UVA eliminates/extends ED deadline

[democrattotheend]

Agreed - it's like a binding version of Duke's PT.

This is definitely not fair to me - I've been waiting for over 3 months for a decision. My stats are above their 75ths but it's one of my top choices and I haven't heard anything. I would ED, but I really need $$$ to select them over some of my acceptances. Do you think late EDs have any shot at good scholarship $$$? Will this hurt RD applicants waiting for a decision?

Really? Argh, that makes me worried that my status checker might be a mistake. My LSAT was above 75th but my GPA was very slightly below median and they accepted me via status checker 2 days after getting my LSAT score. It says they sent something via regular mail but so far nothing has arrived, and it seems like most other people who got in got a phone call or e-mail.

Has anyone else had their status checker updated to Congratulations without getting a call or e-mail?

[Stringer Bell]

I don't get it. Is this a splitter-friendly decision? More fuel for my Feb. LSAT at the very least (even though UVA doesn't take sub3.0's, it's nice to dream; why can't Northwestern do this ).

Yep, this is splitter friendly. I think a couple of 2.9s may have already gotten in ED this cycle. Knock out a 171+ and you may have a shot.

[kurama20]

The results of lawyer/judge surveys (with their ~30% response rate) collected by a second rate news magazine probably isn't the best crutch to keep leaning on when trying to prove legal prestige.

With the number of people who fill them out, and their consistency it's fine. What' even worse to use to prove legal prestige is LSAT/GPA ratios--which most lawyers have no idea what they currently are, and don't care. The peer scores collected by this second rate magazine maybe even worse considering how unstable they are outside of HYS, and considering that the people filling them out will never be hiring you unless you go into academia. Basically whoever hired "insert random legal scholar" last year suddenly jumps up by .2 in a year. Besides the lawyer/judge scores align pretty closely with the employment stats.

[Helmholtz]

The results of lawyer/judge surveys (with their ~30% response rate) collected by a second rate news magazine probably isn't the best crutch to keep leaning on when trying to prove legal prestige.

With the number of people who fill them out, and their consistency it's fine. What' even worse to use to prove legal prestige is LSAT/GPA ratios--which most lawyers have no idea what they currently are, and don't care. The peer scores maybe even worse considering how unstable they are outside of HYS, and considering that the people filling them out will never be hiring you unless you go into academia. Basically whoever hired "insert random legal scholar" last year suddenly jumps up by .2 in a year. Besides the lawyer/judge scores align pretty closely with the employment stats.

Look, dude, there's a reason that the people giving out the surveys and measuring the results (USNWR) chooses to place nearly double the weight on peer assessment scores. And how do you know how many people fill them out? A 30% response rate can account for a hell of a lot of self-selection. Also, the lawyer/judge assessment scores are averaged out over multiple years, that's why you don't see as much movement as you do with the peer assessment scores. With the response rate they get, I wouldn't be surprised if they were jumping all over the place, maybe this is why USNWR does a multiple year average for these assessments.

[Space_Cowboy]

The results of lawyer/judge surveys (with their ~30% response rate) collected by a second rate news magazine probably isn't the best crutch to keep leaning on when trying to prove legal prestige.

With the number of people who fill them out, and their consistency it's fine. What' even worse to use to prove legal prestige is LSAT/GPA ratios--which most lawyers have no idea what they currently are, and don't care. The peer scores collected by this second rate magazine maybe even worse considering how unstable they are outside of HYS, and considering that the people filling them out will never be hiring you unless you go into academia. Basically whoever hired "insert random legal scholar" last year suddenly jumps up by .2 in a year. Besides the lawyer/judge scores align pretty closely with the employment stats.

I think you're looking at LSAT/GPA wrong way. Its just like peer or lawyer scores. Its simply a poll of student preference. Students with better numbers have more options on what schools to attend and by looking at where they end up, you have a picture of what the most desirable schools are.

