phooey182 wrote:Personally I'm annoyed at the big drop. I think RU-N knew they would drop in the rankings, and probably said what they said about 'not caring' to soften the blow.
That's an interesting point.
Though I tend to think that if Rutgers wanted to jump in the rankings there's no reason they can't. Given the region and the name of the school, gaming the system would be easy, so to speak. So this tends to make me believe that they're not following the heard, and instead are doing what they think is proper in terms of running a law school. Also ask yourself what's changed with the school between this year and last year. The ranking by USN for one thing, but why is that significant? Are these rankings getting to the truth of the matter? For instance, does a ranking of 87 really tell you about how good the school is based on what's important to you? If you could make your own rankings, would RU end up at 87 as well? Is it in the right area for you, geographically speaking? What about employment prospects, and so on? Would you be happier at some Oregon school that is 10 spots higher, and climbing? What about debt and tuition, are these not important enough to you to disregard an arbitrarily derived number that has no value unless it is given value by you? By giving the rankings value, you endorse the criteria, but is that criteria encompassing of what you think is a good school? One should be carefully introspective about such questions.
Life choices like this are very complicated and serious, and one number on a poorly devised ranking system shouldn't be an important factor. A large problem with this message board, in my opinion, is that people read that other people are obsessed with these ranking spots; and they begin to think it's important too, for no other reason than everyone else seems to care.
Read between the lines; research the school, the area, the professors, the priorities of the school, and make a decision based on that. These things are what determine what kind of educational experience, and otherwise, you're going to have. That number goes away once you're in school, and all that's left is the students and professors you join in order to become the lawyers of tomorrow. So again, don't base serious life choices on a number derived by people you've never met and whom certainly don't have your best interest at heart.
By the way this isn't for RU students, but anyone considering schools. Don't let USN make choices for you. If you end up at RU, or anywhere else, you don't end up with a tattoo on your forehead of the ranking of the school you choose.