ATL 2016 Rankings are Out: Discuss Forum

[emkay625]

Yeah ditto on the need to get rid of a resources input. Schools should not get rewarded for raising tuition.

[emkay625]

Of the rankings criteria

15% is education cost
5% is debt per job
5% is salary to debt ratio


25% of the criteria is solely or largely about how much the school costs. Obviously debt is a big part of the equation but isnt this a tad redundant.

I'm all for as many incentives as possible for schools to lower/keep flat tuition costs.

[jbagelboy]

Yeah ditto on the need to get rid of a resources input. Schools should not get rewarded for raising tuition.

yup. do you think when the university of Minnesota decided to boost its 'prestige' and its 'T20 US News Ranking Status' by throwing money at having "the most clinical programs in the country" (while driving up OOS and in-state tuition by ten thousand dollars a year), that helped students?? jesus christ no. these are the terrible decisions that debt-plague young lawyers and send law programs to the shitter

[FamilyLawEsq]

30 University of Florida – Levin College of Law

31 University of Illinois College of Law

32 Baylor Law

33 George Washington University Law School

34 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

35 Seton Hall Law School

36 University of New Mexico School of Law

37 Florida State University College of Law

38 Emory University School of Law

39 University of Washington School of Law

40 BYU – J. Reuben Clark Law School

41 University of Houston Law Center

42 University of Arizona, James E. Rogers

43 Louisiana State University, Herbert Law Center

44 (tie) University of Missouri, Columbia

44 (tie) Georgia State University College of Law

46 Temple University, James E. Beasley Law

47 Wake Forest University School of Law

48 (tie) Indiana University – Maurer School of Law (Bloomington)

48 (tie) University of Richmond School of Law

50 Arizona State University – Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

[abl]

tl;dr: my ranking would be:
2510% Employment Score (similar to ATL)
250% Quality Jobs Score (similar to ATL)BL+FC
20% Federal Clerkship Score
120% Student Quality Score (LSAT + GPA: similar to USNWR)
10% Reputation Score (similar to USNWR)
10% Resources Score (per-student funding)

---

*70% outputs (jobs)
*10% inputs (student quality)
*10% reputation
*10% resources

Most students seem to attend law school targeting BL+FC, so that's what I'd emphasize. Also, most people with clerkships end up going into BL anyway, right? I think inputs should matter more than maybe they do, so I'd be open to changing that number.

The point of weighting clerkships so heavily is to get a sense for the availability of "better than biglaw" options--and to distinguish among the T14--and not because clerkships themselves are super crucial. Clerkship placement therefore becomes a proxy for "better than biglaw" placement (because clerkship placement is representative of graduate attractiveness). It's probably impossible to track "better than biglaw" outcomes, so if this is something people care about (and they should), it's going to be necessary to use a proxy. Clerkship placement also drops off very quickly and pretty proportionately to access to "better than biglaw" positions. So, although clerkship placement is going to give Yale a pretty big boost (and help account for the fact that a lot of Yale grads end up in "better than biglaw" positions) it's going to make only a small difference between somewhere like UCLA and USC.

So, for the majority of schools that place very few students in clerkships, it's as if that 20% is a non-factor (which makes each of the remaining factors 25% more powerful -- so for comparing Wisconsin to Maryland, for example, you'd really be looking at something more like 31% employment / 31% quality jobs / 12.5% student quality / 12.5% reputation / 12.5% resources (because both schools are going to score in the low single digits for the fed clerkship score).

As I pointed out above though, clerkships would become a factor. The SEC schools, as just one example, always have more clerks than mid-west schools because of the hiring timelines and structure of the districts near those schools. It doesn't mean UGA is better than Iowa for a student who wants to work at a mid-sized firm in Des Moines or Minneapolis, but its exactly what these god-awful lists encourage.

So what would you propose? It's important to have some metric that captures the very real difference between Yale and Penn. I also get that LSAT + GPA isn't perfect, but do you really deny that it's a solid measure of respective student body strength? There aren't a lot of alternative measures, either.

No ranking is perfect. You're right that this ranking probably favors Alabama over Wisconsin in a way that's not representative. But few people should really be deciding between an SEC state school an a Big 10 state school, anyway, and the fact that certain regions might be generally over-ranked while other regions might be generally underranked therefore is a pretty small price to pay for a better ranking.

