Top Law Schools

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This is an interesting question especially since the school used to be ranked much higher. I know some attorneys in the area who are more familiar with the legal market than school rankings, and most look at BC more much more favorably than BU.

In terms of rankings I think you kind of half-answered your question... I don't have the US News methodology on me at the moment but I think they weigh heavily lsat median and selectivity, and do not emphasize employment that much. Also, BC isn't giving out nearly as much scholarship money as BU (I'm not sure how much the school has to give out..).

I was surprised by your post because I thought the school's employment numbers would be much worse than other T20 schools. But you are right ... on the surface BC stacks up well with a school like UT. I'd bet there is a difference in the average quality of firm or PI job though. LST says 18% of BC last year went to 500+ firms while UT had like 26%.

chickensoup1234 wrote:This is an interesting question especially since the school used to be ranked much higher. I know some attorneys in the area who are more familiar with the legal market than school rankings, and most look at BC more much more favorably than BU.

In terms of rankings I think you kind of half-answered your question... I don't have the US News methodology on me at the moment but I think they weigh heavily lsat median and selectivity, and do not emphasize employment that much. Also, BC isn't giving out nearly as much scholarship money as BU (I'm not sure how much the school has to give out..).

I was surprised by your post because I thought the school's employment numbers would be much worse than other T20 schools. But you are right ... on the surface BC stacks up well with a school like UT. I'd bet there is a difference in the average quality of firm or PI job though. LST says 18% of BC last year went to 500+ firms while UT had like 26%.

After doing some more research, the right conclusion probably is strictly medians/selectivity-based. The rankings of LSAT/GPA medians last year from high-to-low matches almost perfectly with the US News Rankings of schools. I honestly feel bad for BC. They blow famous schools like Emory, Washu, and ND out of the water in terms of employment.

It really seems like you would be in the same boat employment-wise going to BC, Vandy, UCLA, UT, or USC. Scholarships, location preference, and maybe slight differences (as you mentioned, maybe a school is a little better in PI) would really set them apart, but they all at least belong in the same tier. And I'd imagine someone would get significantly more money from BC than Vandy if they got accepted to both.

I don't think they "blow [a T20] out of the water." UCLA or UT, for example, is certainly at least one tier above BC. But does BC you a decent shot at Big Law? I think so. Is it worth close to sticker? No...

chickensoup1234 wrote:I don't think they "blow [a T20] out of the water." UCLA or UT, for example, is certainly at least one tier above BC. But does BC you a decent shot at Big Law? I think so. Is it worth close to sticker? No...

I really think BC blows at least Emory out of the water. And UCLA seems to be in the same tier employment-wise as BC. They're essentially the same school, different coast. I think UCLA might benefit from a stronger, more widely recognized undergrad/brand name that they can utilize to their benefit, and they are certainly more selective, but I just don't think that justifies the difference. UT is a little different because it single handedly rules the second most populous state in the country with several decent sized legal markets at least and has slightly better numbers.

FredTheFish wrote:

chickensoup1234 wrote:This is an interesting question especially since the school used to be ranked much higher. I know some attorneys in the area who are more familiar with the legal market than school rankings, and most look at BC more much more favorably than BU.

In terms of rankings I think you kind of half-answered your question... I don't have the US News methodology on me at the moment but I think they weigh heavily lsat median and selectivity, and do not emphasize employment that much. Also, BC isn't giving out nearly as much scholarship money as BU (I'm not sure how much the school has to give out..).

I was surprised by your post because I thought the school's employment numbers would be much worse than other T20 schools. But you are right ... on the surface BC stacks up well with a school like UT. I'd bet there is a difference in the average quality of firm or PI job though. LST says 18% of BC last year went to 500+ firms while UT had like 26%.

After doing some more research, the right conclusion probably is strictly medians/selectivity-based. The rankings of LSAT/GPA medians last year from high-to-low matches almost perfectly with the US News Rankings of schools. I honestly feel bad for BC. They blow famous schools like Emory, Washu, and ND out of the water in terms of employment.

