2012 U.S. News Rankings (March 15th... It's official) Forum

[rman1201]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

Nice. I am curious to see the "new calculation of employment rates". Everything else just looks like fluff with no actual demand/consequence - about as useless as anything the UN does.

[99.9luft]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

Nice. I am curious to see the "new calculation of employment rates". Everything else just looks like fluff with no actual demand/consequence - about as useless as anything the UN does.

This 'change' makes me think that these ranking will shake more up than we expected (and more than they did in the previous years). Finally, an incentive to care.

[Marionberry]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

Nice. I am curious to see the "new calculation of employment rates". Everything else just looks like fluff with no actual demand/consequence - about as useless as anything the UN does.

I propose new ranking system, in which the Deans of all T100 law schools with compete in a tournament of fights to the death.

[girlonfire]

I propose new ranking system, in which the Deans of all T100 law schools with compete in a tournament of fights to the death.

you've got my vote

[Justathought]

I propose new ranking system, in which the Deans of all T100 law schools with compete in a tournament of fights to the death.

you've got my vote

Yale still comes out on top.

http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/ARangappa.htm

[Marionberry]

I propose new ranking system, in which the Deans of all T100 law schools with compete in a tournament of fights to the death.

you've got my vote

Yale still comes out on top.

http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/ARangappa.htm

She's supposed to be pretty fierce, but for the purposes of the ranking system we have to have the school's main dean's fight, not the admissions deans. If we allow that, schools will bring in ringers.

[rman1201]

I propose new ranking system, in which the Deans of all T100 law schools with compete in a tournament of fights to the death.

you've got my vote

Yale still comes out on top.

http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/ARangappa.htm

She's supposed to be pretty fierce, but for the purposes of the ranking system we have to have the school's main dean's fight, not the admissions deans. If we allow that, schools will bring in ringers.

Yale would still come out on top, their dean is a certified bad ass.

[Marionberry]

Yale would still come out on top, their dean is a certified bad ass.

I googled different law school deans, trying to find one that looked really badass and tough. I was unsuccessful.

[Justathought]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

This is great news.

Edit: Though I bet the employment data is still not given the weight it deserves.

[northwood]

do you think they implemented it in this year's rankings??

[Justathought]

do you think they implemented it in this year's rankings??

Says they did.

[CanadianWolf]

Wow ! Thank you for posting this link.

P.S. Anybody willing to post a "street slang" translation of the USNews letter to law school deans ?

[fish52]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

This is great news.

Edit: Though I bet the employment data is still not given the weight it deserves.

How do you weight clerkships, prestigious PI, etc. in comparison with BigLaw placement?

I'm glad I'm not in charge of USNWR methodology.

[cjw2222]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

The only thing I see resulting from this letter is a greater incentive for law schools to tweak the salaries of graduates. It is already a well documented problem just how farfetched the median salaries are and placing more weight on salaries for the rankings will only agitate this problem. If USNWR wishes to use salary as another barometer, the ABA or NALP needs to step in and mandate the auditing of salary information just like MBA programs do (why this is not the case currently baffles me). In addition, many law schools do not count those not in the legal field in their salary information yet include them for their employment percentage. They should include either all reported salaries or only those gainfully employed but they should not be afforded the luxury to pick and chose, especially with the emphasis law schools place on full disclosure. Coming from an accounting/finance background, this form of book keeping is worthy of a public uprising. And research will show more than a handful of schools that claim 25% or more of graduates could be contacted for information. This tells me either they were too embarrassed/outraged at their current employment status or they made so little money that the school "lost" their salary report and chalked up another no contact.

Even if a school decided to report wholly and truthfully they couldn't out of sheer terror of what that would do to their rankings and application numbers. Nothing will be done to improve this glaring flaw until strict mandates are constructed governing the exact process of salary documentation.

Whew stepping off soap box now...

[rman1201]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

The only thing I see resulting from this letter is a greater incentive for law schools to tweak the salaries of graduates. It is already a well documented problem just how farfetched the median salaries are and placing more weight on salaries for the rankings will only agitate this problem. If USNWR wishes to use salary as another barometer, the ABA or NALP needs to step in and mandate the auditing of salary information just like MBA programs do (why this is not the case currently baffles me). In addition, many law schools do not count those not in the legal field in their salary information yet include them for their employment percentage. They should include either all reported salaries or only those gainfully employed but they should not be afforded the luxury to pick and chose, especially with the emphasis law schools place on full disclosure. Coming from an accounting/finance background, this form of book keeping is worthy of a public uprising. And research will show more than a handful of schools that claim 25% or more of graduates could be contacted for information. This tells me either they were too embarrassed/outraged at their current employment status or they made so little money that the school "lost" their salary report and chalked up another no contact.

