a whoring race. It's not as if any school in t-14 is lacking for endowment or would have to be concerned about spending a few million.

The other issue may be reputation itself. It doesn't take long on this board to see people shit on NYU and Penn for gaming the rankings. Law, in case you didn't notice, is a pretty conservative profession. It's also a prestige whoring profession. Part of prestige, particularly for the conservative, is the notion that you don't even have to try for your greatness. Trying is so neuvo-riche. I'm joking of course, and overall a few USNWR rankings might be worth the whoring label, but it's still a cost.

yes, but the basic approach is wrong. chicago, like other schools, focus on using small scholarships to a small number of students every year to attract a few borderline kids. the idea here is to spend an enormous amount of money one year to attract a very large number of students (up to a quarter of the class) that otherwise would have gone to cls/hls. Chicago currently system is using 30k to lure some kids that are basically within their current range away from penn, michigan, nyu, cls. the idea here is offer kids with a 176 and 3.85 200k. thats quite different than how any school's approach scholarships. i'm not suggesting "use scholarships to raise medians" i'm suggesting use a one-time only insane burst of scholarships to radically boost numbers and cement a permanent higher ranking.

given that chicago has a reputation for being painfully indifferent to the rankings and unconcerned with reputation they have some wiggle room.
i thought about the arms race scenario but basically chicago is in a unique position. this fellowship burst only really works if the only real thing holding a school back from a higher ranking and drawing students with higher numbers is its ranking. for chicago ('where fun comes to die' aside) that seems to be the case. i don't really see many other schools having an equal benefit from this. i don't think there are a whole lot of students that really prefer cn but go to hls or sls because of rank; however, there are quite a lot of students who like chicago a lot and want a more scholarly angle but don't go because of rank. that element needs to be there. otherwise a school would need to keep paying the money every year.

From my impressions of it (almost went there last year) Chicago is just not that interested in gaming the rankings. If all they cared about was rankings, they don't have to entice people with scholarships... all they have to do is start accepting everyone that applies over certain numbers and rejecting everyone below - which they do not currently do.

Believe it or not, schools actually DO believe in holistic admissions every now and then.

Also, they would be devaluing their education by giving out full tuition + stipend. They are definitely not that much worse than HYS. And no t14s offer stipends, so they'd almost be saying they're worse than all of them too!

But then we would all win!!

If Chicago decided to do this, they will conclusively suck ass. A truly prestigious school isn't dictated by a sub-par magazine.

Chicago law school is and probably always will be known as a kick-ass law school, even if their rankings fell to 17. Kind of like NYU being known as a reputable undergraduate / graduate school, even though their USNWR rankings are quite low.

You can talk about NYU--but trying to bump Columbia is Sissyphian.

I agree, this one-time effect doesn't help much since NYU, Columbia, Berkeley etc could just do the same. It would be like gas companies trying to get more business by reducing their prices. Their competitors would just do the same, and only the consumer (student) would be better off.

In response to OP:

1) Have you BEEN to Hyde Park? It's always amazed me how my alma mater continues to rank #7-8 in the THES world university rankings when it is located in one of the worst locations in the United States. When it comes to law, I think a lot of people weigh NYU, Columbia, and even Stanford closely with Chicago, but when they VISIT, Chicago gets put at the bottom because of its location. Unfortunate, but true.

2) You are definitely no economist . I think it's funny when Adcoms and people like us write these "grand plans" for bringing a school up in the rankings. For some schools, significant movement is possible, but for like 99 percent of them, not really. That's because schools are already maximizing their gains given the formulas, chances to "game" the rankings, etc. Basically, if it is possible for a school to maximize their ranking today, this school has already considered their options to do so yesterday (all else equal). True, NYU ascended the rankings in the 1970s onward (from being regarded a top 50! to being regarded a top 6), and true, Northwestern has seen a steady climb, but according to this theory of "ranking maximizing", this is because these two schools were operating at a level well below their potential. Over time, we see a logarithmic relationship between ranking (y-axis) and time (x-axis), where improvement in school admissions, facilities, etc. can only bring decreasingly marginal improvements to a school's ranking over time. What's more, EVERY school can be modeled on their OWN logarithmic improvement chart, such that any marginal improvement to a particular school will be offset by the improvements taking place at all of the others (hence why there is not much "over-taking" taking place at the top rankings anymore).

If none of that makes sense, then think of it this way: In order for Chicago to jump in the rankings, they'll have to bump (or tie) with NYU/Stanford. What makes you think that today Chicago is not already maximizing its ranking given its current options? Furthermore, what makes you think NYU/Stanford is currently over-ranked given the many variables that go into ranking a school? One of these two conditions would need to hold in order for your proposal to be correct. For many decades now, there has been remarkable stability among the very top schools. Due to "feedback loops", this stability should only continue to increase with time.

