US News rankings coming March 10th Forum

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Lord Randolph McDuff

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Lord Randolph McDuff » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:40 pm

JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
Yeah Above The Law is the worst. So lazy. Alumni surveys? Yeah that couldn't go wrong... They don't even send the surveys out to attempt to get a mix of people from different schools. They let anyone who has access to the internet participate.

And I agree on the cost thing. At least use average indebtedness. Use some sort of average. Comparing sticker prices is USELESS info.
Last edited by Lord Randolph McDuff on Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Dog

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Dog » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:41 pm

I agree. Cost is a consideration that should be left to the applicants.

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ballcaps

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by ballcaps » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:43 pm

any thoughts on H/S toggling?

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rpupkin

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by rpupkin » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:46 pm

ballcaps wrote:any thoughts on H/S toggling?
HLS holds at #2. SLS's overall score slips but it remains at #3. Gap between SLS and UChi narrows.

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LoganCouture

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by LoganCouture » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:49 pm

That's surprising considering SLS's impressive LSAT median gainz.

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ballcaps

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by ballcaps » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:52 pm

lc39 wrote:That's surprising considering SLS's impressive LSAT median gainz.
+1

rpupkin, what are your reasons? just curious.

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Dog

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Dog » Wed Feb 18, 2015 4:59 pm

rpupkin, any idea on the lower t14? As in non-t6.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Tiago Splitter » Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:45 pm

Dog wrote:I agree. Cost is a consideration that should be left to the applicants.
The thing is schools have shown they really care about manipulating whatever they can to improve their ranking. So some factor that encourages them to lower tuition and/or give out more aid is a good thing.

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jenesaislaw

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by jenesaislaw » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:24 pm

JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
There is no indication from US News that it will include anything to do with costs. Indeed, I've urged them not to because no cost number really means anything on its own.

I'm hesitant to even talk about this stuff, though. US News is a toxic influence on prospective students and law schools, and is doing serious damage to the legal profession and the people who eventually join it.

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TheodoreKGB

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by TheodoreKGB » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:27 pm

.
Last edited by TheodoreKGB on Mon Mar 16, 2015 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Tiago Splitter » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:29 pm

jenesaislaw wrote: I'm hesitant to even talk about this stuff, though. US News is a toxic influence on prospective students and law schools, and is doing serious damage to the legal profession and the people who eventually join it.
It's not all bad. If schools stopped caring about LSAT and GPA medians we'd be in a lot of trouble.

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rpupkin

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by rpupkin » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:29 pm

TheodoreKGB wrote:What do you guys think the likelihood is that Georgetown drops out of the T14?
I feel like I've already said too much, but let's just say that, come March, you can spell it "GeorgeT13own."

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utahraptor

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by utahraptor » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:32 pm

rpupkin wrote:
TheodoreKGB wrote:What do you guys think the likelihood is that Georgetown drops out of the T14?
I feel like I've already said too much, but let's just say that, come March, you can spell it "GeorgeT13own."
ah you were doing so well

too aggressive bro

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BrazilBandit

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by BrazilBandit » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:33 pm

rpupkin wrote:
TheodoreKGB wrote:What do you guys think the likelihood is that Georgetown drops out of the T14?
I feel like I've already said too much, but let's just say that, come March, you can spell it "GeorgeT13own."
Vande13ilt?

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Skool

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Skool » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:36 pm

Tiago Splitter wrote:
jenesaislaw wrote: I'm hesitant to even talk about this stuff, though. US News is a toxic influence on prospective students and law schools, and is doing serious damage to the legal profession and the people who eventually join it.
It's not all bad. If schools stopped caring about LSAT and GPA medians we'd be in a lot of trouble.
Curious to hear the rationale for this.

JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
No matter the reality of what students pay, it would actually build an incentive into rankings for schools to control cost. That would be a good thing for students. Plus, it's not as if the USNWR criteria correspond much to the value a school adds to a law student anyway. What's a little more fantasy added to a stupid system.

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nothingtosee

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by nothingtosee » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:43 pm

Skool wrote:
Tiago Splitter wrote:
jenesaislaw wrote: I'm hesitant to even talk about this stuff, though. US News is a toxic influence on prospective students and law schools, and is doing serious damage to the legal profession and the people who eventually join it.
It's not all bad. If schools stopped caring about LSAT and GPA medians we'd be in a lot of trouble.
Curious to hear the rationale for this.

JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
No matter the reality of what students pay, it would actually build an incentive into rankings for schools to control cost. That would be a good thing for students. Plus, it's not as if the USNWR criteria correspond much to the value a school adds to a law student anyway. What's a little more fantasy added to a stupid system.
Soft factors benefit those from higher income levels who know how to play the game.
Hard factors also benefit the wealthy (they can spend money on prep or take a gap year without having to have a job), but less so than soft factors. Also, it seems that with the LSAT, tutoring can only take you so far, and the highest levels are just repetition, practice, and review.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Tiago Splitter » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:51 pm

To move up in the rankings schools need to improve their LSAT/GPA medians or at least have them decline less than other schools. To do this schools can either cut class size or give scholarships. If LSAT and GPA stopped getting reported schools could take on a lot more students without having to worry about the impact on rankings.

If you want to see what happens when a school stops caring about the rankings, look at American. Same giant class size, huge median declines since 2010, big fuck you to the world. The decline in apps has helped reduce class sizes, but only because most schools are still afraid to let their medians nosedive.

