Schools that are better than their rank Forum

[jms1987]

SMU and Vanderbilt

[bayvcroberts]

Chicago, Northwestern (what's up with the midwest bias?)

[thickfreakness]

All the ones that I wanna go to.

NOM NOM NOM TROLL

[KibblesAndVick]

I've always felt that Chicago doesn't get enough love. Although that might just be because I love econ and have a mancrush on Milton Friedman.

[im_blue]

Chicago, Virginia, Fordham, GW

[guinness85]

What about Chicago-Kent?

[OneKnight]

In order of how much better they are than their rank:

Maryland
GW
Fordham
BC

(I'm not going to any of these schools, btw )

[Cavalier]

[HerseyChris]

Just looking at the top 62 schools and their LSAT and GPA averages here is what I got:
(Negative means underrated, USNEWS ranks used, if there is a three way tie for 10th, I gave them an 11th place ranking).

[OneKnight]

Just looking at the top 62 schools and their LSAT and GPA averages here is what I got:
(Negative means underrated, USNEWS ranks used, if there is a three way tie for 10th, I gave them an 11th place ranking).
School Difference
BYU -25.5
Colorado -19.5
Maryland -12.5
UW -12
Kentucky -11.5
Brooklyn -9
GMU -8.5
Georgia -7.5
SMU -7.5
Pepperdine -7.5
Arizona -5.5
Vanderbilt -5
GWU -5
ASU -4.5
UT-Knoxville -4.5
UC Hastings -4
L&C -4
Cornell 4
Emory  5
Fordham  5
Indiana  6
Iowa 6
Florida 6
Alabama 9
Uconn 9
UIUC 10
WF 10
Wisconsin 10.5
UNC 11
American 14.5
W&L 16
WUSTL 21

Interesting. Seems to me that Student Quality is not the only metric that should be used for assessing which schools are underrated, though.

[HerseyChris]

Interesting. Seems to me that Student Quality is not the only metric that should be used for assessing which schools are underrated, though.

I know, but I already had the sheet in excel on my comp and figured I might as well compare them. I put the chart into picture format to look better, fyi. Though I guess a percentage should be in there. A 6 to a 4 ranking is much bigger than say 32 to 34.

also you could argue that the other metrics would 'dirty' the data. US NEWS rank, prestige can influence employment statistics. Say Michigan was really going downhill (just school wise), you'd probably have a hard time telling because the prestige would still be there for a while (though you can certainly argue that the prestige influences admission statistics as well, so there's no such thing as a 'clean number').

[fortissimo]

Hello,

Thank you so much for all of your helpful feedback.

In the interview with Brian Leiter on this website, Leiter mentions that certain schools outside of the top 14 are better regarded in academic circles than their US News rankings might suggest, e.g. Florida State, Chicago-Kent, Fordham, San Diego, George Mason, BU, Cardozo, Brooklyn.

Do you have any further insight into this subject? In light of the "brass ring" reality, do you think it would make any difference in terms of academic hiring if a candidate came from one of these schools?

This brings me to another question, what schools do you think are overrated and underrated?

After this one I'm done. Again, good luck to all. It's a great profession and I loved every day I spent in practice as I do in academia.

As to schools and their rankings, I've already identified San Diego as having one heck of a faculty and therefore underrated. But in one sense I'm wrong in the same way Brian is wrong: both he and I like San Diego (and for sure Fla State has a faculty far better than its ranking) but we're assessing the schools along the dimension that matters to us: faculty scholarship. We have no idea how well these professors perform in the classroom. Students (and the local faculty) know better on that score than we do. So for me to say a school is over- or underrated reveals my bias: it's underrated if faculty scholarship were the only thing that mattered. Of course it isn't, and indeed scholarship matters relatively little from a student's perspective. So perhaps San Diego is properly rated along all the dimensions that should matter to students, including instruction, placement, financial aid, etc. I really don't know.

But back to the academic world and the other question raised: as I tried to suggest previously, faculty hiring preferences are pretty rigid. We expect people who want to be a professor to attend the schools that we customarily look to for new hires: Yale, Virginia, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, Columbia, maybe NYU, maybe one or two others. If you're not going to one of these, you could plan on an LLM (just a year) and that should help a little. (Also an LLM is basically a year to get a good article done so it's a winner all around.) Or you could just plan on not becoming a professor.

I suggest some caution in organizing your entire legal education to pursue the single dream of an academic job. That dream might lead you to turn away great opportunities and substantial financial aid packages in what could easily turn out to be a vain attempt. I've tried (in a previous post) to describe a little of what faculty hiring committees look for in terms of credentials and personal qualities. On both counts the bar is set very high. Accumulating the credentials requires literally years of steadfast dedication just to make yourself eligible, to make that second pile. And then you might not even get an interview, anywhere! There are never more than a small number of jobs open nationwide. Failure happens regularly; people are shocked that their years of careful compilation of a "professor-eligible" resume doesn't produce a single call-back interview. So my basic goal here is to throw a little water on everyone's law prof fire, to suggest you make a frank self-assessment to decide if you have what it takes and are willing to pursue it relentlessly. One word of warning: don't pursue the job for the lifestyle; you have to love the work itself. A desire to improve one's lifestyle will not sustain you over the years of effort it takes.

One final observation: I just looked at the website of a bottom-tier law school where a classmate of mine is on the faculty. I examined the credentials of their untenured or recently tenured faculty, in other words, the newest hires. These young professors graduated from the following law schools: Virginia, NYU, Yale, Yale (with PhD too), Harvard, Harvard, Northwestern, and Michigan. All were law review; all but one had COA clerkships; one was SCOTUS to boot; all but one (the PhD person) worked for major law firms. And that's at the "bottom of the pile" school. See how incredible even the bottom tier faculties are (and why you will get an outstanding legal education even there)? And see how narrow is the path to a prof job?