[jbagelboy]

tl;dr: my ranking would be:
2510% Employment Score (similar to ATL)
250% Quality Jobs Score (similar to ATL)BL+FC
20% Federal Clerkship Score
120% Student Quality Score (LSAT + GPA: similar to USNWR)
10% Reputation Score (similar to USNWR)
10% Resources Score (per-student funding)

---

*70% outputs (jobs)
*10% inputs (student quality)
*10% reputation
*10% resources

Most students seem to attend law school targeting BL+FC, so that's what I'd emphasize. Also, most people with clerkships end up going into BL anyway, right? I think inputs should matter more than maybe they do, so I'd be open to changing that number.

The point of weighting clerkships so heavily is to get a sense for the availability of "better than biglaw" options--and to distinguish among the T14--and not because clerkships themselves are super crucial. Clerkship placement therefore becomes a proxy for "better than biglaw" placement (because clerkship placement is representative of graduate attractiveness). It's probably impossible to track "better than biglaw" outcomes, so if this is something people care about (and they should), it's going to be necessary to use a proxy. Clerkship placement also drops off very quickly and pretty proportionately to access to "better than biglaw" positions. So, although clerkship placement is going to give Yale a pretty big boost (and help account for the fact that a lot of Yale grads end up in "better than biglaw" positions) it's going to make only a small difference between somewhere like UCLA and USC.

So, for the majority of schools that place very few students in clerkships, it's as if that 20% is a non-factor (which makes each of the remaining factors 25% more powerful -- so for comparing Wisconsin to Maryland, for example, you'd really be looking at something more like 31% employment / 31% quality jobs / 12.5% student quality / 12.5% reputation / 12.5% resources (because both schools are going to score in the low single digits for the fed clerkship score).

As I pointed out above though, clerkships would become a factor. The SEC schools, as just one example, always have more clerks than mid-west schools because of the hiring timelines and structure of the districts near those schools. It doesn't mean UGA is better than Iowa for a student who wants to work at a mid-sized firm in Des Moines or Minneapolis, but its exactly what these god-awful lists encourage.

So what would you propose? It's important to have some metric that captures the very real difference between Yale and Penn. I also get that LSAT + GPA isn't perfect, but do you really deny that it's a solid measure of respective student body strength? There aren't a lot of alternative measures, either.

No ranking is perfect. You're right that this ranking probably favors Alabama over Wisconsin in a way that's not representative. But few people should really be deciding between an SEC state school an a Big 10 state school, anyway, and the fact that certain regions might be generally over-ranked while other regions might be generally underranked therefore is a pretty small price to pay for a better ranking.

But see, most people using something like us news are making exactly those distinctions, like between a flagship school in one state and a flagship school in another. At our college, almost everyone interested in law school was choosing between a handful of five to ten top schools: no one was going to make an objectively "bad" choice going to "#7 over #5" or "#4 over #3" or "#8 over #11". Venture outside that, though, and you'll see where the most damaging ranking obsession takes hold. Within the T14, like between penn and yale or something, the survey becomes even less meaningful IMO. For me, crafting a ranking that "appropriately" privileges Yale over other good schools is a corruption of the empirical process. That's no better than what ATL has done.

WRT LSAT, in broad strokes, yes its an important device for class composition and could measure student experience; but no, a difference between a class mean of 169 and 170 or 172 and 173 has literally zero impact. Yet when incorporated as a quantitative "metric", it takes on a vastly over-inflated amount of importance. As for college GPAs, blegh--those seem super irrelevant to me considering the vast discrepancies in rigor and quality and level of grade inflation across schools and majors. Even granting, though, that these metrics could have *some* value in deciding where to attend, the negative consequence of their inclusion outstrips their positive value every time. Schools don't make the best decisions for their students, their faculty, or for their incoming class when they are under "median pressure"; rather, they make indefensible and chaotic choices to secure a very particular, very narrow, very unrepresentative type of academic excellence.

We shouldn't cling so parochially in our approach to guaranteeing that the micro-distinctions a law school professor may draw between high ranked school X and high ranked school Y persist; everyone knows the T14 and always will. Its the other 180 law schools that become so warped by this process.

[eph]

Let me look at the list. Is Harvard number 1 on the list? No it is not. The list sucks.

[luckenmeister]

So what would you propose? It's important to have some metric that captures the very real difference between Yale and Penn. I also get that LSAT + GPA isn't perfect, but do you really deny that it's a solid measure of respective student body strength? There aren't a lot of alternative measures, either.

No ranking is perfect. You're right that this ranking probably favors Alabama over Wisconsin in a way that's not representative. But few people should really be deciding between an SEC state school an a Big 10 state school, anyway, and the fact that certain regions might be generally over-ranked while other regions might be generally underranked therefore is a pretty small price to pay for a better ranking.