It really seems like you would be in the same boat employment-wise going to BC, Vandy, UCLA, UT, or USC. Scholarships, location preference, and maybe slight differences (as you mentioned, maybe a school is a little better in PI) would really set them apart, but they all at least belong in the same tier. And I'd imagine someone would get significantly more money from BC than Vandy if they got accepted to both.

Vandy gave me 35k a year more than BC did. BC is notoriously cheap.

FredTheFish wrote:

chickensoup1234 wrote:This is an interesting question especially since the school used to be ranked much higher. I know some attorneys in the area who are more familiar with the legal market than school rankings, and most look at BC more much more favorably than BU.

In terms of rankings I think you kind of half-answered your question... I don't have the US News methodology on me at the moment but I think they weigh heavily lsat median and selectivity, and do not emphasize employment that much. Also, BC isn't giving out nearly as much scholarship money as BU (I'm not sure how much the school has to give out..).

I was surprised by your post because I thought the school's employment numbers would be much worse than other T20 schools. But you are right ... on the surface BC stacks up well with a school like UT. I'd bet there is a difference in the average quality of firm or PI job though. LST says 18% of BC last year went to 500+ firms while UT had like 26%.

After doing some more research, the right conclusion probably is strictly medians/selectivity-based. The rankings of LSAT/GPA medians last year from high-to-low matches almost perfectly with the US News Rankings of schools. I honestly feel bad for BC. They blow famous schools like Emory, Washu, and ND out of the water in terms of employment.

It really seems like you would be in the same boat employment-wise going to BC, Vandy, UCLA, UT, or USC. Scholarships, location preference, and maybe slight differences (as you mentioned, maybe a school is a little better in PI) would really set them apart, but they all at least belong in the same tier. And I'd imagine someone would get significantly more money from BC than Vandy if they got accepted to both.

Blowing those schools "out of the water" is inaccurate and hugely exaggerated, but BC nonetheless does well for itself.
This is especially true, given its lower quality student body and USNWR ranking.
http://www.lstscorereports.com/compare/ ... /washu/gw/

The same goes for BU and Fordham (stingy), and the higher employment is in large part due to the schools' location in sizable cities.
However, their operating costs are much higher as well, as opposed to schools located in the Midwest such as WashU and ND.

Lastly, WashU and ND are quasi-national. Sure, 1/3 of WUSTL stay in Missouri and the surrounding region, but that's where their roots are.
The school's % of applicants from the other states and regions, e.g. East Coast/ West Coast/ South, almost always return back to their city ties.

reasonableperson wrote:

FredTheFish wrote:

chickensoup1234 wrote:This is an interesting question especially since the school used to be ranked much higher. I know some attorneys in the area who are more familiar with the legal market than school rankings, and most look at BC more much more favorably than BU.

In terms of rankings I think you kind of half-answered your question... I don't have the US News methodology on me at the moment but I think they weigh heavily lsat median and selectivity, and do not emphasize employment that much. Also, BC isn't giving out nearly as much scholarship money as BU (I'm not sure how much the school has to give out..).

I was surprised by your post because I thought the school's employment numbers would be much worse than other T20 schools. But you are right ... on the surface BC stacks up well with a school like UT. I'd bet there is a difference in the average quality of firm or PI job though. LST says 18% of BC last year went to 500+ firms while UT had like 26%.

After doing some more research, the right conclusion probably is strictly medians/selectivity-based. The rankings of LSAT/GPA medians last year from high-to-low matches almost perfectly with the US News Rankings of schools. I honestly feel bad for BC. They blow famous schools like Emory, Washu, and ND out of the water in terms of employment.

It really seems like you would be in the same boat employment-wise going to BC, Vandy, UCLA, UT, or USC. Scholarships, location preference, and maybe slight differences (as you mentioned, maybe a school is a little better in PI) would really set them apart, but they all at least belong in the same tier. And I'd imagine someone would get significantly more money from BC than Vandy if they got accepted to both.

