2018 USNWR Rankings Forum

[rpupkin]

Who has conversations IRL about lay prestige with their friends this regularly? Especially "blue collar" types that know nothing about the institutions and couldn't care less? Am I a fundamentally bad conversationalist that I keep bringing up things more immediately relevant to our lives and friendship.

Your friends know you go to UVA, so they're careful not to bring up the topic of prestige. They're just being polite.

[rpupkin]

I thought this thread was about rankings, not proving about how tiny of a bubble you're in. This isn't a typical year when the rankings are both meaningless and boring there's a lot to talk about.

LOL

[UVA2B]

Who has conversations IRL about lay prestige with their friends this regularly? Especially "blue collar" types that know nothing about the institutions and couldn't care less? Am I a fundamentally bad conversationalist that I keep bringing up things more immediately relevant to our lives and friendship.

Your friends know you go to UVA, so they're careful not to bring up the topic of prestige. They're just being polite.

So THAT's what all the snickering is about!

*prepares Berkeley transfer app to chase dat preftige

[warmcherrysoda]

.

[BigZuck]

For what it's worth, I've lived in the UK and South Korea and can speak a little to international recognition. Surprisingly, in Korea, Berkeley is as well-known if not more so than Yale -- except insofar as Yale is a part of the Ivy League. More people know about the Ivy League than Berkeley. In the UK it seemed to be a toss-up.

What is most surprising to me is the gap in international recognition between Harvard and Yale in Korea, with Harvard being remarkably more well-known and even more admired than Yale.

Thus spake warmcherrysoda

/thread

#hookem

[nimbus cloud]

For what it's worth, I've lived in the UK and South Korea and can speak a little to international recognition. Surprisingly, in Korea, Berkeley is as well-known if not more so than Yale -- except insofar as Yale is a part of the Ivy League. More people know about the Ivy League than Berkeley. In the UK it seemed to be a toss-up.

What is most surprising to me is the gap in international recognition between Harvard and Yale in Korea, with Harvard being remarkably more well-known and even more admired than Yale.

In my experience, Harvard is the most recognized American university by a mile. Only Oxford and Cambridge are equally/better known. Whether it is a Romanian village or a small island in the Pacific, chances are you will find people who have heard of those three. Then come Princeton and Yale and Stanford, maybe Berkeley and MIT.

Notre Dame, Duke or Georgetown may be big in the US but are not household names abroad.

I don't know why it matters though. If all goes well, I am not going to be looking for a job in a Romanian village.

[goldenbear2020]

For what it's worth, I've lived in the UK and South Korea and can speak a little to international recognition. Surprisingly, in Korea, Berkeley is as well-known if not more so than Yale -- except insofar as Yale is a part of the Ivy League. More people know about the Ivy League than Berkeley. In the UK it seemed to be a toss-up.

In many Asian countries, Berkeley is more well-known than most of the Ivy League because of its engineering reputation and significant proportion of Asian and Asian-American undergrads (1/3 of all Asians/Asian-Americans in the US live in CA).

What is most surprising to me is the gap in international recognition between Harvard and Yale in Korea, with Harvard being remarkably more well-known and even more admired than Yale.

Probably also true everywhere else in the world, including the US to a lesser extent.

[warmcherrysoda]

.

[nimbus cloud]

Notre Dame, Duke or Georgetown may be big in the US but are not household names abroad.

I agree. I went to Georgetown for undergrad; it is more well-known in the UK than in Korea. In South Korea, it is somewhat rare for people to know of it. They ask if it is part of the Ivy League. But they do seem pleased when I tell them that it is where Bill Clinton went. At least here nobody confuses it with George Washington!

Try asking them about Duke. Best case scenario, if they speak good English, they'll assume you're talking about the British royalty.

[BVest]

I'm from the west coast and haven't really noticed people having hardons for Vandy, but maybe my sample is limited.

Pushing Rice for "second-best Southern school" status at the UG level.

That would recognize a reality that does not exist.