Is it really that important? Will the legal world implode if k-jd Jonny isn't aware of Yale's overwhelming superiority!? I'm sure those faced with Yale vs. Penn, all else equal, are smart enough to make the right choice, despite being unaware of these "VERY real differences" lol. But seriously, rankings are pretty unnecessary, as anyone can do basic research and find out which school is better/better for their goals. There's especially no reason to debate a methodology when employers (A3/Fed. Judges, Biglaw Partners, ect.) already have their own opinions on the various law schools. In short, chill people, you'll get through this.

Also, there's nothing wrong with someone taking a state Big10 or SEC school if they have certain goals and want to avoid debt. These blanket statements on this forum are continually wrong for many people.

[jnwa]

Of the rankings criteria

15% is education cost
5% is debt per job
5% is salary to debt ratio


25% of the criteria is solely or largely about how much the school costs. Obviously debt is a big part of the equation but isnt this a tad redundant.

I'm all for as many incentives as possible for schools to lower/keep flat tuition costs.

i guess...however no one cares about ATL. I dont even know why they need a ranking their whole jobs based shtick is already done by looking at the BL+fc numbers, they just took that and threw some costs redundant stats on top of it. Also just realized that they triple count Fed clerkships. They use it as part of the employment stats and then again as part of the "good employment" stats and then again on its own.

scooped on fed clerk..gotta read before posting

[emkay625]

Of the rankings criteria

15% is education cost
5% is debt per job
5% is salary to debt ratio


25% of the criteria is solely or largely about how much the school costs. Obviously debt is a big part of the equation but isnt this a tad redundant.

I'm all for as many incentives as possible for schools to lower/keep flat tuition costs.

i guess...however no one cares about ATL. I dont even know why they need a ranking their whole jobs based shtick is already done by looking at the BL+fc numbers, they just took that and threw some costs redundant stats on top of it. Also just realized that they triple count Fed clerkships. They use it as part of the employment stats and then again as part of the "good employment" stats and then again on its own.

scooped on fed clerk..gotta read before posting

It's true that no one really cares, but at least someone is trying to run a counter to USNWR's bs system that rewards schools for charging ungodly amounts. If USNWR didn't give schools a boost for charging higher tuition, I'd be more inclined to not care about ATL. At the very least, whenever I have friends in undergrad talk about wanting to go to ls I send them both rankings and explain the difference between the two. So at least some undergrads are looking at the ATL rankings. Personally, I wish there was some kind of way to manage good public service outcomes and then I'd advocate for a ranking that was just BL+FC+PI, but I don't really think that's feasible.

[abl]

So what would you propose? It's important to have some metric that captures the very real difference between Yale and Penn. I also get that LSAT + GPA isn't perfect, but do you really deny that it's a solid measure of respective student body strength? There aren't a lot of alternative measures, either.

No ranking is perfect. You're right that this ranking probably favors Alabama over Wisconsin in a way that's not representative. But few people should really be deciding between an SEC state school an a Big 10 state school, anyway, and the fact that certain regions might be generally over-ranked while other regions might be generally underranked therefore is a pretty small price to pay for a better ranking.

Is it really that important? Will the legal world implode if k-jd Jonny isn't aware of Yale's overwhelming superiority!? I'm sure those faced with Yale vs. Penn, all else equal, are smart enough to make the right choice, despite being unaware of these "VERY real differences" lol. But seriously, rankings are pretty unnecessary, as anyone can do basic research and find out which school is better/better for their goals. There's especially no reason to debate a methodology when employers (A3/Fed. Judges, Biglaw Partners, ect.) already have their own opinions on the various law schools. In short, chill people, you'll get through this.

Also, there's nothing wrong with someone taking a state Big10 or SEC school if they have certain goals and want to avoid debt. These blanket statements on this forum are continually wrong for many people.

Sorry--that was a typo in my comment (that I think implied that nobody should take a Big 10 or SEC school). What i meant is that nobody should choose Alabama over Ohio State because of three spots in the rankings, not that nobody should go to either school.

Anyways, I'm pretty persuaded by jdbagel's last post about this.

[mornincounselor]

Aren't federal clerkships also included in the "Quality Jobs" 30% metric? That would allow federal clerkships to play a part in more than a third of the criteria. I think 5% for SCOTUS is reasonable, too. Obviously it shouldn't play a part in the vast majority of decisions, but everyone is interested in where the unicorn jobs come from.