Best wishes to all.

It's in this thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=111060

I would take what this guy says with a grain of salt...looking at ACTUAL ACADEMIA PLACEMENT STATISTICS FOR 2009.

http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2 ... eport.html

Eight schools had three or more placements:

1. TIE: HARVARD (26), YALE (26)
3. TIE: CALIFORNIA – Berkeley (11), MICHIGAN (11)
5. TIE: COLUMBIA (10), NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (10), STANFORD (10)
8. CHICAGO (6)
9. TIE: GEORGETOWN (3), MINNESOTA (3)[/b]

Northwestern only placed ONE person into academia.....

[rayiner]

I would take what this guy says with a grain of salt...looking at ACTUAL ACADEMIA PLACEMENT STATISTICS FOR 2009.

http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2 ... eport.html

Eight schools had three or more placements:

1. TIE: HARVARD (26), YALE (26)
3. TIE: CALIFORNIA – Berkeley (11), MICHIGAN (11)
5. TIE: COLUMBIA (10), NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (10), STANFORD (10)
8. CHICAGO (6)
9. TIE: GEORGETOWN (3), MINNESOTA (3)[/b]

Northwestern only placed ONE person into academia.....

What is the source of this data?

[RayFinkle]

For a serious answer, I would go with:

- Maryland
- George Washington
- Thought I would have more, but don't know enough about other schools to say they are "underrated."

[colemf]

University of Houston

[Rory1987]

After this one I'm done. Again, good luck to all. It's a great profession and I loved every day I spent in practice as I do in academia.

As to schools and their rankings, I've already identified San Diego as having one heck of a faculty and therefore underrated. But in one sense I'm wrong in the same way Brian is wrong: both he and I like San Diego (and for sure Fla State has a faculty far better than its ranking) but we're assessing the schools along the dimension that matters to us: faculty scholarship. We have no idea how well these professors perform in the classroom. Students (and the local faculty) know better on that score than we do. So for me to say a school is over- or underrated reveals my bias: it's underrated if faculty scholarship were the only thing that mattered. Of course it isn't, and indeed scholarship matters relatively little from a student's perspective. So perhaps San Diego is properly rated along all the dimensions that should matter to students, including instruction, placement, financial aid, etc. I really don't know.

But back to the academic world and the other question raised: as I tried to suggest previously, faculty hiring preferences are pretty rigid. We expect people who want to be a professor to attend the schools that we customarily look to for new hires: Yale, Virginia, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, Columbia, maybe NYU, maybe one or two others. If you're not going to one of these, you could plan on an LLM (just a year) and that should help a little. (Also an LLM is basically a year to get a good article done so it's a winner all around.) Or you could just plan on not becoming a professor.

I suggest some caution in organizing your entire legal education to pursue the single dream of an academic job. That dream might lead you to turn away great opportunities and substantial financial aid packages in what could easily turn out to be a vain attempt. I've tried (in a previous post) to describe a little of what faculty hiring committees look for in terms of credentials and personal qualities. On both counts the bar is set very high. Accumulating the credentials requires literally years of steadfast dedication just to make yourself eligible, to make that second pile. And then you might not even get an interview, anywhere! There are never more than a small number of jobs open nationwide. Failure happens regularly; people are shocked that their years of careful compilation of a "professor-eligible" resume doesn't produce a single call-back interview. So my basic goal here is to throw a little water on everyone's law prof fire, to suggest you make a frank self-assessment to decide if you have what it takes and are willing to pursue it relentlessly. One word of warning: don't pursue the job for the lifestyle; you have to love the work itself. A desire to improve one's lifestyle will not sustain you over the years of effort it takes.

One final observation: I just looked at the website of a bottom-tier law school where a classmate of mine is on the faculty. I examined the credentials of their untenured or recently tenured faculty, in other words, the newest hires. These young professors graduated from the following law schools: Virginia, NYU, Yale, Yale (with PhD too), Harvard, Harvard, Northwestern, and Michigan. All were law review; all but one had COA clerkships; one was SCOTUS to boot; all but one (the PhD person) worked for major law firms. And that's at the "bottom of the pile" school. See how incredible even the bottom tier faculties are (and why you will get an outstanding legal education even there)? And see how narrow is the path to a prof job?

Best wishes to all.[/quote]


It's in this thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=111060[/quote]

I would take what this guy says with a grain of salt...looking at ACTUAL ACADEMIA PLACEMENT STATISTICS FOR 2009.

http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2 ... eport.html

Eight schools had three or more placements:

1. TIE: HARVARD (26), YALE (26)
3. TIE: CALIFORNIA – Berkeley (11), MICHIGAN (11)
5. TIE: COLUMBIA (10), NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (10), STANFORD (10)
8. CHICAGO (6)
9. TIE: GEORGETOWN (3), MINNESOTA (3)[/b]

Northwestern only placed ONE person into academia.....[/quote]

Nice to see UMN keeping up with some of the lower T14!

[SHARK WEEK!]

UCLA should be #13.

[stratocophic]

UCLA should be #13.

No.

[Hopefullawstudent]

UCLA should be [strike]#13[/strike] #14.

No.

You're right. I fixed it for him.

[Fiyero]

In order of how much better they are than their rank:

Maryland
GW
Fordham
BC

(I'm not going to any of these schools, btw )

What makes Maryland better than their rank? What rank would you say they deserve? Just curious since it's my in-state school.

[guinness85]

What about T2s better than their rank?

[thequest]

What about Chicago-Kent?

I’m willing to tell you what you want to hear. Chicago – Kent is underrated.

[stratocophic]

UCLA should be [strike]#13[/strike] #14.

No.

You're right. I fixed it for him.

Seems dubious