Blowing those schools "out of the water" is inaccurate and hugely exaggerated, but BC nonetheless does well for itself.
This is especially true, given its lower quality student body and USNWR ranking.
http://www.lstscorereports.com/compare/ ... /washu/gw/

The same goes for BU and Fordham (stingy), and the higher employment is in large part due to the schools' location in sizable cities.
However, their operating costs are much higher as well, as opposed to schools located in the Midwest such as WashU and ND.

Lastly, WashU and ND are quasi-national. Sure, 1/3 of WUSTL stay in Missouri and the surrounding region, but that's where their roots are.
The school's % of applicants from the other states and regions, e.g. East Coast/ West Coast/ South, almost always return back to their city ties.

I agree it's an exaggeration, although might hold some weight when comparing BC to Emory exclusively.

Why should the reason why or how BC, BU, and Fordham gets these high employment numbers even matter? At the end of the day, they are still high, no matter the reason.

And does being quasi-national matter either? UCLA, UT, and USC are not quasi-national, while Vandy is slightly more quasi-national than those three (but really only in the southeast), yet are all ahead of ND and WashU.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that BC is ranked low for no reason other than medians. Taking into account everything from large firm score, to quasi-national reputation, I just don't see why they deserve to be that low.

FredTheFish wrote:

reasonableperson wrote:

FredTheFish wrote:

chickensoup1234 wrote:This is an interesting question especially since the school used to be ranked much higher. I know some attorneys in the area who are more familiar with the legal market than school rankings, and most look at BC more much more favorably than BU.

In terms of rankings I think you kind of half-answered your question... I don't have the US News methodology on me at the moment but I think they weigh heavily lsat median and selectivity, and do not emphasize employment that much. Also, BC isn't giving out nearly as much scholarship money as BU (I'm not sure how much the school has to give out..).

I was surprised by your post because I thought the school's employment numbers would be much worse than other T20 schools. But you are right ... on the surface BC stacks up well with a school like UT. I'd bet there is a difference in the average quality of firm or PI job though. LST says 18% of BC last year went to 500+ firms while UT had like 26%.

After doing some more research, the right conclusion probably is strictly medians/selectivity-based. The rankings of LSAT/GPA medians last year from high-to-low matches almost perfectly with the US News Rankings of schools. I honestly feel bad for BC. They blow famous schools like Emory, Washu, and ND out of the water in terms of employment.

It really seems like you would be in the same boat employment-wise going to BC, Vandy, UCLA, UT, or USC. Scholarships, location preference, and maybe slight differences (as you mentioned, maybe a school is a little better in PI) would really set them apart, but they all at least belong in the same tier. And I'd imagine someone would get significantly more money from BC than Vandy if they got accepted to both.

Blowing those schools "out of the water" is inaccurate and hugely exaggerated, but BC nonetheless does well for itself.
This is especially true, given its lower quality student body and USNWR ranking.
http://www.lstscorereports.com/compare/ ... /washu/gw/

The same goes for BU and Fordham (stingy), and the higher employment is in large part due to the schools' location in sizable cities.
However, their operating costs are much higher as well, as opposed to schools located in the Midwest such as WashU and ND.

Lastly, WashU and ND are quasi-national. Sure, 1/3 of WUSTL stay in Missouri and the surrounding region, but that's where their roots are.
The school's % of applicants from the other states and regions, e.g. East Coast/ West Coast/ South, almost always return back to their city ties.

I agree it's an exaggeration, although might hold some weight when comparing BC to Emory exclusively.

Why should the reason why or how BC, BU, and Fordham gets these high employment numbers even matter? At the end of the day, they are still high, no matter the reason.

