Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts? Forum

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:06 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:17 am
I think the rankings are bad, but what would be useful for students are groupings of schools by certain characteristics just to help them make an informed choice. The idea of meaningfully distinguishing like #11 from #12 is ludicrous, but there are actually real differences between certain types of schools. This would sort of, but not perfectly, correspond to rankings.

Offhand, I think the groups would look something like:

National, private law schools that send high %s to biglaw and federal clerkships/bigfed,
Flagship public law schools that send high %s to biglaw and federal clerkships/bigfed,
National, private law schools with smaller class sizes and higher %s in academic, clerkships, and elite PI,
Regional public schools,
Predatory/for-profit/very low employment numbers schools.

The first two categories are functionally the same from the students' perspective but might have differences in debt load, etc. Doing this would also sort of cut down on the "lay prestige" factor. So like:

Harvard/Columbia/NYU/Penn/Duke/Vanderbilt/Cornell/GULC,
Michigan/UVA/UT-Austin/Berkeley/UCLA/WUSTL/UF,
Yale/Stanford/Chicago,
Every other perfectly good regional public school in the country,
Actively shitty schools that no one should attend.

The goal would basically be to give people helpful information about how the schools are different, but cut down on the "I'm #4 and you're #5, get fucked" factor
I agree with this concept in theory, but in practice ... having Michigan/UVA/Berkeley and UF in the same category .... c'mon. I think the categories should be:

National schools - high big law % and high clerkship % (basically the current T-14)

Strong-Regional Schools - medium/high percentage of big law/clerkship and most students end up in the same region, but possible to hit elsewhere (UCLA, USC, WUSTL, UT Austin, arguably George Washington (because of NYC rates),

Regional Flagship - state flagship schools with low/medium rates of big law/clerkship, students will likely be stuck in their region, but that school runs the region (UF, UW, ASU, etc.)

Hyper-Regional Schools - very low rates of big law/clerkship, but they have decent employment rates in their respective areas with little to no chance of leaving the region, usually playing second-fiddle to the above category (basically T-50-100ish aka too many to list).

Predatory schools - no big law/clerkships except for partner's child, they have horrible employment rates compared to debt, you'd be lucky to get a job in that region (Cooley, GGU, you all know the rest).

I agree that arguing about individual rankings/comparing those is often of very little use to applicants, but I don't necessarily think the public vs. private distinction is actually that valuable.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:24 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:06 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:17 am
I think the rankings are bad, but what would be useful for students are groupings of schools by certain characteristics just to help them make an informed choice. The idea of meaningfully distinguishing like #11 from #12 is ludicrous, but there are actually real differences between certain types of schools. This would sort of, but not perfectly, correspond to rankings.

Offhand, I think the groups would look something like:

National, private law schools that send high %s to biglaw and federal clerkships/bigfed,
Flagship public law schools that send high %s to biglaw and federal clerkships/bigfed,
National, private law schools with smaller class sizes and higher %s in academic, clerkships, and elite PI,
Regional public schools,
Predatory/for-profit/very low employment numbers schools.

The first two categories are functionally the same from the students' perspective but might have differences in debt load, etc. Doing this would also sort of cut down on the "lay prestige" factor. So like:

Harvard/Columbia/NYU/Penn/Duke/Vanderbilt/Cornell/GULC,
Michigan/UVA/UT-Austin/Berkeley/UCLA/WUSTL/UF,
Yale/Stanford/Chicago,
Every other perfectly good regional public school in the country,
Actively shitty schools that no one should attend.

The goal would basically be to give people helpful information about how the schools are different, but cut down on the "I'm #4 and you're #5, get fucked" factor
I agree with this concept in theory, but in practice ... having Michigan/UVA/Berkeley and UF in the same category .... c'mon. I think the categories should be:

National schools - high big law % and high clerkship % (basically the current T-14)

Strong-Regional Schools - medium/high percentage of big law/clerkship and most students end up in the same region, but possible to hit elsewhere (UCLA, USC, WUSTL, UT Austin, arguably George Washington (because of NYC rates),

Regional Flagship - state flagship schools with low/medium rates of big law/clerkship, students will likely be stuck in their region, but that school runs the region (UF, UW, ASU, etc.)