Even if a school decided to report wholly and truthfully they couldn't out of sheer terror of what that would do to their rankings and application numbers. Nothing will be done to improve this glaring flaw until strict mandates are constructed governing the exact process of salary documentation.

Whew stepping off soap box now...

Tl;dr

[AlphaIncipiens]

Did people see this?

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... yment-data

The only thing I see resulting from this letter is a greater incentive for law schools to tweak the salaries of graduates. It is already a well documented problem just how farfetched the median salaries are and placing more weight on salaries for the rankings will only agitate this problem. If USNWR wishes to use salary as another barometer, the ABA or NALP needs to step in and mandate the auditing of salary information just like MBA programs do (why this is not the case currently baffles me). In addition, many law schools do not count those not in the legal field in their salary information yet include them for their employment percentage. They should include either all reported salaries or only those gainfully employed but they should not be afforded the luxury to pick and chose, especially with the emphasis law schools place on full disclosure. Coming from an accounting/finance background, this form of book keeping is worthy of a public uprising. And research will show more than a handful of schools that claim 25% or more of graduates could be contacted for information. This tells me either they were too embarrassed/outraged at their current employment status or they made so little money that the school "lost" their salary report and chalked up another no contact.

Even if a school decided to report wholly and truthfully they couldn't out of sheer terror of what that would do to their rankings and application numbers. Nothing will be done to improve this glaring flaw until strict mandates are constructed governing the exact process of salary documentation.

Whew stepping off soap box now...

Tl;dr

+1

[fakemoney]

Dean of ___________________ (insert SEC school here)

[rman1201]

So is this going to be the official thread for when the rankings come out or should we make a new one? OP doesn't seem very active...

[99.9luft]

So is this going to be the official thread for when the rankings come out or should we make a new one? OP doesn't seem very active...

depends how shocking the ranking will be. a new thread might be warranted if its future title implies sudden and unexpected PWNAGE by an underdog or a shocking toppling of a ranking leader.

[rman1201]

So is this going to be the official thread for when the rankings come out or should we make a new one? OP doesn't seem very active...

depends how shocking the ranking will be. a new thread might be warranted if its future title implies sudden and unexpected PWNAGE by an underdog or a shocking toppling of a ranking leader.

I'm a Premium Us News subscriber, so I call first dibs on the thread. I want my TLS identity to be forever associated with the rankings that changed everything.

[DeSimone]

So is this going to be the official thread for when the rankings come out or should we make a new one? OP doesn't seem very active...

no worries, the moderators will hack it if need be

[nshapkar]

do you think they implemented it in this year's rankings??

Says they did.

It said that the letter was sent a week ago which would be 3/2. I don't see how the schools would compile the needed information quick enough, then the USNWR writers factor it into the rankings, and finally publish it all by 3/15.


Also, what exactly do business schools do to make their salary figures so accurate?

[nshapkar]

Shouldn't they be leaked by now?

One would think.

They're being released online first. USNWR got smart and there will be no print articles for NYers to snag a few days early as there were in the past.

why/how did NY get the articles first? I mean, they are a couple hours ahead of the west coast but days??

[Eagles_Legendz]

I have a question regarding salaries being reported/employment levels:

1) Does the percentage of graduates who report salaries factor into the rankings? That seems far more useful to me than the overall median reported.

2) Does CoL get weighted at all? Obviously you have a better chance at BigLaw going to GW or a school along those lines than Alabama etc, but 75k gets you significantly farther in Alabama or Tennessee than it does in DC and NYC. I'm just curious if that's factored in the rankings?

[bdubs]

Also, what exactly do business schools do to make their salary figures so accurate?

Go to most top business schools and you can get a list of where each graduating student is employed and then salary statistics are aggregated into industries for publication. Most of the data are published with a full range of salaries for industries (sufficiently high level to avoid individual idenitification) and then an average or median is reported.

I believe the data are self reported, however they are usually audited to avoid the school itself manipulating the result (rather than whatever incentive an individual might have to misrepresent their employment or income information).

For example Kellogg's report is here:

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Pro ... Final.ashx

Interestingly it contains the name and employer of JD/MBAs as well.