-HL

Or, U of C could just move out of the terrible neighborhood it's in, flatten the grading curve, and stop the gladiator-style point based grades. Then maybe qualified students would pick it over it's peers, and it wouldn't have to "game" the system.

I see no reason why UChicago should want to game the rankings. They have no trouble filling their small class size, and there is no doubt that their students are intelligent, capable, and successful. Chicago places very well into biglaw and clerkships. From my perspective it doesn't seem that Chicago's ranking is doing it much harm.

No doubt, anyone should be happy with a UC degree. But Benito's UC trolling needs a little counter-pressure.

Hey Chicago, if you're reading this, just want you to know I'd take the money!

They tried this in the 1970s. They looked at moving to California and Colorado. No one would lease the buildings in Hyde Park, so they stayed. True story.

-HL

In addition to the things said by the above posters, I just wanted to add that we don't really WANT many of the students that end up at NYU and Columbia. There are a lot of students that chose Chicago over the NY schools because of the unique environment and academic culture here, and just as many (if not more) that ruled out Chicago for the same reasons. I'm pretty sure UofC is OK with being a couple ranks lower if it means preserving its style of teaching and learning that it's famous for.

This whole thread is pointless. A few years, Harvard could've had medians of 4.0 and 180 and not passed Yale. Student quality really doesn't factor in as much as you think, and the difference between a 171 median and a 173 median is a very small z-score difference. Chicago would be better served increasing their expenditures per student with the money, and they could probably pass NYU, untie with Berkeley, and maybe get up with Columbia if they did. Of course, they'd then have to spend an equal amount the next year to maintain the same expenditures score, so it would all go to waste the next year.

Also, Chicago was already 2nd in the 80s and 90s and fell back. So the rankings aren't entirely self-perpetuating. However, ivy-league brand names like Harvard are, and thus I doubt many people would ever choose Chicago over Harvard all these things equal.

Also--UChicago doesn't have better "academic" rankings, unless you mean faculty rankings by citations.

Okay, so a ridiculous third post, but I want to +1 the person who said that UC already has a very capable student body. I just got a PM from a current UC student saying that the school announced they'd placed 72% of their 2Ls last year (class of 2010) into V50 firms. I think Chicago is very reasonably unconcerned with ranking as long as they maintain those numbers.

University of Chicago and it's graduate schools are all highly self selecting. No one goes there because of scholarship money really. They go there for Chicago's academic environment. Handing out money to Harvard A types isn't in the schools interest.

This seems like TCR to me.

I have a lot of respect of UoC law, but this statement is highly suspect. I'd be interested to find out what percentage of people attending were accepted to HYS and turned it down so that they could be in Chi's academic environment. I'd be willing to bet that it's not significantly different from Columbia.

first of all, hyde park is awesome. one of my favorite urban neighbourhoods in the world (I say that as a native new yorker who has lived in london, san francisco, paris and berlin). south of the midway is a shithole though. the atmosphere at uchicago is, for me, its biggest draw.
anyways, the idea that chicago is self-selecting and there aren't students at hysc that would be good fits but choose higher ranked schools is total bs. i mean, that's just a total fantasy. how many 175+/3.8+ combos matriculate at chicago every year... very few. Its because they are going to hys. Is there some magic rule by which kids who'd fit in well at chicago cannot have a gpa over 3.8 and an lsat over 175 at the same time?
also, lets be honest here. usnwr rankings aren't just some meaningless drivel. sure they are a joke but they also have a huge material effect on schools. chicago is an amazing law school but being ranked 4th or 3rd in usnwr would not just be aesthetic.
oh and, uh, trust me. uchicago kids and professors are OBSESSED with being under-appreciated. they never stop talking about it. I worked at uchicago press for a year after undergrad so I got a lot of exposure to this.
thirdly, its just not true that this technique could be used by other schools like berkley, cls, nyu. it only works for schools that have many students who might prefer it if not for lower rank. there are likely a whole bunch of kids at schools 5-2 that would choose chicago over where they are now if it were ranked higher. likely not the case for any other school in t-14.
finally, moving to a 3.85 median and a 173 lsat median would have a strong effect on rankings, esp as it would increase yield and selectivity.
let's stop going on and on about how chicago kids don't care about money and rankings. we are talking about a law school not a convent. its not a doctoral program and chicago students aren't kabala masters. they are almost all aiming for corporate law firms and are almost all attending the highest ranked school (or second highest) they were admitted to.

also, please drop all this nonsense about how everyone who would or should go to chicago walks on water and doesn't care about money, rank, etc. its ridiculous and totally untrue.