And does being quasi-national matter either? UCLA, UT, and USC are not quasi-national, while Vandy is slightly more quasi-national than those three (but really only in the southeast), yet are all ahead of ND and WashU.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that BC is ranked low for no reason other than medians. Taking into account everything from large firm score, to quasi-national reputation, I just don't see why they deserve to be that low.

Clearly has already addressed your question:

Clearly wrote:http://www.usnews.com/education/best-gr ... ethodology

This is the reason the USNWR is not a valuable metric when you get down in the weeds.

Be Catholic.

FredTheFish wrote:Pretty simple question. I recently got accepted into BC and decided to crunch it's employment numbers against other schools a little bit more in depth. According to LST, and in the metrics I truly care about and what seem to be important to most people on this site (work in large firms, clerkships, overall employment) it is better than every school besides the T14. It's about dead even with UCLA, slightly worse (although debatable) with Vandy, and I didn't feel like doing USC and UT but I'd imagine they'd be similar as well.

Regardless, BC is #34 on US News and a full 8 spots behind cross town rival BU. They are considered roughly the same school, although I think BC wins pretty easily in employment numbers when taking into account clerkships and school-funded jobs. Is there something I am missing? Maybe some scandal I never heard about? And I am aware US News uses different (i.e. worse) factors in its methodology, but even taking that into consideration I can't see how schools like ASU, Wisconsin, or UGA could possibly edge them out.

As to the issue of why a school ranked 34 should have such nice employment numbers, I think the answer in part lies in the nature of the Boston legal market. First, it is VERY insular. They like their own, and pretty much only their own. In other words, you better “know Jimmy down the baaa” if you want a job here. Now, they’ll hire you out of Stanford, but most of those guys were born here, so they know Jimmy, or in a few cases, a firm will cave and just introduce them to Jimmy. Also, while Harvard people do stay here, most do not. Most go home to their states, to their regions, or to their countries. What does that leave the Boston market with? BC and BU. After that, you’ve got Northeastern, which is way down the rankings, and New England College of the Law and Suffolk Law School, which are, well, off the rankings. So BC and BU do not have a lot of competition within the insular Boston legal market.

In addition, the “Boston legal market” is pretty big. It includes not just all of Massachusetts, but also R.I., Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. People should more properly call it the “Northern New England market.” Those states have no law schools like BC or BU, and no one from T14 is going there. Vanderbilt, for example, is a much better ranked school than either of them, but the Tennessee market is much smaller than Northern New England’s, and they won’t challenge you to a duel if you show up there with a law degree from American University.

One word of warning: don’t conclude from this BC employment phenomenon that you should drop your admission to, say, Vanderbilt and go to BC. BC and BU do not travel well beyond this region. In fact, in my 30 years of practicing law in New York and, from New York, all across the country, I never met one lawyer from either school until I actually moved to the Boston area. So unless you plan on staying in New England (or, I guess, going to D.C. to be a U.S. Senator like Scott Brown or John Kerry), go with the higher ranked school.

As to the somewhat greater popularity of BC over BU, which I sense as well, I think it’s just a product of greater alumni loyalty. BC people are real “rah rah” about BC, and I think they give each other a secret hand shake or something. By the way, BC’s facilities are beautiful (I used to use their library often) and BU’s … not so much.

As to the flip side of this whole issue, why a school with such nice employment numbers should be ranked only 34, I agree with others here that it is a product of USN&WR’s methodology. They should change it, especially in today’s tight legal market.

Dan Sullivan

FredTheFish wrote:I guess what I am trying to get at is that BC is ranked low for no reason other than medians. Taking into account everything from large firm score, to quasi-national reputation, I just don't see why they deserve to be that low.

This is why everyone here will tell you to ignore the rankings. It doesn't matter where a magazine decides to rank a school.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

FredTheFish wrote:I guess what I am trying to get at is that BC is ranked low for no reason other than medians. Taking into account everything from large firm score, to quasi-national reputation, I just don't see why they deserve to be that low.

This is why everyone here will tell you to ignore the rankings. It doesn't matter where a magazine decides to rank a school.

