2012 US News & World Report Law School Rankings Forum

[ze2151]

then i guess you have to kick minnesota (minneapolis/st. paul), wisconsin (milwaukee), and michigan (detroit) out of the midwest?

and please, everyone remember to include the "atlanta doesn't count as part of the south when i insult the south, generally" caveat.

[Fred_McGriff]

Major Regions:

Northeast: New England + Mid Atlantic, ends someplace East of Buffalo (Philly is, Pittsburg isn't)
South: Former states of the Confederacy ex-Texas, plus Kentucky
Great Lakes: All of the Great lakes states up to Buffalo
Midwest: Pittsburgh to Omaha
Great Plains: That morphous Blop of land in the middle
Texas: Texas and Oklahoma
Southwest: AZ, NM, southern bits of the other Four Corners states
Rockies: The non-flat bits of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, etc. all the way to the Sierra Nevadas
California: NorCal and Cali
Pac NW: Eureka to Vancouver BC

Micro-Regions:
South Florida, French Gulf Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, La Frontera, Michigan's UP

[09042014]

Major Regions:

Northeast: New England + Mid Atlantic, ends someplace East of Buffalo (Philly is, Pittsburg isn't)
South: Former states of the Confederacy ex-Texas, plus Kentucky
Great Lakes: All of the Great lakes states up to Buffalo
Midwest: Pittsburgh to Omaha
Great Plains: That morphous Blop of land in the middle
Texas: Texas and Oklahoma
Southwest: AZ, NM, southern bits of the other Four Corners states
Rockies: The non-flat bits of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, etc. all the way to the Sierra Nevadas
California: NorCal and Cali
Pac NW: Eureka to Vancouver BC

Micro-Regions:
South Florida, French Gulf Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, La Frontera, Michigan's UP

Nebraska and Kansas are Plain States not midwest. They are trying to trade up.

[Fred_McGriff]

Word. Amend it. If it's North of Virginia, West of Dallas, and it's not San Francisco, I couldn't care less.

[beachbum]

Major Regions:

Northeast: New England + Mid Atlantic, ends someplace East of Buffalo (Philly is, Pittsburg isn't)
South: Former states of the Confederacy ex-Texas, plus Kentucky
Great Lakes: All of the Great lakes states up to Buffalo
Midwest: Pittsburgh to Omaha
Great Plains: That morphous Blop of land in the middle
Texas: Texas and Oklahoma
Southwest: AZ, NM, southern bits of the other Four Corners states
Rockies: The non-flat bits of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, etc. all the way to the Sierra Nevadas
California: NorCal and Cali
Pac NW: Eureka to Vancouver BC

Micro-Regions:
South Florida, French Gulf Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, La Frontera, Michigan's UP

Nebraska and Kansas are Plain States not midwest. They are trying to trade up.

Kansas is definitely midwest.

[09042014]

Major Regions:

Northeast: New England + Mid Atlantic, ends someplace East of Buffalo (Philly is, Pittsburg isn't)
South: Former states of the Confederacy ex-Texas, plus Kentucky
Great Lakes: All of the Great lakes states up to Buffalo
Midwest: Pittsburgh to Omaha
Great Plains: That morphous Blop of land in the middle
Texas: Texas and Oklahoma
Southwest: AZ, NM, southern bits of the other Four Corners states
Rockies: The non-flat bits of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, etc. all the way to the Sierra Nevadas
California: NorCal and Cali
Pac NW: Eureka to Vancouver BC

Micro-Regions:
South Florida, French Gulf Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, La Frontera, Michigan's UP

Nebraska and Kansas are Plain States not midwest. They are trying to trade up.

Kansas is definitely midwest.

Nah, it's grouped in a lot but it makes no sense.

[JusticeHarlan]

Major Regions:

Northeast: New England + Mid Atlantic, ends someplace East of Buffalo (Philly is, Pittsburg isn't)
South: Former states of the Confederacy ex-Texas, plus Kentucky
Great Lakes: All of the Great lakes states up to Buffalo
Midwest: Pittsburgh to Omaha
Great Plains: That morphous Blop of land in the middle
Texas: Texas and Oklahoma
Southwest: AZ, NM, southern bits of the other Four Corners states
Rockies: The non-flat bits of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, etc. all the way to the Sierra Nevadas
California: NorCal and Cali
Pac NW: Eureka to Vancouver BC

Micro-Regions:
South Florida, French Gulf Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, La Frontera, Michigan's UP

Nebraska and Kansas are Plain States not midwest. They are trying to trade up.

Kansas is definitely midwest.

Nah, it's grouped in a lot but it makes no sense.

ITT: people from flyover states try to disassociate from each other

[unc0mm0n1]

what is up TLS you guys are slacking. I demand someone break into USNWR and get those rankings. It's the 10th already and still no rankings.

[gothamm]

what is up TLS you guys are slacking. I demand someone break into USNWR and get those rankings. It's the 10th already and still no rankings.

I thought the rankings usually get leaked around mid april

[hokie]

what is up TLS you guys are slacking. I demand someone break into USNWR and get those rankings. It's the 10th already and still no rankings.

