2018 USNWR Rankings Forum

[rpupkin]

Also MBA and MD programs. I agree no one really cares, but they have more prestige than any PhD programs, at least.

My "bubble" comment wasn't really a joke. Most TLS'ers are so saturated/obsessed with law schools that they lose perspective; they start projecting their specialized obsession onto the lay world.

Take engineering, which is a major professional field. There, the top 3 schools are MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley—those schools' programs are "prestigious" in that field, but we don't care because we're not engineers. Just like other professions don't care that we consider NYU—which is not an elite school in many respects—to be a "T6" law school.

We all want to think that our silly notions of prestige extend beyond our profession, but they largely don't. I don't think law is meaningfully different from other professions in that regard.

[candidlatke]

i get that everyone here loves to bag on emphasizing or caring about prestige because it doesn't pay the bills/have any substantive effect, but it's also ridiculous to say that there's no lay prestige to be gained by going to a well regarded law/business/medical/engineering school.

the students/working professionals i've met who have asked me what i'm doing nowadays have generally been impressed/thought well of law school because i think at some level, choice of grad school does reflect ambition and (sometimes misplaced) confidence

and fwiw, at least in the parts of asia that i'm familiar with (korea/china/singapore), where i'd assume berkeley is stronger since it's closer, berkeley might be really well known but it's definitely not in the same vein as yale/stanford/etc. it's known as good, kind of like the jack of all trades (probably because of its relative lack of selectivity/huge undergraduate classes), but the ivy-league + friends are always going to be perceived as more elite with duke at the tail end as a pseudo-ivy in terms of lay prestige.

of course, this doesn't really translate to anything material/this doesn't really matter but i think it's also just incorrect to say that berkeley is in the same vein of lay prestige as the top privates

[Hikikomorist]

Also MBA and MD programs. I agree no one really cares, but they have more prestige than any PhD programs, at least.

My "bubble" comment wasn't really a joke. Most TLS'ers are so saturated/obsessed with law schools that they lose perspective; they start projecting their specialized obsession onto the lay world.

Take engineering, which is a major professional field. There, the top 3 schools are MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley—those schools' programs are "prestigious" in that field, but we don't care because we're not engineers. Just like other professions don't care that we consider NYU—which is not an elite school is many respects—to be a "T6" law school.

We all want to think that our silly notions of prestige extend beyond our profession, but they largely don't. I don't think law is meaningfully different from other professions in that regard.

I think engineering might get there eventually (probably a generational shift), and there's an argument for it being there now, but it would only be joining MD, MBA, and, yes, JD programs in having the most minor of impacts on overall institutional lay prestige. Do you really think Harvard Med or Wharton is no more prestigious than whatever the top education program is?

[Hikikomorist]

i get that everyone here loves to bag on emphasizing or caring about prestige because it doesn't pay the bills/have any substantive effect, but it's also ridiculous to say that there's no lay prestige to be gained by going to a well regarded law/business/medical/engineering school.

the students/working professionals i've met who have asked me what i'm doing nowadays have generally been impressed/thought well of law school because i think at some level, choice of grad school does reflect ambition and (sometimes misplaced) confidence

and fwiw, at least in the parts of asia that i'm familiar with (korea/china/singapore), where i'd assume berkeley is stronger since it's closer, berkeley might be really well known but it's definitely not in the same vein as yale/stanford/etc. it's known as good, kind of like the jack of all trades (probably because of its relative lack of selectivity/huge undergraduate classes), but the ivy-league + friends are always going to be perceived as more elite with duke at the tail end as a pseudo-ivy in terms of lay prestige.

of course, this doesn't really translate to anything material/this doesn't really matter but i think it's also just incorrect to say that berkeley is in the same vein of lay prestige as the top privates

Agree with all this, especially the part about the perspective in Asia.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

[Hikikomorist]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Well, you don't care about it, anyway.

[Hikikomorist]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Well, you don't care about it, anyway.

The vast majority of applicants don't care about it, either.

[Moneytrees]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Just because you don't care doesn't mean nobody cares.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Well, you don't care about it, anyway.

The vast majority of applicants don't care about it, either.

Unless, of course, you're applying to do academic research. My point was that international rankings considering academic research output aren't stupid unless you assume everyone only cares about what you care about.

[Hikikomorist]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Well, you don't care about it, anyway.

The vast majority of applicants don't care about it, either.

Unless, of course, you're applying to do academic research. My point was that international rankings considering academic research output aren't stupid unless you assume everyone only cares about what you care about.

Fair enough. I guess I should have specified that they're dogshit for establishing lay prestige.

[rpupkin]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Well, you don't care about it, anyway.

The vast majority of applicants don't care about it, either.

The "vast majority of applicants" also don't care about the strength of a particular school's law program/school/center.

[Hikikomorist]

Yes, all those kids at the international SAT-prep academy were really hoping to get into no-name state schools because they're research POWERHOUSES.

Actually, a lot of what you consider no-name state schools are great places to do academic research, which doesn't correlate neatly with lay prestige.

I know they are, but no one cares about that.

Well, you don't care about it, anyway.

The vast majority of applicants don't care about it, either.

The "vast majority of applicants" also don't care about the strength of a particular school's law program/school/center.

I'd agree with this, but I think general recognition of those programs is significantly higher than for other graduate programs, which is still not to say that recognition is that widespread. I haven't been arguing that law-school ranking is super important to overall prestige, and I think it's non-existent below HYS, so I'm not sure we're actually in disagreement here.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Eh, I think it's the other way around. Lay people are going to think that a school they consider prestigious has a prestigious law school. So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think Notre Dame law is better than Berkeley/Michigan and the like.