[hopefulincal]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

[kurama20]

The results of lawyer/judge surveys (with their ~30% response rate) collected by a second rate news magazine probably isn't the best crutch to keep leaning on when trying to prove legal prestige.

With the number of people who fill them out, and their consistency it's fine. What' even worse to use to prove legal prestige is LSAT/GPA ratios--which most lawyers have no idea what they currently are, and don't care. The peer scores maybe even worse considering how unstable they are outside of HYS, and considering that the people filling them out will never be hiring you unless you go into academia. Basically whoever hired "insert random legal scholar" last year suddenly jumps up by .2 in a year. Besides the lawyer/judge scores align pretty closely with the employment stats.

Look, dude, there's a reason that the people giving out the surveys and measuring the results (USNWR) chooses to place nearly double the weight on peer assessment scores. And how do you know how many people fill them out? A 30% response rate can account for a hell of a lot of self-selection. Also, the lawyer/judge assessment scores are averaged out over multiple years, that's why you don't see as much movement as you do with the peer assessment scores.

A large part of the reason they do that is because they are an academic focused magazine, and more importantly to sell magazines. Notice how they do the same thing for the MBA rankings (which if you think about it is even more absurd than doing it with the law rankings) as well. And honestly the fact that they place double the weight on people's opinions who will never be hiring 98 percent of the schools graduates, as opposed to the people who will be hiring almost ALL of a school's graduates, is probably the biggest sign that US News really isn't as great as people think it is.

If you notice US News puts the most weight in their rankings on metrics that can fluctuate literally year to year. There is a reason for this--they want and need to sell magazines. It's no accident that peer score, LSAT/GPA, faculty expenditures, selectivity, and even what the school spends on the library are worth much much more than the lawyer/judge scores. The truth is that real world legal prestige is something that stays the way it is for ages. This is bad for rankings magazine business. US News simply cannot afford to make legal prestige and employment prospects worth most of the rankings (that's why those two factors are not the most heavily weighed).

[kurama20]

The results of lawyer/judge surveys (with their ~30% response rate) collected by a second rate news magazine probably isn't the best crutch to keep leaning on when trying to prove legal prestige.

With the number of people who fill them out, and their consistency it's fine. What' even worse to use to prove legal prestige is LSAT/GPA ratios--which most lawyers have no idea what they currently are, and don't care. The peer scores collected by this second rate magazine maybe even worse considering how unstable they are outside of HYS, and considering that the people filling them out will never be hiring you unless you go into academia. Basically whoever hired "insert random legal scholar" last year suddenly jumps up by .2 in a year. Besides the lawyer/judge scores align pretty closely with the employment stats.

I think you're looking at LSAT/GPA wrong way. Its just like peer or lawyer scores. Its simply a poll of student preference. Students with better numbers have more options on what schools to attend and by looking at where they end up, you have a picture of what the most desirable schools are.

That's the problem I'm not worried about the student's preferences, I'm worried about the people who will be hiring me and what their preference is. Student's preferences (and hence LSAT/GPA ratios) are heavily affected by things like location. For example students heavily prefer NYU to Michigan, UVA, and Boalt because of it's location. However, law firms don't. When they are picking between a grad of these three schools they are going to go by that persons' resume and grades, not the school (the region that the student is trying to get the job will affect them as well).

[Space_Cowboy]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

[NayBoer]

"The reputation ratings are all that matter! My school is undervalued by USNWR including unfair considerations!" - UVA admit

"The reputation ratings don't matter at all! My school is undervalued by USNWR including unfair considerations!" - NU admit


Personally, I think the reputation scores are awfully subjective and very regional. If we're going to pick something with real-world impact, I'd rather it be more directly connected to acquiring a job. I don't have a suggestion for how to do that and something like the NLJ250 seems inadequate.

But I think asking busy professors, judges and attorneys to fill out the reputation survey is equivalent to asking them "based on your misremembered prejudices from 30 years ago when you went to law school and on the most recent USNWR rankings you looked up two minutes before taking this survey, how would you rate these schools?" Just really subjective.

