2014 Rankings Released Forum

[dixiecupdrinking]

The best school in D.C. is always going to bring in a certain degree of quality.

This sentence is really all there is to say about GULC. It can do whatever it wants and as long as it's better than GW, lots of people with good LSATs will go there. Thus its rank will not plummet.

[20141023]

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[run26.2]

The best school in D.C. is always going to bring in a certain degree of quality.

This sentence is really all there is to say about GULC. It can do whatever it wants and as long as it's better than GW, lots of people with good LSATs will go there. Thus its rank will not plummet.

Don’t mind the fact that U.S. News & World Report has said that they are going to begin judging employment criteria more strictly, and GULC’s employment rate sucks. Unfortunately, “lots of people going there” is not synonymous with “lots of people graduating with decent employment.” (If “lots” is a raw number, then perhaps yes just because of the sheer size of GULC’s class; however, if it is a percentage of the graduating class, you are looking at dismal numbers.)

GULC is also one of the few top schools that has to try to insert graduates mainly into DC, which is an extremely tough market. Most of the other T20 schools have different markets that they can place graduates into. Accordingly, if DC gets rough, GULC could very easily plummet.

I don't think GULC will ever "plummet," per se. If it goes down, it will be a gradual decline. In any case, Georgetown is generally perceived as having a very prestigious law school. I recently spoke to an gentleman who graduated from law school 20-30 years ago, but was no longer practicing law. He mentioned Georgetown in the same breath as Harvard.

I may be cynical, but I think the US News will probably try to have a ranking formula that will not be too much different from general perceptions of the school (although with GULC at 14, it arguably is out of step with general perceptions).

[law2015]

The best school in D.C. is always going to bring in a certain degree of quality.

This sentence is really all there is to say about GULC. It can do whatever it wants and as long as it's better than GW, lots of people with good LSATs will go there. Thus its rank will not plummet.

Don’t mind the fact that U.S. News & World Report has said that they are going to begin judging employment criteria more strictly, and GULC’s employment rate sucks. Unfortunately, “lots of people going there” is not synonymous with “lots of people graduating with decent employment.” (If “lots” is a raw number, then perhaps yes just because of the sheer size of GULC’s class; however, if it is a percentage of the graduating class, you are looking at dismal numbers.)

GULC is also one of the few top schools that has to try to insert graduates mainly into DC, which is an extremely tough market. Most of the other T20 schools have different markets that they can place graduates into. Accordingly, if DC gets rough, GULC could very easily plummet.

I don't think GULC will ever "plummet," per se. If it goes down, it will be a gradual decline. In any case, Georgetown is generally perceived as having a very prestigious law school. I recently spoke to an gentleman who graduated from law school 20-30 years ago, but was no longer practicing law. He mentioned Georgetown in the same breath as Harvard.

I may be cynical, but I think the US News will probably try to have a ranking formula that will not be too much different from general perceptions of the school (although with GULC at 14, it arguably is out of step with general perceptions).

And I know people who think Fordham is one of the best law schools in the country lol!

[UselessKnowledge]

Don’t mind the fact that U.S. News & World Report has said that they are going to begin judging employment criteria more strictly, and GULC’s employment rate sucks. Unfortunately, “lots of people going there” is not synonymous with “lots of people graduating with decent employment.” (If “lots” is a raw number, then perhaps yes just because of the sheer size of GULC’s class; however, if it is a percentage of the graduating class, you are looking at dismal numbers.)

GULC is also one of the few top schools that has to try to insert graduates mainly into DC, which is an extremely tough market. Most of the other T20 schools have different markets that they can place graduates into. Accordingly, if DC gets rough, GULC could very easily plummet.

I don't think GULC will ever "plummet," per se. If it goes down, it will be a gradual decline. In any case, Georgetown is generally perceived as having a very prestigious law school. I recently spoke to an gentleman who graduated from law school 20-30 years ago, but was no longer practicing law. He mentioned Georgetown in the same breath as Harvard.

I may be cynical, but I think the US News will probably try to have a ranking formula that will not be too much different from general perceptions of the school (although with GULC at 14, it arguably is out of step with general perceptions).

And I know people who think Fordham is one of the best law schools in the country lol!

I mean, technically it is. It's top 30. It's not top tier, but it's one of the better law schools.

[Skye]

I don't think GULC will ever "plummet," per se. If it goes down, it will be a gradual decline.

Isn’t the sequester, and/or whatever pending DC horror is up next, going to make DC an even worse bloodbath?