[UVA2B]

Gonna need Rigo to rename this thread "March 2017 prestige circle jerk." Or "Week of March 4th, 2017 prestige circle jerk" if we want to leave the opportunity for new March 2017 prestige circle jerks.

[Moneytrees]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

[BigZuck]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

Cool!

#hookem

[RedPurpleBlue]

I don't know why it matters though. If all goes well, I am not going to be looking for a job in a Romanian village.

As far as I'm concerned this is the best thing line that has come out of this entire thread.

[RedPurpleBlue]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

ND, Georgetown, and Berkeley all have piss-poor student-faculty ratios when compared to their peers. Additionally, each school has at least one other major flaw that weighs it down. Notre Dame is predominately Catholic, warding off a ton of prospective Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and secular applicants, so they have a hard time keeping their acceptance rate low. Notre Dame has a level of self-selection similar to top liberal arts colleges. They get top applicants and fill their class with high GPA/ACT/SAT students, but they don't bring in a bunch of applicants from beyond their perceived target audience. If you want to be higher than a top 15 university, you need to do that or have such a small class size that your target audience is big enough to keep a very low acceptance rate (e.g. Caltech). Georgetown has a laughable endowment when compared to almost all of its peers on a per capita and absolute basis. The two schools it ties with in ranking (Berkeley and Emory) have endowments north of $4B and $6B respectively. Georgetown's endowment is just shy of $1.5B. Even Rice, a school a third of the size has a $5B+ endowment. Georgetown isn't going to make any jumps in ranking until it can increase its resources. As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

If you want prestige rankings, you should really be turning to your personal bias and those of people around you, not US News. US News, while a shit ranking, does actually have factors that matter in its placement other than preftige.

[Moneytrees]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

ND, Georgetown, and Berkeley all have piss-poor student-faculty ratios when compared to their peers. Additionally, each school has at least one other major flaw that weighs it down. Notre Dame is predominately Catholic, warding off a ton of prospective Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and secular applicants, so they have a hard time keeping their acceptance rate low. Notre Dame has a level of self-selection similar to top liberal arts colleges. They get top applicants and fill their class with high GPA/ACT/SAT students, but they don't bring in a bunch of applicants from beyond their perceived target audience. If you want to be higher than a top 15 university, you need to do that or have such a small class size that your target audience is big enough to keep a very low acceptance rate (e.g. Caltech). Georgetown has a laughable endowment when compared to almost all of its peers on a per capita and absolute basis. The two schools it ties with in ranking (Berkeley and Emory) have endowments north of $4B and $6B respectively. Georgetown's endowment is just shy of $1.5B. Even Rice, a school a third of the size has a $5B+ endowment. Georgetown isn't going to make any jumps in ranking until it can increase its resources. As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

If you want prestige rankings, you should really be turning to your personal bias and those of people around you, not US News. US News, while a shit ranking, does actually have factors that matter in its placement other than preftige.

Jw, are things like student faculty ratio and endowment heavily weighed in the US news ranking? If so, perhaps that would explain why those schools are ranked relatively low.

Either way, you seem to be arguing that a school's student-faculty ratio should be extremely important in determining a school's rank, which seems pretty dumb to me.

[cron1834]

UG prestige/lay prestige debates are hands down the dumbest thing that occurs in TLS on-topics (and there are a lot of candidates). You're literally talking about what dimwits think of things they have no information on, and then comparing apples to oranges.

I'm not saying the USNWR law school rankings is a much better topic... but it's a little better

[rpupkin]

As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

(Poster who would choose Cooley over Yale if the former reduced its student:faculty ratio to 5:1.)