Hyper-Regional Schools - very low rates of big law/clerkship, but they have decent employment rates in their respective areas with little to no chance of leaving the region, usually playing second-fiddle to the above category (basically T-50-100ish aka too many to list).

Predatory schools - no big law/clerkships except for partner's child, they have horrible employment rates compared to debt, you'd be lucky to get a job in that region (Cooley, GGU, you all know the rest).

I agree that arguing about individual rankings/comparing those is often of very little use to applicants, but I don't necessarily think the public vs. private distinction is actually that valuable.
I feel you, there are a few different ways to cut the pie. I think there's also a decent argument for collapsing the public/private distinction and just making "national" and "strong-regional" one category. The point is just that they're big schools with high biglaw/fed percentages and high debt loads, what do students care about the ownership structure? I would still argue for distinguishing those from the "small, private national, academic/fedclerk/impact PI" category, though.

I also forgot to say originally, within each group the schools should be listed alphabetically to make clear that this is not a ranking. I refuse to believe that going to Harvard is that meaningfully different from going to Cornell. They are essentially both just biglaw factories.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm

they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:40 pm

I love the way a bunch of law schools are planning to flagrantly violate constitutional law. I mean, Michigan and Berkley currently flagrantly violate state law, but still. Law students would have to grovel for bar admission if they flagrantly violated the law, but if your a law professor and have unlimited job security, it’s totally fair and noble. The hypocrisy in higher education is strong.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by jotarokujo » Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:09 pm

jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
I mean, I think what he’s saying is that they are going to straight up violate constitutional law so don’t want to be advertising that by reporting the data.

As to your other point, I mean, affirmative action clearly lowers the numbers. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t need affirmative action, right? You’d have a racially diverse class without applying different standards to different racial groups, right?

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Sad248 » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:09 pm

jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
That's what I am wondering too. Or is the idea that the top schools want to continue Affirmative Action no matter what and they are worried current lower ranked schools won't, and so proceed past them in the rankings?

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:12 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:40 pm
I love the way a bunch of law schools are planning to flagrantly violate constitutional law. I mean, Michigan and Berkley currently flagrantly violate state law, but still.
Massachusetts also has a state law against asking about race and i have always wondered how it just gets so widely ignored. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralL ... C/Section2 2(c)

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:35 pm

Yeah agree with the above posters that nothing is going to change in regard to law schools employing affirmative action. 0% chance any sort of injunctive remedy is granted here (eg someone sitting in an admissions office and making decisions to ensure compliance with no race-based admissions). But if we're having fun doing law school tiers, wanted to give my own impression based on my experience in the field thus far...

Tier 1: Harvard, Yale.

Tier 1.5: Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Columbia - Cornell

Tier 2.5: Georgetown-USC (but not BU or UF)

Tier 3: BU, UF, down to Fordham.

Tier 3.5: The rest of the non-predatory schools.

I feel like each tier has distinct changes in opportunities and outcomes.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:37 pm

jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
b/c they're not actually going to end race-conscious admissions policies

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:55 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:35 pm
Yeah agree with the above posters that nothing is going to change in regard to law schools employing affirmative action. 0% chance any sort of injunctive remedy is granted here (eg someone sitting in an admissions office and making decisions to ensure compliance with no race-based admissions). But if we're having fun doing law school tiers, wanted to give my own impression based on my experience in the field thus far...

Tier 1: Harvard, Yale.

Tier 1.5: Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Columbia - Cornell

Tier 2.5: Georgetown-USC (but not BU or UF)

Tier 3: BU, UF, down to Fordham.

Tier 3.5: The rest of the non-predatory schools.

