From the Tax Prof Blog:
Facebook post by Anthony E. Varona (Prof and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at American):
The GW Student Newspaper article quoted in Paul Caron's blog is also interesting and has some good quotes by Prof. Campos.I am glad that some in the media -- even if just the legal blogosphere -- are finally paying attention to what GW Law has been doing with transfers. The school shrank its 1L class some years ago, deciding instead to transfer in large numbers of students after the first year. 97 transfers just last year alone. Well over HALF of those from my law school; which -- to say the least -- causes us quite a bit of disruption. Speaking only for myself and not in my official law school capacity, I view this practice as downright predatory. No other law school is similarly raided anywhere else in the United States. No other law school engages in this sort of practice to this degree. More troubling still for GW Law students especially is the "bait and switch" nature of this backdoor transfer trick. The "student quality" numbers (collegiate GPA and LSAT) GW submits to the accrediting and, ultimately, the ranking authorities -- like US News -- are solely those of their artificially small 1L class. GW is not required to disclose the true, overall student quality numbers -- so, it doesn't. With nearly 100 (!!) new classmates at the start of their second years, are GW students attending the same "quality" of school (myopically defined by GPA and LSAT) as advertised in the rankings? Um, don't think so. I wrote about this problem in [Diversity and Disgrace – How the U.S. News Law School Rankings Hurt Everyone, N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change Blog (Apr. 3, 2014).] GW Law is an excellent and honorable law school. This practice is far beneath its illustrious history and reputation. Thank goodness it has an outstanding, and ethical, new dean in Blake Morant.
H/T: ABA Journal