New US News Rankings 2023-2024 Forum

[throwawayt14]

1 Stanford University (tie)
1 Yale University (tie)
3 University of Chicago
4 Harvard University (tie)
4 University of Pennsylvania (Carey) (tie)
6 Duke University (tie)
6 New York University (tie)
8 Columbia University (tie)
8 University of Virginia (tie)
10 Northwestern University (Pritzker) (tie)
10 University of California, Berkeley (tie)
10 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (tie)
13 Cornell University
14 University of California—Los Angeles

[urbancowboy]

Is this an official leak or a prediction? What explains such a drastic CLS drop relative to every previous iteration?

Damning that the top two schools maintain no intellectual integrity whatsoever.

[TigerIsBack]

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... l-rankings

[jotarokujo]

Is this an official leak or a prediction? What explains such a drastic CLS drop relative to every previous iteration?

Damning that the top two schools maintain no intellectual integrity whatsoever.

it's official
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... l-rankings

Yeah conservatives should all go to Notre Dame

[crazywafflez]

I still don't get why US News doesn't go back to tiers. Is there a substantial difference between Duke and UVA? Is there a substantial difference between Gtown, UCLA, Vandy and UT? Is there a real difference between Minnesota and Illinois? I just don't really see a point to finding out whether Ohio or UNC is ranked 26th this year or 46th. Or if Gtown is 14th or 16th. Just seems like the current system causes younger folks going to law school to pick like Arizona State due to its rank over UTk, even though they want to practice in Nashville or something.

[urbancowboy]

Is this an official leak or a prediction? What explains such a drastic CLS drop relative to every previous iteration?

Damning that the top two schools maintain no intellectual integrity whatsoever.

it's official
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... l-rankings

Yeah conservatives should all go to Notre Dame

As well as moderates and liberals who want to test their ideas against those of others.

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

[Anonymous User]

Fairly or unfairly, Harvard and Yale (and possibly Stanford) dominate in most people's minds as most prestigious. And lay people's opinions on law school prestige are not as irrelevant in your career as people on TLS like to say. (Many clients don't follow U.S. News rankings but have watched Legally Blonde and know that Obama went to HLS.) Beyond that, all the other T14 schools are basically the same with regional bias making some schools better than others in specific geographic areas. The rankings can't really change this, unless there's some sort of seismic shift in the legal profession, which seems unlikely.

[butonawednesday]

Fairly or unfairly, Harvard and Yale (and possibly Stanford)

After the recent kerfuffle, you need not mention Stanford

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

Chicago's ascent into a school that is the same caliber as H and S is relatively recent. Like, only in the past few years.

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

Agree with this generally but the cut off seems to be at Stanford more generally. Is there a huge difference between Penn and a school like Michigan, UVA, Duke, or Northwestern? I would lump NYU in there as well if they didn't have superior outcomes in elite NY big law purely based on alumni connections.

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

Agree with this generally but the cut off seems to be at Stanford more generally. Is there a huge difference between Penn and a school like Michigan, UVA, Duke, or Northwestern? I would lump NYU in there as well if they didn't have superior outcomes in elite NY big law purely based on alumni connections.

No, I generally consider all of those schools in the same league, but I would also include NYU and Columbia in there too. IDK what you mean by "elite NY biglaw," but for me Wachtell is the only firm in that category.

[Anonymous User]

Realistically, it's...

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford
Tier 1.5: Harvard, Chicago
Tier 2: Columbia-Cornell
Tier 2.5: Georgetown, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Texas, WashU

[Anonymous User]

Everyone I know at Georgetown who wanted biglaw got it. The top people get COAs and the bottom people miiight strike out. I defy anyone to tell me it's that different than Columbia. Don't tell me it's a cope

[Anonymous User]

Everyone I know at Georgetown who wanted biglaw got it. The top people get COAs and the bottom people miiight strike out. I defy anyone to tell me it's that different than Columbia. Don't tell me it's a cope

Bottom of the class at CLS doesn't strike out, they end up at like Cadwaladar or Fried Frank

[Anonymous User]

Lol @ TLS. On any other occasion the board wisdom is anyone can strike out, even at YSH. But when the time comes to bash Georgetown, the upper t14 are suddenly immune to this problem.

I hate this profession and its ridiculously unnecessary snobbishness.

[Anonymous User]

As someone who went to a Canadian law school, I don't really have skin in the game, but seeing Americans get riled up over being ranked #8 instead of #9 is funny.