[RedPurpleBlue]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

ND, Georgetown, and Berkeley all have piss-poor student-faculty ratios when compared to their peers. Additionally, each school has at least one other major flaw that weighs it down. Notre Dame is predominately Catholic, warding off a ton of prospective Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and secular applicants, so they have a hard time keeping their acceptance rate low. Notre Dame has a level of self-selection similar to top liberal arts colleges. They get top applicants and fill their class with high GPA/ACT/SAT students, but they don't bring in a bunch of applicants from beyond their perceived target audience. If you want to be higher than a top 15 university, you need to do that or have such a small class size that your target audience is big enough to keep a very low acceptance rate (e.g. Caltech). Georgetown has a laughable endowment when compared to almost all of its peers on a per capita and absolute basis. The two schools it ties with in ranking (Berkeley and Emory) have endowments north of $4B and $6B respectively. Georgetown's endowment is just shy of $1.5B. Even Rice, a school a third of the size has a $5B+ endowment. Georgetown isn't going to make any jumps in ranking until it can increase its resources. As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

If you want prestige rankings, you should really be turning to your personal bias and those of people around you, not US News. US News, while a shit ranking, does actually have factors that matter in its placement other than preftige.

Jw, are things like student faculty ratio and endowment heavily weighed in the US news ranking? If so, perhaps that would explain why those schools are ranked relatively low.

Either way, you seem to be arguing that a school's student-faculty ratio should be extremely important in determining a school's rank, which seems pretty dumb to me.

Yes, things like student faculty ratio and endowment are heavily weighed in the US News rankings. Student faculty ratio + class size (directly correlated) make up 9% of the ranking. Financial resources per student (tied to endowment per capita) is given 10% of the ranking. So, 19% of the ranking is controlled by things that Georgetown and Berkeley suck at relative to their peers (yeah, even Berkeley's per capita endowment is small relative to top schools). Luckily for them, Notre Dame only sucks at the 9% that makes up SF ratio, but they must have other problems dragging them down (my guess would be their peer assessment survey). Regardless, when top schools are performing nearly identically in almost all other measures, your score on that 19% can make a lot of difference. I'm not making an argument that SF ratio and endowment should be extremely important (although I definitely think they are to an extent). I'm just supporting the fact that these schools are not lower ranked than they should be in US News. These schools are properly ranked (unless ND, GU, and Berkeley have been misreporting their SF ratio, class sizes, and endowments in a way that is detrimental to them).

[RedPurpleBlue]

As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

(Poster who would choose Cooley over Yale if the former reduced its student:faculty ratio to 5:1.)

No.

I'm explaining why they are ranked properly according to the US News methodology. That's all.

Please act like an adult and give reasonable, non-hyperbolic responses.

Thanks.

[rpupkin]

As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

(Poster who would choose Cooley over Yale if the former reduced its student:faculty ratio to 5:1.)

No.

I'm explaining why they are ranked properly according to the US News methodology. That's all.

That's just a tautology. "The law schools are ranked properly by USNWR because USNWR ranked them the way that USNWR ranked them."

No one here is contending or implying that USNWR made some sort of clerical error in calculating the rankings. I don't doubt that USNWR accurately applies its own formula. I very much doubt, however, that the various inputs into USNWR's little formula—and the annual ranking shifts that result from minor fluctuations in those inputs—should have any impact on someone's choice of law school.

[Moneytrees]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

ND, Georgetown, and Berkeley all have piss-poor student-faculty ratios when compared to their peers. Additionally, each school has at least one other major flaw that weighs it down. Notre Dame is predominately Catholic, warding off a ton of prospective Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and secular applicants, so they have a hard time keeping their acceptance rate low. Notre Dame has a level of self-selection similar to top liberal arts colleges. They get top applicants and fill their class with high GPA/ACT/SAT students, but they don't bring in a bunch of applicants from beyond their perceived target audience. If you want to be higher than a top 15 university, you need to do that or have such a small class size that your target audience is big enough to keep a very low acceptance rate (e.g. Caltech). Georgetown has a laughable endowment when compared to almost all of its peers on a per capita and absolute basis. The two schools it ties with in ranking (Berkeley and Emory) have endowments north of $4B and $6B respectively. Georgetown's endowment is just shy of $1.5B. Even Rice, a school a third of the size has a $5B+ endowment. Georgetown isn't going to make any jumps in ranking until it can increase its resources. As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

If you want prestige rankings, you should really be turning to your personal bias and those of people around you, not US News. US News, while a shit ranking, does actually have factors that matter in its placement other than preftige.

Jw, are things like student faculty ratio and endowment heavily weighed in the US news ranking? If so, perhaps that would explain why those schools are ranked relatively low.