[Hikikomorist]

Eh, I think it's the other way around. Lay people are going to think that a school they consider prestigious has a prestigious law school. So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think Notre Dame law is better than Berkeley/Michigan and the like.

Counterpoint: Wharton MBA and JHU for med school. To elaborate, I think it's some of both, but I think the truly elite pre-professional head programs develop a small amount of lay prestige independent of the overall institution's.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Eh, I think it's the other way around. Lay people are going to think that a school they consider prestigious has a prestigious law school. So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think Notre Dame law is better than Berkeley/Michigan and the like.

Counterpoint: Wharton MBA and JHU for med school.

Penn and THE Johns Hopkins U. are both prestigious schools for undergrad, though.

[Dr.Degrees_Cr.Cash]

What's up with all these trolls who's sisters are unable to gauge the strength of law schools

[Hikikomorist]

Eh, I think it's the other way around. Lay people are going to think that a school they consider prestigious has a prestigious law school. So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think Notre Dame law is better than Berkeley/Michigan and the like.

Counterpoint: Wharton MBA and JHU for med school.

Penn and THE Johns Hopkins U. are both prestigious schools for undergrad, though.

The Ivy that gets confused with a state school and a school whose name no one ever gets right? They certainly don't have UG prestige that would justify the (relative) prestige of their MBA and MD programs, respectively.

[rpupkin]

The "vast majority of applicants" also don't care about the strength of a particular school's law program/school/center.

I'd agree with this, but I think general recognition of those programs is significantly higher than for other graduate programs, which is still not to say that recognition is that widespread. I haven't been arguing that law-school ranking is super important to overall prestige, and I think it's non-existent below HYS, so I'm not sure we're actually in disagreement here.

I don't think it exists at the "HYS" level either.

Imagine an exercise where you asked a million lay people to rank the top 10 schools in the following fields: Political Science, Law, Economics, Engineering, Philosophy, Medicine, Physics, Business, and Literature.

I bet the resulting lists would look almost identical across fields. The "Princeton Law" phenomenon would likely emerge in the other lists as well. So, yes, lay folks believe that Harvard and Stanford have great law programs, but that belief isn't based on anything other than the general perception that the institutions are prestigious. Law is like everything else in that respect.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Eh, I think it's the other way around. Lay people are going to think that a school they consider prestigious has a prestigious law school. So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think Notre Dame law is better than Berkeley/Michigan and the like.

Counterpoint: Wharton MBA and JHU for med school.

Penn and THE Johns Hopkins U. are both prestigious schools for undergrad, though.

The Ivy that gets confused with a state school and a school whose name no one ever gets right? They certainly don't have UG prestige that would justify the (relative) prestige of their MBA and MD programs, respectively.

This goes back to how prestige is regional/subjective/yada yada. Where I grew up people were all over Penn and Johns Hopkins. People who didn't know them certainly weren't in awe of their grad programs independent of knowing the UG.

[Hikikomorist]

Eh, I think it's the other way around. Lay people are going to think that a school they consider prestigious has a prestigious law school. So I'm sure there are plenty of people who think Notre Dame law is better than Berkeley/Michigan and the like.

Counterpoint: Wharton MBA and JHU for med school.

Penn and THE Johns Hopkins U. are both prestigious schools for undergrad, though.

The Ivy that gets confused with a state school and a school whose name no one ever gets right? They certainly don't have UG prestige that would justify the (relative) prestige of their MBA and MD programs, respectively.

This goes back to how prestige is regional/subjective/yada yada. Where I grew up people were all over Penn and Johns Hopkins. People who didn't know them certainly weren't in awe of their grad programs independent of knowing the UG.

Sure, people generally have heard of Penn and JHU, but they aren't nearly as highly regarded as their grad programs are. Don't think it's a regional thing, either, as I'm familiar with the Mid-Atlantic region.

[Hikikomorist]

It's possible that my social circles in high school and college (on which I am basing my notion of lay prestige) were not perfectly representative of the general population.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Whereas in my experience "JH med school is AWESOME but their UG is meh" just isn't really a thing, and Penn is an Ivy, so if we're looking at meaningless measures for prestige, it's up there. But again, it's all subjective. Different communities value different schools for different reasons. Water is wet.

[Milksteak]

Maybe it isn't being a lawyer that makes people miserable. Maybe people who become lawyers are just miserable people.

[Hikikomorist]

The "vast majority of applicants" also don't care about the strength of a particular school's law program/school/center.

I'd agree with this, but I think general recognition of those programs is significantly higher than for other graduate programs, which is still not to say that recognition is that widespread. I haven't been arguing that law-school ranking is super important to overall prestige, and I think it's non-existent below HYS, so I'm not sure we're actually in disagreement here.

I don't think it exists at the "HYS" level either.

Imagine an exercise where you asked a million lay people to rank the top 10 schools in the following fields: Political Science, Law, Economics, Engineering, Philosophy, Medicine, Physics, Business, and Literature.

I bet the resulting lists would look almost identical across fields. The "Princeton Law" phenomenon would likely emerge in the other lists as well. So, yes, lay folks believe that Harvard and Stanford have great law programs, but that belief isn't based on anything other than the general perception that the institutions are prestigious. Law is like everything else in that respect.

You don't think Wharton and JHU would pop up a disproportionate amount for the MBA and MD lists? It feels like we have mostly the same views, but I'm choosing to focus more on certain minor points.