I always thought the arguments for hard tiers was bizarre. There's basically no meaningful difference between the median Penn and NYU student, yet there was that whole T6 pomposity. I think the employment opportunity differences are a self-fulling prophecy given the neuroticism of lawyers, and not because the median NYU student is substantially better than the median Penn student.

Honestly, the lower end of the T14 might as well blur with the top-half of the T20 as well. There's no statistically meaningful difference between the median Georgetown student and the median Vanderbilt student, yet for the longest time Georgetown was magically heads and shoulders above Vanderbilt because it was part of the T14.

[Anonymous User]

Realistically, it's...

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford
Tier 1.5: Harvard, Chicago
Tier 2: Columbia-Cornell
Tier 2.5: Georgetown, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Texas, WashU

It's YSH, CCN, and then the rest. SLS and HLS are peers

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

Agree with this generally but the cut off seems to be at Stanford more generally. Is there a huge difference between Penn and a school like Michigan, UVA, Duke, or Northwestern? I would lump NYU in there as well if they didn't have superior outcomes in elite NY big law purely based on alumni connections.

No, I generally consider all of those schools in the same league, but I would also include NYU and Columbia in there too. IDK what you mean by "elite NY biglaw," but for me Wachtell is the only firm in that category.

+Cravath

[Anonymous User]

Realistically, it's...

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford
Tier 1.5: Harvard, Chicago
Tier 2: Columbia-Cornell
Tier 2.5: Georgetown, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Texas, WashU

It's YSH, CCN, and then the rest. SLS and HLS are peers

Just being honest I feel like all of the aggressive promoting of the concept of the T6 comes from NYU students. There's no serious story you can tell that makes NYU a full step above Penn, or even UVA really.

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

Agree with this generally but the cut off seems to be at Stanford more generally. Is there a huge difference between Penn and a school like Michigan, UVA, Duke, or Northwestern? I would lump NYU in there as well if they didn't have superior outcomes in elite NY big law purely based on alumni connections.

No, I generally consider all of those schools in the same league, but I would also include NYU and Columbia in there too. IDK what you mean by "elite NY biglaw," but for me Wachtell is the only firm in that category.

+Cravath

Yes. WLRK is what I meant. NYU seems to routinely send more students to WLRK than Penn and the other schools I suggested are in the same category or tier as Penn.

[Anonymous User]

Realistically, it's...

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford
Tier 1.5: Harvard, Chicago
Tier 2: Columbia-Cornell
Tier 2.5: Georgetown, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Texas, WashU

It's YSH, CCN, and then the rest. SLS and HLS are peers

Just being honest I feel like all of the aggressive promoting of the concept of the T6 comes from NYU students. There's no serious story you can tell that makes NYU a full step above Penn, or even UVA really.

Yes. And 100% of the equating of Harvard and Chicago comes from Chicago students.

[Anonymous User]

US News will probably become increasingly irrelevant. Duke at 6? Penn at 4? Everyone knows it's HYS, CCN, and then the rest.

IDT this has ever been true. For actually elite outcomes, it's more like Y then HCS. Columbia NYU and Penn are entirely interchangeable - all guarantee biglaw and all are pretty bad at placing students in the most competitive jobs.

Agree with this generally but the cut off seems to be at Stanford more generally. Is there a huge difference between Penn and a school like Michigan, UVA, Duke, or Northwestern? I would lump NYU in there as well if they didn't have superior outcomes in elite NY big law purely based on alumni connections.

No, I generally consider all of those schools in the same league, but I would also include NYU and Columbia in there too. IDK what you mean by "elite NY biglaw," but for me Wachtell is the only firm in that category.

+Cravath

Yes. WLRK is what I meant. NYU seems to routinely send more students to WLRK than Penn and the other schools I suggested are in the same category or tier as Penn.

[deleted]

[Anonymous User]

Realistically, it's...

Tier 1: Yale, Stanford
Tier 1.5: Harvard, Chicago
Tier 2: Columbia-Cornell
Tier 2.5: Georgetown, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Texas, WashU

It's YSH, CCN, and then the rest. SLS and HLS are peers

Just being honest I feel like all of the aggressive promoting of the concept of the T6 comes from NYU students. There's no serious story you can tell that makes NYU a full step above Penn, or even UVA really.

Yes. And 100% of the equating of Harvard and Chicago comes from Chicago students.

non Chicago student here. I agree with the tier 1, tier 1.5 etc laid out in the first quote. H is closer to Chicago than it is to S