Absolutely I agree. And I initially asked it because I wasn't sure if there was some little known reason that caused BC to be so low, like a scandal or some sort of fraud that I should be wary of.

FredTheFish wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

FredTheFish wrote:I guess what I am trying to get at is that BC is ranked low for no reason other than medians. Taking into account everything from large firm score, to quasi-national reputation, I just don't see why they deserve to be that low.

This is why everyone here will tell you to ignore the rankings. It doesn't matter where a magazine decides to rank a school.

Absolutely I agree. And I initially asked it because I wasn't sure if there was some little known reason that caused BC to be so low, like a scandal or some sort of fraud that I should be wary of.

I'm sorry FredTheFish, you did ask that precise question as well, and I should have addressed it specifically as well. I know of no scandal or fraud or the like that might have operated to hold BC back in any way.

Even if there was a scandal, scandals aren't a factor in the USNews algorithm. Even if they found out that BC was actually a front for an ISIS-training facility in Bahstin, and everyone is arrested, as long as they keep their medians and numbers steady their ranking shouldn't changed. In fact, it should only improve as prison inmates generally have required employment (laundry room, janitorial service, etc.), so they would be at 100% with no school funded jobs.

SullivanLSAC wrote:

FredTheFish wrote:Pretty simple question. I recently got accepted into BC and decided to crunch it's employment numbers against other schools a little bit more in depth. According to LST, and in the metrics I truly care about and what seem to be important to most people on this site (work in large firms, clerkships, overall employment) it is better than every school besides the T14. It's about dead even with UCLA, slightly worse (although debatable) with Vandy, and I didn't feel like doing USC and UT but I'd imagine they'd be similar as well.

Regardless, BC is #34 on US News and a full 8 spots behind cross town rival BU. They are considered roughly the same school, although I think BC wins pretty easily in employment numbers when taking into account clerkships and school-funded jobs. Is there something I am missing? Maybe some scandal I never heard about? And I am aware US News uses different (i.e. worse) factors in its methodology, but even taking that into consideration I can't see how schools like ASU, Wisconsin, or UGA could possibly edge them out.

As to the issue of why a school ranked 34 should have such nice employment numbers, I think the answer in part lies in the nature of the Boston legal market. First, it is VERY insular. They like their own, and pretty much only their own. In other words, you better “know Jimmy down the baaa” if you want a job here. Now, they’ll hire you out of Stanford, but most of those guys were born here, so they know Jimmy, or in a few cases, a firm will cave and just introduce them to Jimmy. Also, while Harvard people do stay here, most do not. Most go home to their states, to their regions, or to their countries. What does that leave the Boston market with? BC and BU. After that, you’ve got Northeastern, which is way down the rankings, and New England College of the Law and Suffolk Law School, which are, well, off the rankings. So BC and BU do not have a lot of competition within the insular Boston legal market.

In addition, the “Boston legal market” is pretty big. It includes not just all of Massachusetts, but also R.I., Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. People should more properly call it the “Northern New England market.” Those states have no law schools like BC or BU, and no one from T14 is going there. Vanderbilt, for example, is a much better ranked school than either of them, but the Tennessee market is much smaller than Northern New England’s, and they won’t challenge you to a duel if you show up there with a law degree from American University.

One word of warning: don’t conclude from this BC employment phenomenon that you should drop your admission to, say, Vanderbilt and go to BC. BC and BU do not travel well beyond this region. In fact, in my 30 years of practicing law in New York and, from New York, all across the country, I never met one lawyer from either school until I actually moved to the Boston area. So unless you plan on staying in New England (or, I guess, going to D.C. to be a U.S. Senator like Scott Brown or John Kerry), go with the higher ranked school.

As to the somewhat greater popularity of BC over BU, which I sense as well, I think it’s just a product of greater alumni loyalty. BC people are real “rah rah” about BC, and I think they give each other a secret hand shake or something. By the way, BC’s facilities are beautiful (I used to use their library often) and BU’s … not so much.