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by sparty99 » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:56 pm

rpupkin wrote:
Tr3 wrote:Predictions?
I have some inside info, so I almost feel like I'm cheating with my "predictions." But look for UChi to find itself all alone at #4, for UC Irvine to debut between #40 and #45, and for an unexpected rise for U Pittsburgh.

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InTheHouse

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by InTheHouse » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:01 pm

Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:
JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
Yeah Above The Law is the worst. So lazy. Alumni surveys? Yeah that couldn't go wrong... They don't even send the surveys out to attempt to get a mix of people from different schools. They let anyone who has access to the internet participate.

And I agree on the cost thing. At least use average indebtedness. Use some sort of average. Comparing sticker prices is USELESS info.
Great. So now you create an incentive for schools to reject students without rich parents.

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Skool

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Skool » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:06 pm

nothingtosee wrote:
Skool wrote:
Tiago Splitter wrote:
jenesaislaw wrote: I'm hesitant to even talk about this stuff, though. US News is a toxic influence on prospective students and law schools, and is doing serious damage to the legal profession and the people who eventually join it.
It's not all bad. If schools stopped caring about LSAT and GPA medians we'd be in a lot of trouble.
Curious to hear the rationale for this.

JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
No matter the reality of what students pay, it would actually build an incentive into rankings for schools to control cost. That would be a good thing for students. Plus, it's not as if the USNWR criteria correspond much to the value a school adds to a law student anyway. What's a little more fantasy added to a stupid system.
Soft factors benefit those from higher income levels who know how to play the game.
Hard factors also benefit the wealthy (they can spend money on prep or take a gap year without having to have a job), but less so than soft factors. Also, it seems that with the LSAT, tutoring can only take you so far, and the highest levels are just repetition, practice, and review.
I don't doubt that the wealthy are better off than everyone else under either arrangement.

I'm not sure I'm persuaded by the above that one is less favorable than the other.

And frankly, it's not an either or. It's really a matter of the crazy weight they receive, such that the two are pretty much dispositive for an application. I have a friend who is finishing up a PhD in Philosophy at elite institution. When he applied a few years ago, his department didn't even require the GRE and he received funding for his studies. Obviously there are differences in the goals of This Thing of Ours and his Philosophy program (actual commitment to education and scholarship for instance), but the point is, things don't have to be the way they are.

I haven't heard of a graduate program that runs quite the same way that law schools do. Maybe if they cared a little less about LSAT/GPA, the whole system would be better off. For instance, there might be more money for a general cost reduction, rather than simply purchasing 3.8s and 173 LSAT scores.

Lord Randolph McDuff

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Lord Randolph McDuff » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:09 pm

I'm not opposed to the idea of cost, but make it useful. Contact private schools and ask them to publish their average amount of indebtedness. If they don't, they don't get ranked. Every public school publishes the number already because they have to, and I imagibe many private schools would play ball to be included in the ranking.

1. This incentivizes the release of more information.
2. Average indebtedbess would be a worthy ranking factor, as it would take into account merit scholarships that often reduce sticker price.

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Effingham » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:11 pm

To be honest, I've never seen the cost consideration as much of an issue wrt atl, seems most decent schools cost around the same at sticker, and who cares if Iowa gets a little bump for lowering tuition. Seems like a moot point. Scotus and judges on the other hand...

Lord Randolph McDuff

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by Lord Randolph McDuff » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:12 pm

InTheHouse wrote:
Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:
JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
Yeah Above The Law is the worst. So lazy. Alumni surveys? Yeah that couldn't go wrong... They don't even send the surveys out to attempt to get a mix of people from different schools. They let anyone who has access to the internet participate.

And I agree on the cost thing. At least use average indebtedness. Use some sort of average. Comparing sticker prices is USELESS info.
Great. So now you create an incentive for schools to reject students without rich parents.
Ok actually this was a good point.

You know schools have excel files that automatically tabulate the average income per student. Really this is what we need. How much does it cost to go to your school, on average.

InTheHouse

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by InTheHouse » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:14 pm

If you really want to use USNWR to tackle the cost problem, ask them to a) get rid of the expenditures/student category and b) get rid of the academic peer rating. Without b) there's no USNWR rankings boost from hiring "star" faculty. If schools want to pay the Bainbridges $400k/yr, they're going to have to have to do it for intrinsic reasons. For the life of me, I could never figure out how people whose research no one in the world deems worth funding can command $200k+ in annual compensation. If they taught more than a class per semester, I might be able to understand.

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Re: US News rankings coming March 10th

Post by InTheHouse » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:16 pm

Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:
InTheHouse wrote:
Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:
JFO1833 wrote:I hope that US News does not follow the lead of Above the Law and include cost in its ratings. Since many people do not pay sticker including cost can damage the usefulness of the ratings.

For example:

Imagine a student is choosing between two schools, a highly prestigious school at sticker, a less prestigious school at half price. This is not an uncommon scenario and renders the ratings useless for comparing these choices, if the sticker price is a factor. The appropriate question to ask is if the difference in price is worth the additional prestige.
Yeah Above The Law is the worst. So lazy. Alumni surveys? Yeah that couldn't go wrong... They don't even send the surveys out to attempt to get a mix of people from different schools. They let anyone who has access to the internet participate.

And I agree on the cost thing. At least use average indebtedness. Use some sort of average. Comparing sticker prices is USELESS info.
Great. So now you create an incentive for schools to reject students without rich parents.
Ok actually this was a good point.

You know schools have excel files that automatically tabulate the average income per student. Really this is what we need. How much does it cost to go to your school, on average.
I think all we need to do is get rid of all the incentives to jack up tuition.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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