I'm a fan of having 10% dedicated to the debt vs jobs, although I'm not sure exactly how those two metrics are calculated.

Overall I think the list is better than US News. I mean c'mon Michigan went up several spots in US News this year . . .

Federal clerkships are, but they're weighted equally to biglaw. If the point is that we're trying to differentiate good from great outcomes (in part to distinguish between the tippy top schools and in part because ), you need some sort of more-competitive and more-desirable input. Ideally, your input would be: (1) something that was widely desired across many law schools; (2) something that's highly competitive--enough that you'll see distinctions between T14 schools that are not just based on self-selection; and (3) something that is reported. SCOTUS and federal clerkships both meet all three requirements.

The problem with SCOTUS clerkships is the small numbers. The difference between UVA getting one SCOTUS clerkship in a year or two is meaningless from a statistical standpoint. Yet if we're using SCOTUS clerkship figures as a rankings factor, that counts as a 100% huge improvement in UVA's figures. Now, if we used SCOTUS data from enough years, this problem would decrease. But then you're faced with the problem of basically just having one factor that doesn't change from year-to-year or account for relative changes between the law schools: a fifteen-year running average of SCOTUS clerkships. And, because few schools besides HYS Chicago and UVA place more than a small handful of students in SCOTUS clerkships, you still end up with a small numbers problem when using a fifteen-year running average: there might be real things to learn about the relative differences between, say, Yale and Harvard and Columbia, but the difference between Georgetown and Cornell is still basically noise that can be extraordinarily impacted by a single additional all star student. To top it all off, because SCOTUS clerkships are so particularly connection-based, it is incredibly easy for just one school's connection with just one feeder judge to make a pretty big impact on the numbers. Is UVA a better law school than Penn because Wilkinson likes UVA kids and therefore UVA lands an additional SCOTUS clerkship every other year as compared with Penn? I think the answer is pretty obviously no. But SCOTUS clerkship numbers are incredibly prone to this sort of bias--especially once you drop out of basically the HYS range. As a consequence, really the only thing that SCOTUS clerkship numbers tell you is that HYS are better for ultra-elite outcomes than other law schools.

Using federal clerkship rates instead of SCOTUS numbers basically fix all of these problems. Instead of talking about 1-2 students a year, you're generally talking about double digits. So, Penn having one particularly good student in a given year ends up making a 4-5% difference in that year's ratings, as opposed to a 50% or 100% difference. I could go on and on, but there's really nothing that you get via SCOTUS clerkship numbers that you wouldn't get in a much better form via federal clerkship numbers. Probably most importantly, though, federal clerkship numbers allow you to meaningfully distinguish between schools besides just HYS.

I think schools with strong connections to feeder judges should get a boost to their scores. I also think HLS should get a significant boost for their ability to land relatively significant number of clerks every year.

You want to distinguish between "good" and "great" outcomes, but by making federal clerks a more important measure (they already count twice -- once alongside big law jobs and the other individually) doesn't seem to accomplish this. When I think of "great" outcomes, I think of the type of positions we on the forums think of as "unicorn" jobs. What better proxy do we have for these jobs than SCOTUS clerks?

I think the optimal formula is something like this:

15% Overall Employment (not including school funded)
35% BL + Fed Clerk + Fed Gov.
10% Bar Passage Rate
5% Fed Clerk
5% SCOTUS
5% Public Interest (here we can count school funded)
20% Average Costs (Costs - average scholarship)
5% Reputation

[star fox]

I like it cuz it punishes schools that are stingy on scholarships.

[abl]

I think schools with strong connections to feeder judges should get a boost to their scores.

Why?

I also think HLS should get a significant boost for their ability to land relatively significant number of clerks every year.

Also why? Isn't it much more meaningful that Harvard places 15% (and not 5% or 25%) of its class in federal clerkships?

You want to distinguish between "good" and "great" outcomes, but by making federal clerks a more important measure (they already count twice -- once alongside big law jobs and the other individually) doesn't seem to accomplish this. When I think of "great" outcomes, I think of the type of positions we on the forums think of as "unicorn" jobs. What better proxy do we have for these jobs than SCOTUS clerks?

The point of using federal clerkships is that they're a proxy for "great" outcomes. How do they not to accomplish that? And how are SCOTUS clerkships, given their low numbers (and accompanying high variability) at all meaningful.

I think the optimal formula is something like this:

15% Overall Employment (not including school funded)
35% BL + Fed Clerk + Fed Gov.
10% Bar Passage Rate
5% Fed Clerk
5% SCOTUS
5% Public Interest (here we can count school funded)
20% Average Costs (Costs - average scholarship)
5% Reputation

What possible justification is there for using average costs?