As to the flip side of this whole issue, why a school with such nice employment numbers should be ranked only 34, I agree with others here that it is a product of USN&WR’s methodology. They should change it, especially in today’s tight legal market.

Dan Sullivan

Very informative! When you say insular though, would a BC student with no prior ties to the area have a chance at opportunities? Or when you say insular do you mean they love BC grads no matter their prior ties? I've heard people who go to U of Washington have a hard time breaking into Seattle because it is super insular, even if they are grads from UW. They need strong ties before they even start law school. Would you say BC is the same? As someone with no ties to Boston (but I love the city) would I be ok as a BC student + a little networking?

FredTheFish wrote:

SullivanLSAC wrote:

FredTheFish wrote:Pretty simple question. I recently got accepted into BC and decided to crunch it's employment numbers against other schools a little bit more in depth. According to LST, and in the metrics I truly care about and what seem to be important to most people on this site (work in large firms, clerkships, overall employment) it is better than every school besides the T14. It's about dead even with UCLA, slightly worse (although debatable) with Vandy, and I didn't feel like doing USC and UT but I'd imagine they'd be similar as well.

Regardless, BC is #34 on US News and a full 8 spots behind cross town rival BU. They are considered roughly the same school, although I think BC wins pretty easily in employment numbers when taking into account clerkships and school-funded jobs. Is there something I am missing? Maybe some scandal I never heard about? And I am aware US News uses different (i.e. worse) factors in its methodology, but even taking that into consideration I can't see how schools like ASU, Wisconsin, or UGA could possibly edge them out.

As to the issue of why a school ranked 34 should have such nice employment numbers, I think the answer in part lies in the nature of the Boston legal market. First, it is VERY insular. They like their own, and pretty much only their own. In other words, you better “know Jimmy down the baaa” if you want a job here. Now, they’ll hire you out of Stanford, but most of those guys were born here, so they know Jimmy, or in a few cases, a firm will cave and just introduce them to Jimmy. Also, while Harvard people do stay here, most do not. Most go home to their states, to their regions, or to their countries. What does that leave the Boston market with? BC and BU. After that, you’ve got Northeastern, which is way down the rankings, and New England College of the Law and Suffolk Law School, which are, well, off the rankings. So BC and BU do not have a lot of competition within the insular Boston legal market.

In addition, the “Boston legal market” is pretty big. It includes not just all of Massachusetts, but also R.I., Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. People should more properly call it the “Northern New England market.” Those states have no law schools like BC or BU, and no one from T14 is going there. Vanderbilt, for example, is a much better ranked school than either of them, but the Tennessee market is much smaller than Northern New England’s, and they won’t challenge you to a duel if you show up there with a law degree from American University.

One word of warning: don’t conclude from this BC employment phenomenon that you should drop your admission to, say, Vanderbilt and go to BC. BC and BU do not travel well beyond this region. In fact, in my 30 years of practicing law in New York and, from New York, all across the country, I never met one lawyer from either school until I actually moved to the Boston area. So unless you plan on staying in New England (or, I guess, going to D.C. to be a U.S. Senator like Scott Brown or John Kerry), go with the higher ranked school.

As to the somewhat greater popularity of BC over BU, which I sense as well, I think it’s just a product of greater alumni loyalty. BC people are real “rah rah” about BC, and I think they give each other a secret hand shake or something. By the way, BC’s facilities are beautiful (I used to use their library often) and BU’s … not so much.

As to the flip side of this whole issue, why a school with such nice employment numbers should be ranked only 34, I agree with others here that it is a product of USN&WR’s methodology. They should change it, especially in today’s tight legal market.

Dan Sullivan

Very informative! When you say insular though, would a BC student with no prior ties to the area have a chance at opportunities? Or when you say insular do you mean they love BC grads no matter their prior ties? I've heard people who go to U of Washington have a hard time breaking into Seattle because it is super insular, even if they are grads from UW. They need strong ties before they even start law school. Would you say BC is the same? As someone with no ties to Boston (but I love the city) would I be ok as a BC student + a little networking?