Either way, you seem to be arguing that a school's student-faculty ratio should be extremely important in determining a school's rank, which seems pretty dumb to me.

Yes, things like student faculty ratio and endowment are heavily weighed in the US News rankings. Student faculty ratio + class size (directly correlated) make up 9% of the ranking. Financial resources per student (tied to endowment per capita) is given 10% of the ranking. So, 19% of the ranking is controlled by things that Georgetown and Berkeley suck at relative to their peers (yeah, even Berkeley's per capita endowment is small relative to top schools). Luckily for them, Notre Dame only sucks at the 9% that makes up SF ratio, but they must have other problems dragging them down (my guess would be their peer assessment survey). Regardless, when top schools are performing nearly identically in almost all other measures, your score on that 19% can make a lot of difference. I'm not making an argument that SF ratio and endowment should be extremely important (although I definitely think they are to an extent). I'm just supporting the fact that these schools are not lower ranked than they should be in US News. These schools are properly ranked (unless ND, GU, and Berkeley have been misreporting their SF ratio, class sizes, and endowments in a way that is detrimental to them).

It's pretty crazy that student faculty ratio/class size constitutes almost 10% of a school's score. That is some borderline Cooley ranking shit that gives private schools a huge advantage over public schools. Like, Cal has a shit ton of Nobel laureates and groundbreaking professors, far more than other schools in the top 15 like Brown or Wash U. I would rather be taught by world-famous academic leaders in a class of 50 than by no name professors in a class of 7, but maybe that's just me.

[genericwit]

Neither shocked nor surprised at UT joining the pantheon

WELL DESERVED WE DID IT

To be clear, UT has not joined anything. UT is still just outside the meaningful distinction. It is now the T13.

I'm going to yawn at this repeated butthurtedness from elitist pricks all the way to my biglaw summer job. Should I tell them they made a mistake, because I don't go to a T13 school, and that's the new distinction according to some guy on the Internet who heard it from another guy on the Internet and thought it was clever enough to repeat?

Or should I just quietly pocket that money, since I have no student loan debt to pay back? Thanks UT for in-state tuition, generous scholarships, biglaw job offers, and people who aren't this petty.

When you say "biglaw", is that just referencing the fact that Texans insist on writing all of their laws in a very large typeface to appear more important?

*Hint: I don't think you're getting the joke.

No, I get it. Putting other people down is hilarious. Half joking about making elitist schools even more elitist by deciding a school isn't good enough to be in this already arbitrarily decided cut-off rank and therefore moving up the cut-off rank is so funny. I'm surprised Anthony Jeselnik didn't make it a part of his stand up when I saw him last week.

Every school that bettered itself and moved up is full of kids who take pride that they go there. I don't find anything funny about putting them down. And the fact that UT is a more relaxed place is why I chose it over higher ranked schools.

[RedPurpleBlue]

As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

(Poster who would choose Cooley over Yale if the former reduced its student:faculty ratio to 5:1.)

No.

I'm explaining why they are ranked properly according to the US News methodology. That's all.

That's just a tautology. "The law schools are ranked properly by USNWR because USNWR ranked them the way that USNWR ranked them."

No one here is contending or implying that USNWR made some sort of clerical error in calculating the rankings. I don't doubt that USNWR accurately applies its own formula. I very much doubt, however, that the various inputs into USNWR's little formula—and the annual ranking shifts that result from minor fluctuations in those inputs—should have any impact on someone's choice of law school.

I completely agree, but the original comment I was replying to suggested, in my opinion, that US News was under ranking schools relative to where they should be placed. To me, I interpreted that as US News applying inconsistent standards, so I explained that there are very logical and easy reasons to explain the placements of each one of these schools where they are currently at. Prospective students in no way should care about US News rankings. They should be looking at ABA 509s/employment reports, the cost of attendance at each LS, and how that LS will impact their future as a lawyer.

Thanks for the constructive reply. Cheers!

