Top Law Schools

Here is a good amount of the USNEWS data for the T15 schools broken down in comparison to last year.

I don't have all of the data to compare and encourage everyone to purchase the content themselves to do a thorough comparison of each school. If anyone has any more readily-available data that they'd like me to add, please feel free to post it here or send it via a message. Also, if you catch an error in any of the data, please let me know and I'll fix it.

Anyway, I'll mostly let the data speak for itself, but some takeaways from these highlights:

1) Employment stats dropped for all schools except UVA and Chicago.
2) Most ranking shifts occurred only do to the relative increases in total scores for schools. Only H lost a point.
3) Lots of increases in selectivity from ITE.
4) Pretty mixed bag on GPA increases.
5) There were more LSAT score increases than decreases on the whole.

Nothing too unexpected, overall.

UPDATE III: I've added categorical rankings to the chart in orange along the left side of applicable columns. In order to rank the GPA and LSAT columns, I averaged the 25/75 numbers and compared those averages. That's obviously imperfect, but it's the best proxy I had. I also understand that ranking the acceptance rates doesn't really make much sense since they somewhat depend on class size. But I did it anyway, so take it or leave it. If anyone wants, they can come up with a formula to appropriately weight those acceptance rates given the most recent class sizes and post that info here. I'm honestly not confident that I'd do it correctly myself.

UPDATE V: I've added some things:

1) I swapped the tuition listings with the COA estimate published by each school. Since only Harvard and Georgetown had their 2011-12 numbers posted in an easy-to-find place, however, I decided to just list the 2010-2011 numbers to avoid apples & oranges comparisons, even though that means the data is slightly dated.

2) I added ranking numbers for the total enrollment numbers. Admittedly, this was done according to my preference for smaller student populations. Others may disagree, and they are certainly welcome to count backwards or disregard those rankings. Ultimately, I know that student/faculty ratios are probably more useful, but - to paraphrase Rumsfeld - you make charts with the data you have, not the data you wish you had.

3) I added the LSAT and GPA numbers posted in this thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=128236. I can't vouch for their accuracy, but it they seem like they are better than nothing. Again, see that Rumsfeldian wisdom above.

4) I also added a column to include the Firm Reputation Rankings that USNEWS published this year.

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UPDATE VI:

I decided to have some fun and make charts for the 25-50-75th GPA & LSAT scores for these schools:

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And here is the raw text for the main chart in case someone else wants to have some fun with it:

Rank Score Name COA
(’10-11 Data) Total Enrol. Median GPA GPA (25th-75th) Median LSAT LSAT (25th-75th) Accept. Rate Lwyr/Jdg
Rep Score Firm Rep Score Graduates Emp’d (9 months)
#1 100 Yale [9] $70,450 [3] 629 [1] 3.91 [+.01] [1] 3.81 [-.01] - 3.96 [1] 173 [1] 171 [+1] - 176 [1] 6.7% [-1] [2] 4.7 [-0.1] [2] 4.8 [8] 96.5% [-1.6]
#2 96 [-1] Harvard [8] $70,100 [15] 1,733 [2] 3.89 [+.01] [2] 3.78 [+.02] - 3.96 [1] 173 [1] 171 - 176 [5] 11.0% [1] 4.8 [1] 4.9 [5] 97.5% [-1.8]
#3 94 [+1] Stanford [15] $74,982 [1] 571 [3] 3.88 [3] 3.74 [-.03] - 3.94 [-.03] [6] 170 [5] 167 - 173 [+1] [2] 8.9% [2] 4.7 [-0.1] [2] 4.8 [10] 95.6% [-3.2]
#4 92 [+1] Columbia [13] $74,000 [12] 1,343 [11] 3.72 [8] 3.61 [+.01] - 3.82 [+.01] [3] 172 [3] 170 - 175 [6] 13.2% [-2] [4] 4.6 [4] 4.7 [2] 97.8% [-1.7]
#5 90 [+2] Chicago [6] $68,010 [4] 634 [9] 3.78 [+.02] [6] 3.59 [-.04] - 3.87 [+.03] [5] 171 [5] 168 [-1] -172 [-1] [9] 15.2% [-3] [4] 4.6 [8] 4.5 [1] 99.0%
#6 89 [+2] NYU [10] $70,866 [13] 1,431 [12] 3.71 [-.01] [8] 3.57 - 3.86 [3] 172 [+1] [4] 169 - 175 [+2] [13] 20.9% [-2] [9] 4.4 [6] 4.6 [7] 97.0% [-2.2]
#7 [+2] 86 [+2] Michigan [2] $65,350 [10] 1,134 [10] 3.73 [+.03] [11] 3.57 [+.02] - 3.85 [+.01] [12] 169 [8] 168 [+1] - 171 [+1] [12] 18.6% [-3] [7] 4.5 [+0.1] [4] 4.7 [9] 96.4% [-2.4]
#7 86 [+1] UPenn [7] $68,150 [6] 802 [4] 3.85 [+.03] [7] 3.54 [-.03] - 3.9 [6] 170 [10] 166 - 171 [8] 14.4% [7] 4.5 [14] 4.4 [4] 97.7% [-0.7]
#9 [-2] 85 Berkeley [14] $74,048 [8] 916 [6] 3.80 [-.03] [5] 3.64 [-.04] - 3.87 [-.08] [14] 167 [-1] [15] 162 [-3] - 170 [3] 10.3% [9] 4.4 [8] 4.5 [10] 95.6% [-3]
#9 [+1] 85 [+2] Virginia [4] $67,700 [9] 1,105 [4] 3.85 [8] 3.51 [-.03] - 3.92 [6] 170 [10] 166 [+1] - 171 [4] 10.8% [-4] [4] 4.6 [6] 4.6 [2] 97.8% [+0.3]
#11 83 [+1] Duke [3] $66,938 [5] 644 [6] 3.80 [+.04] [4] 3.68 [+.08] - 3.9 [+.06] [6] 170 [+1] [8] 168 [+1] - 171 [6] 13.2% [-5] [9] 4.4 [+0.1] [8] 4.5 [12] 95.4% [-4.6]
#12 [-1] 82 Northwestern [12] $73,285 [7] 817 [6] 3.80 [+.08] [14] 3.4 - 3.9 [+.09] [6] 170 [10] 166 - 171 [-1] [11] 18.1% [12] 4.3 [8] 4.5 [13] 95.0% [-5]
#13 80 [+2] Cornell [11] $72,380 [2] 615 [14] 3.70 [+.07] [13] 3.55 [+.05] - 3.8 [13] 168 [+1] [13] 166 [+1] - 169 [+1] [10] 17.3% [-4] [12] 4.3 [8] 4.5 [6] 97.4% [-1]
#14 77 Georgetown [5] $68,000 [14] 1,626 [15] 3.67 [-.01] [15] 3.45 [+.03] - 3.78 [-.01] [6] 170 [5] 168 [+1] - 172 [+1] [14] 21.3% [-2] [12] 4.3 [14] 4.4 [15] 92.3% [-5.7]
#14 [+1] 77 [+1] Tex.—Aust. [1] $61,250 [11] 1,154 [12] 3.71 [12] 3.57 [+.03] - 3.84 [-.03] [14] 167 [14] 164 - 169 [+1] [15] 22.6% [12] 4.3 [+0.1] [15] 4.2 [14] 92.8% [-5.3]