I feel like each tier has distinct changes in opportunities and outcomes.
No one who is more than 5 years out of law school considers Chicago more prestigious than Columbia and probably same goes for NYU, especially in the NY/DC area.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:59 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:55 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:35 pm
Yeah agree with the above posters that nothing is going to change in regard to law schools employing affirmative action. 0% chance any sort of injunctive remedy is granted here (eg someone sitting in an admissions office and making decisions to ensure compliance with no race-based admissions). But if we're having fun doing law school tiers, wanted to give my own impression based on my experience in the field thus far...

Tier 1: Harvard, Yale.

Tier 1.5: Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Columbia - Cornell

Tier 2.5: Georgetown-USC (but not BU or UF)

Tier 3: BU, UF, down to Fordham.

Tier 3.5: The rest of the non-predatory schools.

I feel like each tier has distinct changes in opportunities and outcomes.
No one who is more than 5 years out of law school considers Chicago more prestigious than Columbia and probably same goes for NYU, especially in the NY/DC area.
Fair enough, I'm not more than five years out of law school so maybe I'm just myopic. I guess my experience just really points towards Columbia and NYU not having superior outcomes to Penn/UVA outside of the absolute tippy top most selective NYC firms (I'm literally just thinking Wachtell and Cravath), and otherwise underperforming on clerkships and other stuff, and Chicago having fantastic clerkship and academia placement. I'm also from Chicago where the Hyde Park folks just have a special cachet for being the smartest folks around, so that also builds into my impression.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:21 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:12 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:40 pm
I love the way a bunch of law schools are planning to flagrantly violate constitutional law. I mean, Michigan and Berkley currently flagrantly violate state law, but still.
Massachusetts also has a state law against asking about race and i have always wondered how it just gets so widely ignored. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralL ... C/Section2 2(c)
I think the issue is whether they can articulate a legitimate diversity purpose without pointing to race. Like for instance, say, a Lakota applicant who grew up on the Pine Ridge reservation is probably going to offer a lot of diversity benefits to HYS in terms of socio-economic status, rural v urban or suburban, Midwest vs. east or west coast, possibly religious practices, and so on. (I give the NA example just bc it’s easy even though there’s also an argument that NA isn’t a racial category at all, it’s a political one - member of a tribe = domestic sovereign nation.)

You may consider that just pretext and I’m not trying to argue about whether this is just/fair/whatever, and like the other poster, don’t want to turn this into discussion of the merits of AA. I’m just suggesting one way that schools might engage in review that on its face is race-neutral but could result in a more diverse class - which is, after all, supposed to be the point.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:28 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:35 pm
Yeah agree with the above posters that nothing is going to change in regard to law schools employing affirmative action. 0% chance any sort of injunctive remedy is granted here (eg someone sitting in an admissions office and making decisions to ensure compliance with no race-based admissions). But if we're having fun doing law school tiers, wanted to give my own impression based on my experience in the field thus far...

Tier 1: Harvard, Yale.

Tier 1.5: Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Columbia - Cornell

Tier 2.5: Georgetown-USC (but not BU or UF)

Tier 3: BU, UF, down to Fordham.

Tier 3.5: The rest of the non-predatory schools.

I feel like each tier has distinct changes in opportunities and outcomes.
This is not my impression. IME people pretty much follow the general contours of the USNWR over the last 5 years or so, i.e.

Yale, Stanford, Harvard
Chicago, Columbia, NYU
Rest of the T14...

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by jotarokujo » Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:38 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:09 pm
jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
I mean, I think what he’s saying is that they are going to straight up violate constitutional law so don’t want to be advertising that by reporting the data.

As to your other point, I mean, affirmative action clearly lowers the numbers. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t need affirmative action, right? You’d have a racially diverse class without applying different standards to different racial groups, right?
yes that is exactly the asserted position, if so why would undoing affirmative action cause a hit in USNWR?

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by jotarokujo » Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:43 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:35 pm
Yeah agree with the above posters that nothing is going to change in regard to law schools employing affirmative action. 0% chance any sort of injunctive remedy is granted here (eg someone sitting in an admissions office and making decisions to ensure compliance with no race-based admissions). But if we're having fun doing law school tiers, wanted to give my own impression based on my experience in the field thus far...