[RedPurpleBlue]

For what it's worth, I always thought that ND, Georgetown and Berkeley were ranked a little low by US news. In terms of lay prestige they are the best known schools after H, Y, Princeton and Stanford

ND, Georgetown, and Berkeley all have piss-poor student-faculty ratios when compared to their peers. Additionally, each school has at least one other major flaw that weighs it down. Notre Dame is predominately Catholic, warding off a ton of prospective Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and secular applicants, so they have a hard time keeping their acceptance rate low. Notre Dame has a level of self-selection similar to top liberal arts colleges. They get top applicants and fill their class with high GPA/ACT/SAT students, but they don't bring in a bunch of applicants from beyond their perceived target audience. If you want to be higher than a top 15 university, you need to do that or have such a small class size that your target audience is big enough to keep a very low acceptance rate (e.g. Caltech). Georgetown has a laughable endowment when compared to almost all of its peers on a per capita and absolute basis. The two schools it ties with in ranking (Berkeley and Emory) have endowments north of $4B and $6B respectively. Georgetown's endowment is just shy of $1.5B. Even Rice, a school a third of the size has a $5B+ endowment. Georgetown isn't going to make any jumps in ranking until it can increase its resources. As for Berkeley, its student-faculty ratio is far worse than even ND (10:1) or Georgetown (11:1), clocking in at 17:1. Almost every top 20 university has a student faculty ratio below 9:1, many with 7:1 and lower ratios. That's the struggle of being a publicly funded university. As a result, Berkeley's average class sizes are all much bigger than any top private institution.

They are properly ranked.

If you want prestige rankings, you should really be turning to your personal bias and those of people around you, not US News. US News, while a shit ranking, does actually have factors that matter in its placement other than preftige.

Jw, are things like student faculty ratio and endowment heavily weighed in the US news ranking? If so, perhaps that would explain why those schools are ranked relatively low.

Either way, you seem to be arguing that a school's student-faculty ratio should be extremely important in determining a school's rank, which seems pretty dumb to me.

Yes, things like student faculty ratio and endowment are heavily weighed in the US News rankings. Student faculty ratio + class size (directly correlated) make up 9% of the ranking. Financial resources per student (tied to endowment per capita) is given 10% of the ranking. So, 19% of the ranking is controlled by things that Georgetown and Berkeley suck at relative to their peers (yeah, even Berkeley's per capita endowment is small relative to top schools). Luckily for them, Notre Dame only sucks at the 9% that makes up SF ratio, but they must have other problems dragging them down (my guess would be their peer assessment survey). Regardless, when top schools are performing nearly identically in almost all other measures, your score on that 19% can make a lot of difference. I'm not making an argument that SF ratio and endowment should be extremely important (although I definitely think they are to an extent). I'm just supporting the fact that these schools are not lower ranked than they should be in US News. These schools are properly ranked (unless ND, GU, and Berkeley have been misreporting their SF ratio, class sizes, and endowments in a way that is detrimental to them).

It's pretty crazy that student faculty ratio/class size constitutes almost 10% of a school's score. That is some borderline Cooley ranking shit that gives private schools a huge advantage over public schools. Like, Cal has a shit ton of Nobel laureates and groundbreaking professors, far more than other schools in the top 15 like Brown or Wash U. I would rather be taught by world-famous academic leaders in a class of 50 than by no name professors in a class of 7, but maybe that's just me.

Apparently US News used to be calculated differently (source needed), and public schools weren't so harshly punished. I think at that point that Berkeley was top 10 or something like that. Actually, I just found it. Berkeley was ranked 5, 7, and 5 in the first 3 years of the ranking. Then, they must have changed their formula, because Berkeley shot down to 24 (http://web.archive.org/web/200709050102 ... &sort=1983) EDIT: Wow, I started looking at this more. The ranking adjustment screwed UW-Madison, Michigan, and other top publics really hard.

I'd personally rather be taught by a well-respected professor who hasn't won an Nobel (there are a lot of those) in a class of 12 than by a Nobel laureate in a class of 300, but that's just my personal bias when it comes to education. I don't think that the class size impacts the quality of education in significant way though, and it definitely should not be worth 10% in US News.