If would think if (big IF) the gov’t cuts hundreds of attorneys from its payrolls the private firms will be besieged by experienced lawyers. Those who selected a DC feeder school must be disheartened.

[run26.2]

I don't think GULC will ever "plummet," per se. If it goes down, it will be a gradual decline.

Isn’t the sequester, and/or whatever pending DC horror is up next, going to make DC an even worse bloodbath?

If would think if (big IF) the gov’t cuts hundreds of attorneys from its payrolls the private firms will be besieged by experienced lawyers. Those who selected a DC feeder school must be disheartened.

If this were to happen, I doubt this would expedite GULC's decline. Experienced attorneys are not really in competition with first year associates for jobs. They just do different work, and there are certain benefits to having cheaper, talented attorneys.

Moreover, I don't think the phenomenon would directly result in less cash at the firms for hiring new attorneys. People moving out of government into the private sector are usually sought after because of the experience gained and the relationships they maintain with the government. At least one of those would be impacted if the agencies these attorneys were leaving suddenly had less cash. So it is not necessarily the case that they would have jobs waiting for them at the firms.

[99.9luft]

last night i had a dream that UCLA and GULC will drop into the 20s. Had to check this thread to make sure that wasn't the case.

i need help.

[jack5on]

last night i had a dream that UCLA and GULC will drop into the 20s. Had to check this thread to make sure that wasn't the case.

i need help.

This isn't the NCAAM AP Rankings. Though it'd be fun if it worked that way.

[californiabeauar]

I don't think school-funded jobs would be taken into account by USWRN (don't know the right acronym) because the problem (as some TLS have proposed) surrounding school-funded jobs doesn't really extend beyond the T14 or T20 (if it does and it's a big problem among most law schools then this post is pointless). While TLS has made a huge deal about this category of jobs, the problem is infinitesimal compared to the larger problem the magazine faces with employment statistics--schools putting Starbuck barrista jobs in the full-time job category. Note that TLS gets moist over T14 but the larger majority of law applicants would only dream of getting into such schools. They are concerned about those T1 and T2 law schools. In other words, give me a reason why USWNR should/would concern themselves with this S-F dilemma (a product of TLS's unrepresentative and neurotic sample) when there are bigger fish to batter and fry for a much larger readership.

Secondly, there would be no effective way of separating those school-funded jobs that are bogus from the real fellowship ones or whatever the case may be. In sum, factoring in S-F Jobs means costs to the ranking committee>benefits to all people looking at these rankings.

PS
Lots of my figures and statements are speculation but I just wanted to know other people's thoughts.

[rad lulz]

I don't think school-funded jobs would be taken into account by USWRN (don't know the right acronym) because the problem (as some TLS have proposed) surrounding school-funded jobs doesn't really extend beyond the T14 or T20 (if it does and it's a big problem among most law schools then this post is pointless). While TLS has made a huge deal about this category of jobs, the problem is infinitesimal compared to the larger problem the magazine faces with employment statistics--schools putting Starbuck barrista jobs in the full-time job category. Note that TLS gets moist over T14 but the larger majority of law applicants would only dream of getting into such schools. They are concerned about those T1 and T2 law schools. In other words, give me a reason why USWNR should/would concern themselves with this S-F dilemma (a product of TLS's unrepresentative and neurotic sample) when there are bigger fish to batter and fry for a much larger readership.

Secondly, there would be no effective way of separating those school-funded jobs that are bogus from the real fellowship ones or whatever the case may be. In sum, factoring in S-F Jobs means costs to the ranking committee>benefits to all people looking at these rankings.

PS
Lots of my figures and statements are speculation but I just wanted to know other people's thoughts.

Who cares about the effect or lack thereof on T1/T2 skoolz. If you need rankings to tell you whether to go to LSU or UF or SMU, you need to reevaluate your life.

[pedestrian]

The best school in D.C. is always going to bring in a certain degree of quality.

This sentence is really all there is to say about GULC. It can do whatever it wants and as long as it's better than GW, lots of people with good LSATs will go there. Thus its rank will not plummet.

Don’t mind the fact that U.S. News & World Report has said that they are going to begin judging employment criteria more strictly, and GULC’s employment rate sucks. Unfortunately, “lots of people going there” is not synonymous with “lots of people graduating with decent employment.” (If “lots” is a raw number, then perhaps yes just because of the sheer size of GULC’s class; however, if it is a percentage of the graduating class, you are looking at dismal numbers.)

GULC is also one of the few top schools that has to try to insert graduates mainly into DC, which is an extremely tough market. Most of the other T20 schools have different markets that they can place graduates into. Accordingly, if DC gets rough, GULC could very easily plummet.

