Top Law Schools

The students at Fordham clearly have demonstrably better numbers than some of the schools in the top 30 (e.g. Wisconsin). How is Fordham ranked so low?

A lot of people think it's because of its parTTT TTTime class.

To me it says that US News fudges rankings. Iowa and Indiana have putrid 25% LSATS, under 160! Worse, Indiana's acceptance rate is a sad 32% (compared to Fordham's 22 and BC's 20), and Iowa's is an absolutely appalling 44%. How can these be top 30 schools? They are easy to get into, which means that students don't want to go there. The rankings are a joke and no one should pay attention to them. Honestly, no other school in the entire top 50 comes anywhere close to Iowa's 44% acceptance rate, and they are ranked 28.

hithere wrote:The students at Fordham clearly have demonstrably better numbers than some of the schools in the top 30 (e.g. Wisconsin). How is Fordham ranked so low?

NYC employmenTTT

Um, perhaps because thats where it came out according to the raw score it received when USNews and World Report weighed the data? People act as though they aren't free to disagree with one set of rankings, and it frankly baffles me. Fordham is not a top 30 law school *according to USNews* because, well, they said so.

The more important question: Why does it matter?

If you didn't crack T-14 and you want NYC, Fordham is probably your best bet. Don't let US News tell you differently.

romothesavior wrote:The more important question: Why does it matter?

If you didn't crack T-14 and you want NYC, Fordham is probably your best bet. Don't let US News tell you differently.

+1

splinter23x wrote:To me it says that US News fudges rankings. Iowa and Indiana have putrid 25% LSATS, under 160! Worse, Indiana's acceptance rate is a sad 32% (compared to Fordham's 22 and BC's 20), and Iowa's is an absolutely appalling 44%. How can these be top 30 schools? They are easy to get into, which means that students don't want to go there. The rankings are a joke and no one should pay attention to them. Honestly, no other school in the entire top 50 comes anywhere close to Iowa's 44% acceptance rate, and they are ranked 28.

Actually Iowa is ranked 26. The reason they rank better than Fordham is reputation. Which is the biggest part of the rankings. It makes sense, in principle, when you think about it. A school should be measured more by the quality of students they produce than the quality they accept.

That being said only 65% of law schools send back the survey for peer assessment (25% of the rankings), which puts Iowa close to 20, and only 21% of judges and lawyers return the survey for the other assessment (15% of the rankings) which puts Iowa at 17. Also Iowa sends lawyers to over 30 states every year, the same as Yale, so their reputation is further reaching than Fordham, who concentrates its graduates in NY. Iowa doesn't and can't do that because there aren't enough jobs in Iowa, so they have a large alumni network outside of the state, and that helps when surveys are sent out nationally.

So the surveys are probably not the best way to measure what type of student a university produces. But its weighted more because it should matter more than who a school accepts.

MoS wrote:

romothesavior wrote:The more important question: Why does it matter?

If you didn't crack T-14 and you want NYC, Fordham is probably your best bet. Don't let US News tell you differently.

+1

splinter23x wrote:To me it says that US News fudges rankings. Iowa and Indiana have putrid 25% LSATS, under 160! Worse, Indiana's acceptance rate is a sad 32% (compared to Fordham's 22 and BC's 20), and Iowa's is an absolutely appalling 44%. How can these be top 30 schools? They are easy to get into, which means that students don't want to go there. The rankings are a joke and no one should pay attention to them. Honestly, no other school in the entire top 50 comes anywhere close to Iowa's 44% acceptance rate, and they are ranked 28.

Actually Iowa is ranked 26. The reason they rank better than Fordham is reputation. Which is the biggest part of the rankings. It makes sense, in principle, when you think about it. A school should be measured more by the quality of students they produce than the quality they accept.

That being said only 65% of law schools send back the survey for peer assessment (25% of the rankings), which puts Iowa close to 20, and only 21% of judges and lawyers return the survey for the other assessment (15% of the rankings) which puts Iowa at 17. Also Iowa sends lawyers to over 30 states every year, the same as Yale, so their reputation is further reaching than Fordham, who concentrates its graduates in NY. Iowa doesn't and can't do that because there aren't enough jobs in Iowa, so they have a large alumni network outside of the state, and that helps when surveys are sent out nationally.

So the surveys are probably not the best way to measure what type of student a university produces. But its weighted more because it should matter more than who a school accepts.

That's probably a great explanation for it. Something like 90% of Fordham students stay in NYC, so a lot of people are probably not all that familiar with it.

Plus Iowa won the Orange Bowl. HTH

splinter23x wrote:To me it says that US News fudges rankings. Iowa and Indiana have putrid 25% LSATS, under 160! Worse, Indiana's acceptance rate is a sad 32% (compared to Fordham's 22 and BC's 20), and Iowa's is an absolutely appalling 44%. How can these be top 30 schools? They are easy to get into, which means that students don't want to go there. The rankings are a joke and no one should pay attention to them. Honestly, no other school in the entire top 50 comes anywhere close to Iowa's 44% acceptance rate, and they are ranked 28.

Couldn't the public vs. private factor contribute to the lower admissions standards? If they school is required to take a certain percentage of in-state students, then they will take them regardless if they scored a 150 or a 170.

That doesn't address the percent admitted, though.