But I'll admit I'm biased because without prac and prof reputation, NU would be somewhere at or below CCN and at or above BMVP.

[CE2JD]

[hopefulincal]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Median: 3.6, 167

Splitter 1: 3.2, 172
Splitter 2: 3.9, 163

Admit Splitter 1: Median becomes 3.55, 167.5
Admit Splitter 2: Median becomes 3.65, 166.5

[Stringer Bell]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

Consider these 2 schools with an enrollment of 3 people

School A
2.5 175
3.9 155
3.88 173

School B
3.6 172
3.8 170
3.7 171

[NayBoer]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Median: 3.6, 167

Splitter 1: 3.2, 172
Splitter 2: 3.9, 163

Admit Splitter 1: Median becomes 3.55, 167.5
Admit Splitter 2: Median becomes 3.65, 166.5

You're doing means, which is the total divided by the number of inputs. Median has to be a specific sample, the item where the number of inputs above and below are the same.

So in your example, the medians stay the same because the number above and the number below counter balance. [Edit - If you admit both 1 and 2. And most schools admit a splitter and reverse splitter together.]

Put the list in Excel and use the median calc function if you don't believe me.

[im_blue]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Median: 3.6, 167

Splitter 1: 3.2, 172
Splitter 2: 3.9, 163

Admit Splitter 1: Median becomes 3.55, 167.5
Admit Splitter 2: Median becomes 3.65, 166.5

This simple example doesn't apply to UVA's class of ~370 students. For example, there are ~90 students in the 25th-50th percentile range of 3.54-3.85. Even if you assume a uniform distribution within this range (which it's not - there are many 3.85 GPAs clustered around the median), that would be 3 students for every 0.01 interval, which means that taking 3 below-median GPA splitters would move the GPA median by at most 0.01. Of course, you could easily compensate for that by taking 3 above-median GPA / below-median LSAT splitters.

[hopefulincal]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Median: 3.6, 167

Splitter 1: 3.2, 172
Splitter 2: 3.9, 163

Admit Splitter 1: Median becomes 3.55, 167.5
Admit Splitter 2: Median becomes 3.65, 166.5

You're doing means, which is the total divided by the number of inputs. Median has to be a specific sample, the item where the number of inputs above and below are the same.

So in your example, the medians stay the same because the number above and the number below counter balance. [Edit - If you admit both 1 and 2. And most schools admit a splitter and reverse splitter together.]

Put the list in Excel and use the median calc function if you don't believe me.

To calculate the median when the list has even number of numbers, you need to average the middle 2.

[rundoxierun]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Median: 3.6, 167

Splitter 1: 3.2, 172
Splitter 2: 3.9, 163

Admit Splitter 1: Median becomes 3.55, 167.5
Admit Splitter 2: Median becomes 3.65, 166.5

how bout this 3.1, 3.1, 3.5, 3.5, 3.7, 3.8, 3.8, 3.8, 3.9, 3.9, 3.8, 4.0, 3.8, 4.0, 3.8
165, 167, 170, 171, 171, 172, 166, 168, 169, 165, 167, 167, 163, 161, 175
Spliter 1: 2.8, 177
Splitter 2: 3.9 168

EDIT: and yes I put the numbers out of order to make you work hard

[NayBoer]

To calculate the median when the list has even number of numbers, you need to average the middle 2.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't read your hypothetical where only one splitter or the other was included. Normally it does not work this way. Schools like to pull splitters and reverse-splitters together. This was most apparent in the Northwestern WL thread around June and July.

So I don't think it's relevant to analyze admitting only one when schools use the pair strategy to protect their medians.

[hopefulincal]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

Consider these 2 schools with an enrollment of 3 people

School A
2.5 175
3.9 155
3.88 173

School B
3.6 172
3.8 170
3.7 171

Your 3.88 173 student in School A is better than all students in School B. That means School A is better than School B to begin with.

