Your T-14 Law School Ranking Forum

[Cochran]

I always see posts on here about USNWR & ATL's Law School Ranking, but never see anyone else post their individual law school ranking. As people begin to receive acceptances and are left with tough decisions, individual rankings from users could be a valuable tool in helping people make their choices. Additionally, a short explanation clarifying your choices would be helpful to add to your ranking, giving us a better understanding of the reasoning behind it.

Try to base your ranking on factors that are important to students and answer the "why" in regards to attending law school. Keep in mind that certain factors can outweigh others in your ranking, it's really just based on your opinions. Examples of reasonable factors:
Which schools offers the best career prospects?
Which schools offer the best environments/location?
Which student bodies are most diverse, friendly, ect.?
Which schools offer the best programs?
Which schools offer the greatest bang for your buck?
***Criteria are not limited to the following, but be reasonable. For example, "Great food" wouldn't be a solid ranking factor.***

Also, try to avoid bias in your answer and give an honest assessment of the schools. If you went/go to X school and love it, try to effectively evaluate it in comparison to other schools. If you hate it, then don't include it on your ranking. [For example, it's unrealistic to put a TTTT school in your T-14, but a school that's commonly regarded as T20-30 could easily make it based on an individual's personal experiences or reasonable criteria as listed above. (Vice versa, Ex: a T-6's exclusion for the same reasons)]

[A. Nony Mouse]

How will this be helpful as opposed to something that devolves into ridiculous bickering over details that don't matter based on questionable information? And how does person X's ranking based on their own situation help person Y decide when Y's in a different situation?

[Saddle Up]

Which schools offer the greatest bang for your buck?

One major criteria is the prominence of OCI at any school you are considering. For years nothing much changes in the t7 but t8-t14 is also a go. Ditto schools in the top 20-25. Mainly using USNWR but ATL might also come into play (maybe). Not sure where schools currently rank in ATL because (for whatever reason) their rankings have not been updated on TLS for a couple of years.

As far as bang for the buck, this is greatly dependent on your personal stats.

[Cochran]

How will this be helpful as opposed to something that devolves into ridiculous bickering over details that don't matter based on questionable information? And how does person X's ranking based on their own situation help person Y decide when Y's in a different situation?

Lately, I've been thinking about X vs Y schools on my list. I think many wonder "If I got into both and had the same financial burden, which school would I pick?," and on this forum, many have these questions throughout the top 30 schools. You can look at rankings all day, and still learn very little about what makes school X rank higher than school Y [ATL does a much better job than USNWR, but still very vague with their reasoning]. I thought that this would be valuable for prospective students to get the story "straight from the horse's mouth," with law school students on this forum giving their personal experiences for their ranking (through visits, positive or negative experiences at their current school, reasons for transfers, ect.). I'm not trying to start any squabbling, I just see value in this for myself and others. I also think there are arguments for augmented rankings for schools within the traditional T-14. Ex: Is traditionally ranked #1 better than #3? Someone may actually disagree, site personal reasons for their disagreement, and then aid someone who's deciding between those two schools.

[Cochran]

Which schools offer the greatest bang for your buck?

One major criteria is the prominence of OCI at any school you are considering. For years nothing much changes in the t7 but t8-t14 is also a go. Ditto schools in the top 20-25. Mainly using USNWR but ATL might also come into play (maybe). Not sure where schools currently rank in ATL because (for whatever reason) their rankings have not been updated on TLS for a couple of years.

As far as bang for the buck, this is greatly dependent on your personal stats.

Good points. Really I was thinking all else equal (essentially $0 in scholly) which offers the most bang for the buck (ex: 14th expensive school might set you up just as well as the most expensive school). But this is pretty fairly unrealistic. I essentially wanted people to create their own reasonable criteria, like OCI which you sited.

[A. Nony Mouse]

How will this be helpful as opposed to something that devolves into ridiculous bickering over details that don't matter based on questionable information? And how does person X's ranking based on their own situation help person Y decide when Y's in a different situation?

Lately, I've been thinking about X vs Y schools on my list. I think many wonder "If I got into both and had the same financial burden, which school would I pick?," and on this forum, many have these questions throughout the top 30 schools. You can look at rankings all day, and still learn very little about what makes school X rank higher than school Y [ATL does a much better job than USNWR, but still very vague with their reasoning]. I thought that this would be valuable for prospective students to get the story "straight from the horse's mouth," with law school students on this forum giving their personal experiences for their ranking (through visits, positive or negative experiences at their current school, reasons for transfers, ect.). I'm not trying to start any squabbling, I just see value in this for myself and others. I also think there are arguments for augmented rankings for schools within the traditional T-14. Ex: Is traditionally ranked #1 better than #3? Someone may actually disagree, site personal reasons for their disagreement, and then aid someone who's deciding between those two schools.

People frequently post "school X or school Y?" threads (Yale v. Harvard happens a fair amount), which provide a lot of this kind of information, but specific to a given person's situation, which is the only way it's useful.

(That's not a mod edict you shouldn't have this thread. I just don't even know what the rankings would look like or how they'd be helpful. They're not so much rankings as they are lots of individual lists of preferences.)

[TheSpanishMain]

If you're trying to decide between School X and School Y, you should probably just make that thread and get some opinions. I don't see how what you're proposing would be helpful.

[Hand]

If you're trying to decide between School X and School Y, you should probably just make that thread and get some opinions. I don't see how what you're proposing would be helpful.

posting your OWN UNIQUE RANKING can help further inflate your already inflated sense of self-importance

[jbagelboy]

Please god no.

People already do this way too much on here as it is

[ManoftheHour]

If you're trying to decide between School X and School Y, you should probably just make that thread and get some opinions. I don't see how what you're proposing would be helpful.