I don't think GULC will ever "plummet," per se. If it goes down, it will be a gradual decline. In any case, Georgetown is generally perceived as having a very prestigious law school. I recently spoke to an gentleman who graduated from law school 20-30 years ago, but was no longer practicing law. He mentioned Georgetown in the same breath as Harvard.

I may be cynical, but I think the US News will probably try to have a ranking formula that will not be too much different from general perceptions of the school (although with GULC at 14 13, it arguably is out of step with general perceptions).

I have had several people ask how I will ever choose between Yale and Georgetown. At first they were just adorable older relatives, but then a friend who works at the ACLU (in fairness, not as a lawyer) asked me the same thing. Sometimes I forget that there is a world outside of TLS.

P.S. FTFY

[Sevenkingdoms]

Top 6 predictions, anyone?

[Gunnar Stahl]

Top 6 predictions, anyone?

who.gives.a.shit.

[North]

Top 6 predictions, anyone?

who.gives.a.shit.

People who have 5 minutes to burn and like pistachios.

[Gunnar Stahl]

Top 6 predictions, anyone?

who.gives.a.shit.

People who have 5 minutes to burn and like pistachios.

lol nice

[005618502]

Top 6 predictions, anyone?

1. Stanford
2. Yale
2. Harvard
4. Columbia
5. Chicago
6. NYU
6. Penn

Employers leave Yale in DROVES.

Wow... Stanford and penn trolling in the same post. Don't know if I've seen that before

[Kurohoshi]

No particularly sure why people are coming into this thread just to say "who cares?" or "this is pointless".

That only means that your posts are equally pointless and I'm sure you could be doing something better with your oh so valuable time.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

No particularly sure why people are coming into this thread just to say "who cares?" or "this is pointless".

That only means that your posts are equally pointless and I'm sure you could be doing something better with your oh so valuable time.

Maybe they mean to suggest that rankings are pointless and it is not a waste of time to persuade people to think so. Or maybe they are just insecure TLS dickheads. Or maybe you're a dickhead. Or me.

[somewhatwayward]

No particularly sure why people are coming into this thread just to say "who cares?" or "this is pointless".

That only means that your posts are equally pointless and I'm sure you could be doing something better with your oh so valuable time.

I read a statistic recently that 32% of prospective law students think a school's ranking is the most critical aspect of choosing a law school while only 8% said job prospects were. That's (partially) why people come in this thread and say that they're pointless. Hopefully we will drill it into the heads of some 0Ls that choosing American over your local T3 is so incredibly stupid that I can't think of a strong enough way to express it.

ETA: American is one of the biggest dungheaps out there. I hope it drops like a stone in these rankings so people start to realize what a ripoff it is (yes, they should already know looking at its abysmal 35% placement rate coupled with its 250K price tag, but somehow people still go there in droves).

[2012Lsatscore]

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[jenesaislaw]

I read a statistic recently that 32% of prospective law students think a school's ranking is the most critical aspect of choosing a law school while only 8% said job prospects were. That's (partially) why people come in this thread and say that they're pointless. Hopefully we will drill it into the heads of some 0Ls that choosing American over your local T3 is so incredibly stupid that I can't think of a strong enough way to express it.

ETA: American is one of the biggest dungheaps out there. I hope it drops like a stone in these rankings so people start to realize what a ripoff it is (yes, they should already know looking at its abysmal 35% placement rate coupled with its 250K price tag, but somehow people still go there in droves).

Read this: --LinkRemoved--

[ms9]

Sooo...are we waiting on the online release date (the 12th, I think) or is the list expected to be leaked before then?

Someone will likely and painstakingly make their own copy to look as real as possible, post about how their brother's girlfriend works at USNWR blah blah blah, plaster the fake on here and 45% of the thread will go crazy believing it is true. At least, that is what seems to happen every year.

Law School Deans get an embargoed copy either the 10th or 11th, fyi.

[Renne Walker]

Sooo...are we waiting on the online release date (the 12th, I think) or is the list expected to be leaked before then?

Law School Deans get an embargoed copy either the 10th or 11th, fyi.

And since you know several deans, I suppose you could slip us a little advance peek....

[ms9]

Sooo...are we waiting on the online release date (the 12th, I think) or is the list expected to be leaked before then?

Law School Deans get an embargoed copy either the 10th or 11th, fyi.

And since you know several deans, I suppose you could slip us a little advance peek....

...and then I'd never get a future copy early again