Feedback on this NYT Article on law school rankings? Forum

[NatalieP]

Check out this New York Times article from last week: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/opini ... .html?_r=0

The story focuses on U.S. News & World Report's college rankings, but also clearly questions the legitimacy of the law school rankings. Just a few days earlier, Justice Thomas said the US News rankings are hurting law school diversity because it seems to reward schools with very high tuition and punishes law schools with night law schools and part-time programs. I read this analysis other places, too. Any thoughts on this or why US News will not disclose the formula it uses to grade the law schools?

[vanwinkle]

Justice Thomas said the US News rankings are hurting law school diversity because it seems to reward schools with very high tuition

The flaw with this argument is that these days, every law school has high tuition.

(Okay, there are exceptions, but 97 law schools have tuition above $30K/yr.)

Any thoughts on this or why US News will not disclose the formula it uses to grade the law schools?

Because then every school that isn't #1 would complain about the weighting of some individual factor as the "cause" of their lower ranking, and publish their own "re-weighted USNWR rankings" that showed they were clearly #1.

[John Mill]

Any thoughts on this or why US News will not disclose the formula it uses to grade the law schools?

Because then every school that isn't #1 would complain about the weighting of some individual factor as the "cause" of their lower ranking, and publish their own "re-weighted USNWR rankings" that showed they were clearly #1.

To add to this, it could also cause schools to begin to do things to skew their numbers if they know the areas they have to improve. It could affect the applicants they accept, rather than accepting the best applicant, they could rather choose the one that meets a specific criteria to improve their ranking.

[Bronte]

The USNWR ranking is the least of our worries. In boom times it might have been viable to wonder if it couldn't be tweaked to be more fair, but today it suffices to say that almost every school on the list is not worth attending. Their complaints about whether they should be ranked 65 or 60 are thus moot.

[Tiago Splitter]

Any thoughts on this or why US News will not disclose the formula it uses to grade the law schools?

Because then every school that isn't #1 would complain about the weighting of some individual factor as the "cause" of their lower ranking, and publish their own "re-weighted USNWR rankings" that showed they were clearly #1.

To add to this, it could also cause schools to begin to do things to skew their numbers if they know the areas they have to improve. It could affect the applicants they accept, rather than accepting the best applicant, they could rather choose the one that meets a specific criteria to improve their ranking.

They already do this, because the methodology is already disclosed:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-gr ... l-rankings

[Big Dog]

Any thoughts on this or why US News will not disclose the formula it uses to grade the law schools?

Except that USNews has disclosed its formula for years.....

[IAFG]

I agree that it's stupid to try to have an ordinal ranking (why not bands like chambers? why overall rankings at all? why would an engineering major want to go to Columbia over MIT?) but the end was fucking annoying. Big State U doesn't open the same doors Desirable University does, and this boomer drivel of

Maybe someday she’ll understand that where you go to college matters far less than what you put into college. Maybe someday the readers of the U.S. News rankings will understand that as well.

would be news to a lot of employers.

[rad lulz]

I agree that it's stupid to try to have an ordinal ranking (why not bands like chambers? why overall rankings at all? why would an engineering major want to go to Columbia over MIT?) but the end was fucking annoying. Big State U doesn't open the same doors Desirable University does, and this boomer drivel of

Maybe someday she’ll understand that where you go to college matters far less than what you put into college. Maybe someday the readers of the U.S. News rankings will understand that as well.

would be news to a lot of employers.

TCR. "It doesn't matter what name is on your degree" is boomer horseshit.

[IAFG]

TCR. "It doesn't matter what name is on your degree" is boomer horseshit.

JFC the more I think about it the madder I get.

[The Dog]

The USNWR's heavy emphasis on LSATs and GPAs seems to hurt those law schools with part-time and night programs, which attract more minorities and more middle class applicants just trying to get an extra advantage through additional education. A big question for me is, does the USNWR's emphasis on how much money the school spends per student on faculty and buildings actually contribute to the increasing cost of law school? The NYT's coverage has certainly indicated that it does.

[cahwc12]

The USNWR's heavy emphasis on LSATs and GPAs seems to hurt those law schools with part-time and night programs, which attract more minorities and more middle class applicants just trying to get an extra advantage through additional education. A big question for me is, does the USNWR's emphasis on how much money the school spends per student on faculty and buildings actually contribute to the increasing cost of law school? The NYT's coverage has certainly indicated that it does.

Yes, as does the fact that you can borrow 100% COA in the form of federal loans that are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

What's the incentive to charge cheaper tuition when you can charge more, make more, and then use that money to give scholarships to applicants with higher numbers or to improve the school in ways to attract other applicants?