[Tiago Splitter]

What possible justification is there for using average costs?

punishes schools that are stingy on scholarships.

[071816]

this list is a piece of shit

[lavarman84]

My biggest critique of ATL is that the inclusion of cost is totally asinine, since what student when choosing a school (their stated objective) looks at the average cost of attendance or some theoretical cost that is not their own? Everyone compares the opportunities offered to their individual cost of attendance in choosing between schools.

This is an overall ranking, though. It's not like you can say, "Well, bagel's cost of attendance at Columbia is $60,000 so Columbia is #4 for him." I feel like common sense comes into play on that when considering whether your school is a good decision. And I understand the point that you're making. If the ranking takes into account cost and that cost isn't your reality at the school, the ranking doesn't really apply to you. But these rankings are all pretty much bullshit anyways. I can't really say a ranking focused on costs and employment outcomes is worse than US News's arbitrary methodology.

[TFALAWL]

I feel like law schools should be rated in "bands" like NLJ instead of numerically.

putting MVB in the same "band" makes sense; having the three play musical chairs every year does not.

[PrezRand]

No USC?

[pipipipi]

Can someone explain why NYU Law is ranked low again?


I am confused becuase: if two of ATL's most important factors are employment and debt, then 1) NYU is the same, if not better, at job placement than Penn; 2) NYU is as stingy with scholarship offering as Penn and the tuition is roughly the same (COL may be 10k more than Penn).

Then why is Penn ranked so high every year, while NYU is ranked much lower?

[cavalier1138]

Can someone explain why NYU Law is ranked low again?


I am confused becuase: if two of ATL's most important factors are employment and debt, then 1) NYU is the same, if not better, at job placement than Penn; 2) NYU is as stingy with scholarship offering as Penn and the tuition is roughly the same (COL may be 10k more than Penn).

Then why is Penn ranked so high every year, while NYU is ranked much lower?

ATL doesn't like large classes and probably has a bitter NYU alum on their staff. Their method also completely ignores public service, so any school with high PI placement suffers in their ranking system, because actually crunching the numbers on that to make a meaningful ranking would be so hard, and who has the time to do all that?

[existentialcrisis]

Can someone explain why NYU Law is ranked low again?


I am confused becuase: if two of ATL's most important factors are employment and debt, then 1) NYU is the same, if not better, at job placement than Penn; 2) NYU is as stingy with scholarship offering as Penn and the tuition is roughly the same (COL may be 10k more than Penn).

Then why is Penn ranked so high every year, while NYU is ranked much lower?

Our football team had a resurgence this year, although losing in the Rose Bowl was a heartbreaker. NYU doesn't even have a team which kills them in the rankings.

[guynourmin]

Can someone explain why NYU Law is ranked low again?


I am confused becuase: if two of ATL's most important factors are employment and debt, then 1) NYU is the same, if not better, at job placement than Penn

Then why is Penn ranked so high every year, while NYU is ranked much lower?

Penn has an almost 10% higher BL/FedClerk than NYU. That plays out in these rankings. Probably because of NYUs strong PI placement, but ATL doesn't care about that (and neither do their readers: the second most important factor to them is big law placement)

[Toni V]

ATL’s T6 looks spot-on with the possible exception of UVA. Perhaps things have changed but there was a time when UVA’s employment score was criticized because of their outrageously high percentage of (very low paying) school funded jobs. Maybe that has changed, do not know. Their current underemployment result of 16.7% is extremely high for an upper echelon school…i.e, #7 Duke 7.2% – #8 NWestern 9.7%- #9 Cornell is at 6%., #10 Berkeley 10.3%.

At the law firm level, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, are the schools that remain particularly impressive. At northern firms add Columbia, Chicago, Cornell and NYU to the list.

[pipipipi]

Penn has an almost 10% higher BL/FedClerk than NYU. That plays out in these rankings. Probably because of NYUs strong PI placement, but ATL doesn't care about that (and neither do their readers: the second most important factor to them is big law placement)

Our football team had a resurgence this year, although losing in the Rose Bowl was a heartbreaker. NYU doesn't even have a team which kills them in the rankings.

ATL doesn't like large classes and probably has a bitter NYU alum on their staff. Their method also completely ignores public service, so any school with high PI placement suffers in their ranking system, because actually crunching the numbers on that to make a meaningful ranking would be so hard, and who has the time to do all that?

Thank you!