what rankings system is most worth looking at? Forum

[rayiner]

Only a fucking moron would go to Michigan over NU after digging through the employment stats. Jesus.

Let's see...

Michigan has higher 25/50/75 GPAs. Higher 25 LSAT. Better yield. Retains more 1Ls.

But I'm sure all those people are idiots who couldn't get into lower ranked NU?

Anyone looking at those stats is a per se idiot. Holy crap. Thanks for the flawless assist.

Why do schools bother to post those stats? Why does a law professor Brian Leiter bother to create "student quality (numerical)" rankings? Students quality, professors quality, job placement are all important factors.
There's no obviously correct answer when it comes to school choice between similarly ranked schools.

Because Brian Leiter is a dickbag.

[manu6926]

...

[IAFG]

Hey I'm unemployed, but look at the quality of my peers! And professors! Such scholarship!

You can't necessarily blame your alma mater for that.

I'm not actually unemployed. I had enough sense to go to NU.

[manu6926]

...

[A. Nony Mouse]

Brian Leiter is a law professor. Law professors care about arbitrary rankings because they want to make their jobs look good/important, and they're not trying to get a job as a practicing lawyer.

And whether schools should have high quality students has nothing to do with rankings. The rankings aren't some listing of school selectivity by student LSAT/GPA; you can go look at that information on your own and use it as you like to make a decision about where to go. If you want to go to a school with smart students, that's great, but basically, all the students at T14 (or T6 or whatever arbitrary distinction you want to draw) are smart. That has nothing to do with whether Virginia should be ranked above Duke or Berkeley or vice versa or whatever. (Which doesn't matter.)

[IAFG]

Student quality matters to the extent employers care, no more. SLS has historically had lower LSAT scores than schools with much worse placement power, but no non-idiot would take that into consideration when sitting on an SLS admission.

[manu6926]

...

[manu6926]

...

[Big Dog]

perhaps USNews should start to include social media in its factors: Dean Z's blog vs. Johann's tweets.

[IAFG]

perhaps USNews should start to include social media in its factors: Dean Z's blog vs. Johann's tweets.

They certainly already consider equally worthless things.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Just as one can't choose say Columbia over Chicago just because it is 2 spots above Chicago in Leiter's student quality ranking, one can't choose say Northwestern over Michigan just because it is few tiny spots above Michigan in job placement charts. School choice among peer schools depends on many factors.

Yes. Those factors are generally employment statistics, cost, where the applicant wants to practice, and what kind of law the applicant wants to practice. None of the rankings (that I'm aware of) address the last three, in part because they vary by applicant, which makes clear how rankings aren't at all helpful.

[IAFG]

Student quality matters to the extent employers care, no more. SLS has historically had lower LSAT scores than schools with much worse placement power, but no non-idiot would take that into consideration when sitting on an SLS admission.

That's b/c no idiot only considers student quality when making his/her school choice. Besides, SLS emphasizes GPA relatively more than do other top schools like Columbia and NYU.

Your weird USNWR apologist schtick has me wondering if you're a USNWR employee sent here to undermine the shift to a focus on employment outcomes.

[manu6926]

...

[manu6926]

...

[IAFG]

Just as one can't choose say Columbia over Chicago just because it is 2 spots above Chicago in Leiter's student quality ranking, one can't choose say Northwestern over Michigan just because it is few tiny spots above Michigan in job placement charts. School choice among peer schools depends on many factors.

Yes. Those factors are generally employment statistics, cost, where the applicant wants to practice, and what kind of law the applicant wants to practice. None of the rankings (that I'm aware of) address the last three, in part because they vary by applicant, which makes clear how rankings aren't at all helpful.

Yeah, cost varies for each student. Columbia is expensive, but that doesn't apply to the people going there on Hamilton or Butler fellowships, for instance.
Rankings do help, to some degree, especially the US News ones. They are closest to what employers think about your school.

Closest except for, you know, actual placement data.

[rayiner]

Student quality matters to the extent employers care, no more. SLS has historically had lower LSAT scores than schools with much worse placement power, but no non-idiot would take that into consideration when sitting on an SLS admission.

That's b/c no idiot only considers student quality when making his/her school choice. Besides, SLS emphasizes GPA relatively more than do other top schools like Columbia and NYU.

This year, Harvard's #'s are 3.77-3.88-3.95 for GPA, and 170-173-175 for LSAT. Stanford's are 3.76-3.87-3.95 for GPA and 169-171-173 for LSAT. So almost identical GPA range, but substantially lower LSAT. Is that a good reason to pick Harvard over Stanford?

[SFrost]

A common criticism I see of USNWR tends to be:

"This school is ranked # and this school is ranked #+1, but they're so close there's no difference OR the lower ranked school has slightly better employment numbers!"

Of course the USNWR isn't going to show much difference in schools ranked +/- 5 positions of each other. In most experimental systems variance is anywhere from 1 to over 10%. It's perfectly reasonable to assume many USNWR positions are off by several true ranks (depending on the context of what you're evaluating rank on).

To summarize the points I was trying to make earlier in the thread: 1. School rank matters to a lot of people. Even 1 rank difference. This may defy logic but it's the way things are. 2. The USNWR is a fairly accurate assessment of better/worse schools. It tracks both institutional prestige and employment outcome closely.

[jbagelboy]

A common criticism I see of USNWR tends to be:

"This school is ranked # and this school is ranked #+1, but they're so close there's no difference OR the lower ranked school has slightly better employment numbers!"

Of course the USNWR isn't going to show much difference in schools ranked +/- 5 positions of each other. In most experimental systems variance is anywhere from 1 to over 10%. It's perfectly reasonable to assume many USNWR positions are off by several true ranks (depending on the context of what you're evaluating rank on).

To summarize the points I was trying to make earlier in the thread: 1. School rank matters to a lot of people. Even 1 rank difference. This may defy logic but it's the way things are. 2. The USNWR is a fairly accurate assessment of better/worse schools. It tracks both institutional prestige and employment outcome closely.

On TLS at least, the criticism derives rigorously, not phenomenologically. The results of the survey may approximate "real" value within some limited degree of error, Granted. This only serves as a retroactive defense of the metric, which contains the fundamental flaws. USNWR remains deserving of criticism from students and applicants because we should not have to settle for such a metric when there are clearly, identifiably superior alternative metrics.

The academy criticizes it because us news is commercial, a lay publication, a philistine approach, and of course it must be because its raison d'etre is to accrue revenue via sales, online print or otherwise, and its audience is lay. Law school deans hate it for a variety of reasons ranging from personal indignation at their schools' lower rank to poor guidance on academic factors, such as quality of instruction, which the survey rightfully omits.

The survey may result in an OK job generally at the top as a product of its own self-fulfilling cycle..

[McAvoy]

Is Michigan still harder to get into? NU has a higher median LSAT as well as higher median GPA (3.75/169 versus 3.71/168). Yeah, NU is easier if you have 3.1/171, but it seems like Michigan would be easier if you had a 3.7/168.

I don't think it necessarily is. I didn't apply, as the only point would have been to be able to tell people that I got into a T10 school, but all of my number matches got in with a little money, and none of my number matches got into NU. Just one spot on the graph, but still.