[kurama20]

"The reputation ratings are all that matter! My school is undervalued by USNWR including unfair considerations!" - UVA admit

"The reputation ratings don't matter at all! My school is undervalued by USNWR including unfair considerations!" - NU admit


Personally, I think the reputation scores are awfully subjective and very regional. If we're going to pick something with real-world impact, I'd rather it be more directly connected to acquiring a job. I don't have a suggestion for how to do that and something like the NLJ250 seems inadequate.

But I think asking busy professors, judges and attorneys to fill out the reputation survey is equivalent to asking them "based on your misremembered prejudices from 30 years ago when you went to law school and on the most recent USNWR rankings you looked up two minutes before taking this survey, how would you rate these schools?" Just really subjective.

But I'll admit I'm biased because without prac and prof reputation, NU would be somewhere at or below CCN and at or above BMVP.

I see your point. But the reality is that these people and their "biases" are the one's hiring you. Not those of us who worship US News and consider jumps in LSAT/GPA ratio along with the hottest new faculty as the best way of estimating employment prospects. Besides there is a reason HYS have always had higher lawyer/judge scores than the school's below them. Do people want to start saying that that's silly because of lawyer's "biases"? Besides I sure care a lot more about the people who will be hiring me and their biases than I do 0L's biases (LSAT/GPA ratio, location, top faculty hiring).

[GeePee]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

No. We remember two things....

- That there are two kinds of splitters
- How medians work

3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Median: 3.6, 167

Splitter 1: 3.2, 172
Splitter 2: 3.9, 163

Admit Splitter 1: Median becomes 3.55, 167.5
Admit Splitter 2: Median becomes 3.65, 166.5

You're doing means, which is the total divided by the number of inputs. Median has to be a specific sample, the item where the number of inputs above and below are the same.

So in your example, the medians stay the same because the number above and the number below counter balance. [Edit - If you admit both 1 and 2. And most schools admit a splitter and reverse splitter together.]

Put the list in Excel and use the median calc function if you don't believe me.

He/She isn't. But she's still not right.

There are not an infinite number of people around. The number of 168-172, 3.7-3.9 applicants is pretty small considering the demand. If you try to pull a class of 350 from these students, chances are you will have to dip for other numbers at some point, because there just won't be enough to go around. However, if you take some splitters (which are known to have tough, unpredictable cycles) and some reverse-splitters (who, with their 163 LSAT scores would never have had a chance to break the T14 despite a 3.95 GPA) and consider them as well, you all of the sudden have a much larger pool to pick from, and you attract a larger applicant pool because every schmo with a 155 LSAT and a 4.0 now thinks he has a chance.

So, you then concentrate your scholarship money for a few candidates above both medians (like MaggieBre), and use that to satisfy your diversity requirements for URM's below both medians (all while accepting some people like HopefulUndergrad to lessen the number of above median students you need), and you've put together a superior numbers class without ever having to touch the 168-172, 3.7-3.9 candidates at all.

EDIT: Grammar

[NayBoer]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

Consider these 2 schools with an enrollment of 3 people

School A
2.5 175
3.9 155
3.88 173

School B
3.6 172
3.8 170
3.7 171

Your 3.88 173 student in School A is better than all students in School B. That means School A is better than School B to begin with.

Or that 3.88/173 can't travel to another school due to family. Know a guy who took a T4 full ride over a T14 because he had a wife and 2 kids.

[Stringer Bell]

Some of this might have been said before, but I disagree that this will help UVA's ranking for the following reasons:

1. Most people only ED to their reach schools because they are willing to trade the ranking for potential $. This is also the reason why historically the ED pool generally has worse stats than the RD pool.

2. Quite a few have suggested that admitting splitters using this would increase their stats. Are we forgetting that splitters are splitters because their other number is much lower, and hereby would pull down the school's median for the other number? Admitting a 172/3.2 would help the LSAT but hurt the GPA. It's not like admitting splitters is a low hanging fruit strategy toward bumping stats.

