Why U.S. News Will Never Improve its Ranking System Forum

[androstan]

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/arti ... ject-title

(Not sure if this belongs here or not, mods feel free to move if you think it's appropriate)

[androstan]

The only way to break the US News stranglehold is for everyone, especially 0L's, to recognize the rankings for what they are, bullshit.

lawschooltransparency.com has done far, far more in the area of helping 0L's choose which school to attend than US News will ever do. Look there, 0L's.

[cotiger]

Some solid pro-Berkeley trolling in there.

[Mauve.Dino]

The only rankings you need: http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/methods.html

[04102014]

Some solid pro-Berkeley trolling in there.

I was all like

[rpupkin]

Some solid pro-Berkeley trolling in there.

Huh? The author is a GW professor. And all he was suggesting was that Berkeley is a peer of Penn and Michigan. That seems pretty uncontroversial.

[cotiger]

Some solid pro-Berkeley trolling in there.

Huh? The author is a GW professor. And all he was suggesting was that Berkeley is a peer of Penn and Michigan. That seems pretty uncontroversial.

"That means that on a scorecard, out of roughly 200 schools, 20 schools should receive a 5. Should the scorecards of anyone who doesn't rank Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, or Berkeley at this level be taken seriously at all?"

Simultaneously true and trollish. Well done.

[jenesaislaw]

These cries are deftly answered with a response that is typically a variant of the following: "We'll look into this. We are always looking to improve our ranking formula." Not much changes, though. The formula is tweaked a little bit, but the changes are never dramatic.

Umm, U.S. News has changed their rankings formula dramatically twice in the past four years. U.S. News responds to suggestions not just criticisms. I can personally attest to this because I have sit downs with their entire methodology research team from time to time.

Overall, this piece more of the same woe is me crap that I'm increasingly frustrated by. I understand the pressures law school admins are under. It's ridiculous. But then you turn around and ask them to provide meaningful information so that people don't have to rely on U.S. News and it's like pulling teeth. Finally, GW released their NALP report for 2012. Finally! And all it took was seeing that Georgetown did it, which was a response to Columbia, which was a response to a phone call after many attempts.

TLS is a great example of what happens when you provide people meaningful information. They use that information instead of the rankings. Hell, just look at OP's first response -- a link to LST.

/kvetching

[rayiner]

Some solid pro-Berkeley trolling in there.

Huh? The author is a GW professor. And all he was suggesting was that Berkeley is a peer of Penn and Michigan. That seems pretty uncontroversial.

"That means that on a scorecard, out of roughly 200 schools, 20 schools should receive a 5. Should the scorecards of anyone who doesn't rank Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, or Berkeley at this level be taken seriously at all?"

Simultaneously true and trollish. Well done.

This is great, and something I have never thought of. I can't think of any sensible distribution of just 5 scores that is consistent with the top 10 or so schools not all having very nearly a 5 overall score. The fact that some of the listed schools have scores below 4.5 (i.e. more 4's than 5's) means that people used up 40% of the whole scoring range just on the top 10 or so out of 200 schools.

[androstan]

Some solid pro-Berkeley trolling in there.

Huh? The author is a GW professor. And all he was suggesting was that Berkeley is a peer of Penn and Michigan. That seems pretty uncontroversial.

"That means that on a scorecard, out of roughly 200 schools, 20 schools should receive a 5. Should the scorecards of anyone who doesn't rank Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, or Berkeley at this level be taken seriously at all?"

Simultaneously true and trollish. Well done.

This is great, and something I have never thought of. I can't think of any sensible distribution of just 5 scores that is consistent with the top 10 or so schools not all having very nearly a 5 overall score. The fact that some of the listed schools have scores below 4.5 (i.e. more 4's than 5's) means that people used up 40% of the whole scoring range just on the top 10 or so out of 200 schools.

ayup