Tier 1: Harvard, Yale.

Tier 1.5: Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Columbia - Cornell

Tier 2.5: Georgetown-USC (but not BU or UF)

Tier 3: BU, UF, down to Fordham.

Tier 3.5: The rest of the non-predatory schools.

I feel like each tier has distinct changes in opportunities and outcomes.
curious what field there is putting harvard on par with yale and above stanford. NY transactional possibly

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by jotarokujo » Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:46 pm

Sad248 wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:09 pm
jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
That's what I am wondering too. Or is the idea that the top schools want to continue Affirmative Action no matter what and they are worried current lower ranked schools won't, and so proceed past them in the rankings?
that would make much more sense as an argument but the person quoted doesn't really say that, unless they are suggesting that pre sffa, YLS is not doing affirmative action and only post sffa it will

maybe "re-jigger" means "keep it the same" somehow

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:50 pm

jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:46 pm
Sad248 wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:09 pm
jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
That's what I am wondering too. Or is the idea that the top schools want to continue Affirmative Action no matter what and they are worried current lower ranked schools won't, and so proceed past them in the rankings?
that would make much more sense as an argument but the person quoted doesn't really say that, unless they are suggesting that pre sffa, YLS is not doing affirmative action and only post sffa it will

maybe "re-jigger" means "keep it the same" somehow
My take from oral arguments was that the petitioners said schools could come up with a race neutral test as long as it wasn't a check-the-box plus factor. So maybe these schools are going to look for things that have correlation (e.g., neighborhood location, socioeconomic status, parent education level, etc.) but know that to get to the desired diversity numbers, using those metrics will bring down numbers more than a simple race check box? This is definitely a guess, but I make it because the whole time I thought "dude, you're asking for the most gameable test in the history of the world."

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by 12YrsAnAssociate » Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:52 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:12 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:40 pm
I love the way a bunch of law schools are planning to flagrantly violate constitutional law. I mean, Michigan and Berkley currently flagrantly violate state law, but still.
Massachusetts also has a state law against asking about race and i have always wondered how it just gets so widely ignored. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralL ... C/Section2 2(c)
Do we know that this is true? Like it seems like the plaintiffs in the recent AA cases could find at least one whistleblower from the admissions department if that were the case.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 8:24 pm

My tiers:

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Harvard, Columbia, NYU

Tier 3: Rest of T14 minus Georgetown

Tier 4: Georgetown - USC

Tier 5: errybody until like Texas A&M

Rest

Just wanted to elaborate on my tier one, I feel like these are the academic institutions that actually are selective in nearly all aspects, and take small classes. Harvard is like rolex with brand equity (No. 1 without a doubt) but is also super commercial (massive classes every year), so I'm bumping them down with Columbia and NYU who also just pump out money on tuition. Also as someone who transferred, there is a material difference between getting into Tier 1 vs Tier two, not only on GPA and origin school reqs but also just odds. Harvard NYU Columbia all take massive transfer classes every year to *GET THAT BAG*. This has shifted my perception of these schools a lot.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 9:02 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 8:24 pm
My tiers:

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford, Chicago

Tier 2: Harvard, Columbia, NYU

Tier 3: Rest of T14 minus Georgetown

Tier 4: Georgetown - USC

Tier 5: errybody until like Texas A&M

Rest

Just wanted to elaborate on my tier one, I feel like these are the academic institutions that actually are selective in nearly all aspects, and take small classes. Harvard is like rolex with brand equity (No. 1 without a doubt) but is also super commercial (massive classes every year), so I'm bumping them down with Columbia and NYU who also just pump out money on tuition. Also as someone who transferred, there is a material difference between getting into Tier 1 vs Tier two, not only on GPA and origin school reqs but also just odds. Harvard NYU Columbia all take massive transfer classes every year to *GET THAT BAG*. This has shifted my perception of these schools a lot.
i have Chicago as a tier 5 b/c of posts like this