Wow. You know Fred, if I may address you in the familiar, when I wrote my original response, this precise issue occurred to me, but I let it go because there’s only so much room in a blogpost. That you follow up with it suggests to me that you will be a very good lawyer. Anyway … I don’t know! Not being a native Bostonian, I don’t know how fully the insularity runs deep. But given that BC and BU are the only very good law schools these firms can mine, I have to believe that being from, say, Oklahoma, and going through BC or BU, you will be treated as Bostonian “by marriage,” the same way that someone from, say, Oklahoma by way of Stanford Law would be. In other words, in the terms of my original response, they will “cave and introduce you to Jimmy down the baaa.” I mean, if they really only hired people who were actually BORN here, that wouldn’t amount to too many people of the BC caliber, and they need people with that much gray matter to do the work here. All I’m saying is that they are insular enough that if presented with someone from BC and Fordham with identical records, they would pick the BC person 100% of the time. That’s how insular, and only how insular, they are. In other words, at long last, if you want to work in Boston, and you have been admitted to BC, but are from elsewhere, don’t hesitate to come here. You will partake of the excellent employment record that BC enjoys.

Dan Sullivan

Same could be said for UIUC, low "ranking" but their employment numbers are good, imo.

jrass wrote:Even if there was a scandal, scandals aren't a factor in the USNews algorithm. Even if they found out that BC was actually a front for an ISIS-training facility in Bahstin, and everyone is arrested, as long as they keep their medians and numbers steady their ranking shouldn't changed. In fact, it should only improve as prison inmates generally have required employment (laundry room, janitorial service, etc.), so they would be at 100% with no school funded jobs.

This isn't entirely true, usnwr wouldn't directly follow the controversy sure, but students would and usnwr would catch up. For instance a while ago Villanova got caught submitting falsified lsat scores to the aba. They were forced to put a noticeable fraud banner on their homepage which lowered enrollment and they tanked in usnwr shortly thereafter.

Didn't UIUC used to be ranked higher and had a scandal and now it's ranked lower?

Yup. But (like said above, and I know you know this) it's not that the rankings captured the scandal in any way, it's that a scandal can affect who attends and alter the rankings that way. Also, I can't remember whether this was UIUC or maybe Villanova, but one school was gaming their stats so when they had to report them accurately their ranking dropped because the stats were worse.

(Edit: scooped, ish, on Villanova, but it's not just that people stopped enrolling - it's that the school couldn't report inflated numbers anymore.)

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Yup. But (like said above, and I know you know this) it's not that the rankings captured the scandal in any way, it's that a scandal can affect who attends and alter the rankings that way. Also, I can't remember whether this was UIUC or maybe Villanova, but one school was gaming their stats so when they had to report them accurately their ranking dropped because the stats were worse.

(Edit: scooped, ish, on Villanova, but it's not just that people stopped enrolling - it's that the school couldn't report inflated numbers anymore.)

"Clearly" this is mod favoritism if he's getting credit for scoopage and I'm not

I couldn't remember if UIUC also gamed the numbers or if that was just Villanova.

Really my point is that it wasn't so much that students were staying away due to fraud that lowered the ranking, it's that the higher ranking was inflated and the lower one actually reflected accurate numbers.

But if that was already clear to everyone but me just pat me on the head and let me go on my way - I'm not braining so good today.

SullivanLSAC wrote: As to the somewhat greater popularity of BC over BU, which I sense as well, I think it’s just a product of greater alumni loyalty. BC people are real “rah rah” about BC, and I think they give each other a secret hand shake or something. By the way, BC’s facilities are beautiful (I used to use their library often) and BU’s … not so much.

Dan Sullivan

FWIW - BU just completely renovated the law school building. It's pretty sweet.