(UPDATE: Fixed Michigan's GPA adjustment data to correctly show it was an increase, not a decrease)
(UPDATE II: Fixed Berkeley's GPA adjustment data to correctly show it was a decrease, not an increase)
(UPDATE IV: Fixed UPenn's reputation score adjustment. It was 4.5 last year as well and did not go down this year)

Thanks for the easy to read chart.

Knock wrote:Thanks for the easy to read chart.

+1

I'm definitely not having a migraine relapse right now.

Knock wrote:Thanks for the easy to read chart.

Tanks as well. Any chance of expanding it to the t30?

Thanks so much!

Thank you!!!

Another thank you.

thanks

BeachandRun23 wrote:Thanks so much!

+1

Michigan's 25% gpa should be +.02 not -.02

harrijust86 wrote:

Knock wrote:Thanks for the easy to read chart.

Tanks as well. Any chance of expanding it to the t30?

Honestly, no plans at the moment. This one ate up a good hour this afternoon and I have some real work to tend to now. If I get some free time later in the week, I'll give it a stab, but I encourage someone else to give it a go...

holydonkey wrote:Michigan's 25% gpa should be +.02 not -.02

Right you are. I'll update the original chart in a min or so.

Not positive, but I believe that Berkeley's 75th should be -.08 not +.08.

for the acceptance rate, does -4 mean -4%, or -.4%? Just wondering because it seems like a big jump compared to all the other categories.

Verisimi wrote:Not positive, but I believe that Berkeley's 75th should be -.08 not +.08.

You're right. It's fixed now.

nshapkar wrote:for the acceptance rate, does -4 mean -4%, or -.4%? Just wondering because it seems like a big jump compared to all the other categories.

Those are actually all whole numbers. The reason they are nice and round like that is because my print out of last year's data appears to be rounded to whole numbers. For comparison purposes, I rounded the new stats and then subtracted. Those changes are really that large, though.

I'm a little confused as to which year's data is used to formulate the GPA and LSAT percentiles. Is it the class that started in the fall of 2010?

phx wrote:I'm a little confused as to which year's data is used to formulate the GPA and LSAT percentiles. Is it the class that started in the fall of 2010?

That data displayed is the data from the latest USNEWS rankings, which I believe should be what the schools reported as the stats for the class that entered in the fall of last year (2010). The comparison is to the data reported by those schools in last year's report (for the class that entered school in the fall of 2009). I just compiled the USNEWS data that I found in another forum on this site, however, and I don't have access to the methodology section of the USNEWS website to confirm that...

Great chart! Thanks!

great chart.

Great, easy to read chart. Thanks for the info!

PSA for newbies: US News & WR only takes into consideration the MEDIAN LSAT and median GPA. The ranges are just FYI but the MEDIANS are used to calculate the rankings. That's why MEDIANS are so important in law school admissions.

jimbob321 wrote:PSA for newbies: US News & WR only takes into consideration the MEDIAN LSAT and median GPA. The ranges are just FYI but the MEDIANS are used to calculate the rankings. That's why MEDIANS are so important in law school admissions.

Added the median data to make it a bit more useful to prospective students.

Bump for the new GPA/LSAT charts.

Thanks!