3. Yes this definitely helps their yield, but how much that helps their ranking is to be seen.

Consider these 2 schools with an enrollment of 3 people

School A
2.5 175
3.9 155
3.88 173

School B
3.6 172
3.8 170
3.7 171

Your 3.88 173 student in School A is better than all students in School B. That means School A is better than School B to begin with.

Or that student went to school A because they threw $$$$ at them.

[hopefulincal]

To calculate the median when the list has even number of numbers, you need to average the middle 2.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't read your hypothetical where only one splitter or the other was included. Normally it does not work this way. Schools like to pull splitters and reverse-splitters together. This was most apparent in the Northwestern WL thread around June and July.

So I don't think it's relevant to analyze admitting only one when schools use the pair strategy to protect their medians.

Fair point. If you admit both, it becomes

3.2, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9
163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172

You end up with the exact same median as before of 3.6 and 167.

[Helmholtz]

The results of lawyer/judge surveys (with their ~30% response rate) collected by a second rate news magazine probably isn't the best crutch to keep leaning on when trying to prove legal prestige.

With the number of people who fill them out, and their consistency it's fine. What' even worse to use to prove legal prestige is LSAT/GPA ratios--which most lawyers have no idea what they currently are, and don't care. The peer scores maybe even worse considering how unstable they are outside of HYS, and considering that the people filling them out will never be hiring you unless you go into academia. Basically whoever hired "insert random legal scholar" last year suddenly jumps up by .2 in a year. Besides the lawyer/judge scores align pretty closely with the employment stats.

Look, dude, there's a reason that the people giving out the surveys and measuring the results (USNWR) chooses to place nearly double the weight on peer assessment scores. And how do you know how many people fill them out? A 30% response rate can account for a hell of a lot of self-selection. Also, the lawyer/judge assessment scores are averaged out over multiple years, that's why you don't see as much movement as you do with the peer assessment scores.

A large part of the reason they do that is because they are an academic focused magazine, and more importantly to sell magazines. Notice how they do the same thing for the MBA rankings (which if you think about it is even more absurd than doing it with the law rankings) as well. And honestly the fact that they place double the weight on people's opinions who will never be hiring 98 percent of the schools graduates, as opposed to the people who will be hiring almost ALL of a school's graduates, is probably the biggest sign that US News really isn't as great as people think it is.

If you notice US News puts the most weight in their rankings on metrics that can fluctuate literally year to year. There is a reason for this--they want and need to sell magazines. It's no accident that peer score, LSAT/GPA, faculty expenditures, selectivity, and even what the school spends on the library are worth much much more than the lawyer/judge scores. The truth is that real world legal prestige is something that stays the way it is for ages. This is bad for rankings magazine business. US News simply cannot afford to make legal prestige and employment prospects worth most of the rankings (that's why those two factors are not the most heavily weighed).

Oy, where to begin....

Ok, first of all, the lawyer/judge assessment scores are weighted higher than: LSAT, GPA, acceptance rates, bar passage rates, expenditures per student, student/faculty ratio, library resources, employment at graduation, and employment nine months after graduation. I.E. BASICALLY EVERY SINGLE METRIC. The biggest part of the rankings are 1) peer assessment scores, 2) employment prospects (which are a conglomerate of a number of metrics), and 3) practitioner assessment scores, so sorry if I have to laugh at you seeming to imply that USNWR just shoves these metrics aside.

Next, how do you know that peer assessments fluctuate more? The pract assessments could be bouncing all over the place and you wouldn't be able to get as much of a feel for it because they're averaged out over multiple years.

Next, I don't really have a good feel for the who the hell are getting these practitioner surveys. Honestly, I work with a bunch of attorneys now that have been out of school for decades and they have no idea when it comes to current prestige. The people who do know which people they're going out to and see who responds are the very people (USNWR) giving them about half the weight as peer assessment scores. Who are the people who have an assessment score survey sheet land on their desk and choose to answer it? I dunno. Are they the ones responsible for hiring T14 grads? I dunno. Are they a bunch of good ol' boys who like to mark up all the school in their vicinity? I dunno.