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 9:09 pm

12YrsAnAssociate wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:52 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:12 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:40 pm
I love the way a bunch of law schools are planning to flagrantly violate constitutional law. I mean, Michigan and Berkley currently flagrantly violate state law, but still.
Massachusetts also has a state law against asking about race and i have always wondered how it just gets so widely ignored. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralL ... C/Section2 2(c)
Do we know that this is true? Like it seems like the plaintiffs in the recent AA cases could find at least one whistleblower from the admissions department if that were the case.
Yes, we know Michigan and Berkley are violating state law. There was just a daily podcast on it where Berkeley’s flagrant violation of California law was thrown out as an example of what colleges would likely do when affirmative action is overruled. There is no way to get the racially diverse class that the schools want otherwise. The LSAT scores for some groups mean it would be impossible to have a diverse class otherwise.

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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 9:14 pm

jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:38 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:09 pm
jotarokujo wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:42 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:22 pm
they're preparing to re-jigger their admissions process when Grutter etc are overruled this spring and don't want a USNWR rankings hit + disclose any data about it.

that's the reason, everything else is nonsense, and you will see this when the rest of the T14 inevitably withdraw over next 1-2 weeks.

whether this is good/bad depends entirely on how you feel about affirmative action, which is pointless to debate/discuss in these forums (and it is not my intention to start such a discussion + I will not be participating in it)
why would the re-jiggering of the admissions process in response to sffa cause them to take a USNWR rankings hit? don't the anti-affirmative action folks say affirmative action lowers median scores? therefore, wouldn't re-jiggering only cause them to go up in USNWR?
I mean, I think what he’s saying is that they are going to straight up violate constitutional law so don’t want to be advertising that by reporting the data.

As to your other point, I mean, affirmative action clearly lowers the numbers. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t need affirmative action, right? You’d have a racially diverse class without applying different standards to different racial groups, right?
yes that is exactly the asserted position, if so why would undoing affirmative action cause a hit in USNWR?
I mean, if Yale continues to employ affirmative action even though it’s unconstitutional, and say Harvard doesn’t, Harvard’s numbers will go up an Yales won’t, which could result in a hit. I agree it’s probably not the central concern, but there is likely some concern that if other people stop with affirmative action, but they continue, they will be punished by the rankings.

Anonymous User
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Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 9:19 pm

12YrsAnAssociate wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:52 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:12 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:40 pm
I love the way a bunch of law schools are planning to flagrantly violate constitutional law. I mean, Michigan and Berkley currently flagrantly violate state law, but still.
Massachusetts also has a state law against asking about race and i have always wondered how it just gets so widely ignored. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralL ... C/Section2 2(c)
Do we know that this is true? Like it seems like the plaintiffs in the recent AA cases could find at least one whistleblower from the admissions department if that were the case.
Know that what is true? That Harvard or BC or BU or MIT ask about race on their application, even though Massachusetts state law expressly prohibits an educational institution from asking an applicant about race on applications? Yeah, we know thats true-- their applications are public and they all ask about race.

Anonymous User
Posts: 428117
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Yale and Harvard pulling out US News ranking, thoughts?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 18, 2022 9:23 pm

I think the affirmative action connection is that AA is needed to get a diverse class because meritocratic criteria would produce large disparities. There's no chance at all that top schools stop AA and just use meritocratic criteria (which would *boost* their USNW standing), since most people in the admissions department believe that's socially constructed, etc.
More likely, in a fight between merit and diversity, they'll ditch merit (a bit). The Petitioners said Harvard College could be diverse using race-neutral alternatives by lowering their median SAT to the level of Dartmouth. I suspect there's a similar pathway for law schools: deemphasize LSAT and GPA, amp up other factors in which there's less of a disparity among racial groups. More geographical diversity; a small boost for poor kids; credit for certain kinds of political engagement. It wouldn't be enough if LSAT and GPA were highly weighted, but it can be if you weight them lower. That's the logic of dropping out of USNW.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!


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