I thought the rankings usually get leaked around mid april

I am fairly sure that it will be officially released online on USNWR's site on March 15th

[trialjunky]

what is up TLS you guys are slacking. I demand someone break into USNWR and get those rankings. It's the 10th already and still no rankings.

I agree! I need another "OMG I have access to the unreleased ranking and I'm uploading it on my facebook as proof" session. It gets so crazy and frenzied around that time...love it.

[neonx]

Any predictions before March 15?

I predict:
1 - Yale
2 - Harvard
3 - Stanford
4 - Columbia
5 - NYU
6 - Chicago
7 - Penn
8 - Berkeley
8 - Virginia
10 - Michigan
11 - Duke
12 - Northwestern
13 - Cornell
14 - Georgetown
15 - UCLA
16 - Texas
16 - Vandy
18 - USC
19 - WUSTL
20 - Illinois
21 - Boston
22 - George Washington
23 - Minnesota
23 - Emory
25 - Notre Dame
26 - Iowa
. . . .

[Kilpatrick]

.

[SirWilliam1022]

I predict:
1 - Yale
2 - Harvard
3 - Stanford
4 - Columbia
5 - Chicago
6 - NYU
7 - Penn
8 - Berkeley
9 - Virginia
10 - Michigan
10 - Northwestern
12 - Cornell
13 - Duke
14 - Georgetown
15 - Vandy
16 - UCLA
17 - Texas
18 - USC
19 - WUSTL
20 - George Washington
21 - Boston
22 - Illinois
22 - Minnesota
22 - Emory
22 - Notre Dame
. . . .


This would seem counterintuitive to most, but the idea was favoring schools that have smaller class sizes as they would have had a better time placing students (this is why, I would speculate, that we saw Chicago leap frog NYU last year). I also gave Cornell an unusual bump because the New York market has been one of the fastest to recover, their class sizes are small, and they are still a feeder school into New York. The Northwestern/Michigan tie is a bit of a flame towards Northwestern... that said, at most I would move them to 11 given their ability to hold strong in the market, retain applicants (although they tend to have fewer applications compared to other top schools) by having a plethora of niche programs, etc. Oh, and Vandy jumped Texas and UCLA basically because of class sizes and the ability to place outside of their primary market during hard economic times.

Thoughts? I think my rankings are probably too practical as applicant factors, reputation, etc. tend to matter more than career prospects.

[You Gotta Have Faith]

I predict:
1 - Yale
2 - Harvard
3 - Stanford
4 - Columbia
5 - Chicago
6 - NYU
7 - Penn
8 - Berkeley
9 - Virginia
10 - Michigan
10 - Northwestern
12 - Cornell
13 - Duke
14 - Georgetown
15 - Vandy
16 - UCLA
17 - Texas
18 - USC
19 - WUSTL
20 - George Washington
21 - Boston
22 - Illinois
22 - Minnesota
22 - Emory
22 - Notre Dame
. . . .


This would seem counterintuitive to most, but the idea was favoring schools that have smaller class sizes as they would have had a better time placing students (this is why, I would speculate, that we saw Chicago leap frog NYU last year). I also gave Cornell an unusual bump because the New York market has been one of the fastest to recover, their class sizes are small, and they are still a feeder school into New York. The Northwestern/Michigan tie is a bit of a flame towards Northwestern... that said, at most I would move them to 11 given their ability to hold strong in the market, retain applicants (although they tend to have fewer applications compared to other top schools) by having a plethora of niche programs, etc. Oh, and Vandy jumped Texas and UCLA basically because of class sizes and the ability to place outside of their primary market during hard economic times.

Thoughts? I think my rankings are probably too practical as applicant factors, reputation, etc. tend to matter more than career prospects.

In any event, that was a much more thorough and reasoned explanation that many would give. Even though my list would differ slightly, I applaude you.

[AverageGuy]

I'm curious whether Villanova will be penalized in any way. Should they be suspended from being ranked, for example, as an example?

[gradesmatter]

I which is worse, that this has digressed into a debate of whether Chicago is East or West, or the underlying premise that it's completely feasible to place all cities in a country the size of the US into one of two regions. To try to pretend like Montana is in the same region as South LA is laughable. I know many Midwesterns feel as though there is a coastal bias period and the South often thinks largely ignored and marginalized... there's more going on than East versus West.

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[total_loss]

Major Regions:

California: NorCal and Cali

wtf is cali?

+1

[amers73]

Major Regions:

California: NorCal and Cali California.

Fixed.

[FalafelWaffle]

You guys seriously can't wait a couple days?

[YourCaptain]

7 - Penn
8 - Berkeley
8 - Virginia
23 - Minnesota

. . . .

Heinous Minnesota and Boalt trolling.

[amers73]

25 - Notre Dame

. . . .

Egregious anti-Notre Dame trolling.

[2011Law]

Nebraska and Kansas are Plain States not midwest. They are trying to trade up.

Kansas is definitely midwest.

Nah, it's grouped in a lot but it makes no sense.

ITT: people from flyover states try to disassociate from each other

lol, my thoughts exactly. If I had to take a 4th grade geography test of the U.S. right now, I'd just completely tard out over that whole centerish part of the country.

[RockyIII]

Midwest = Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and the North half of Missouri (KC is not Midwest)

[redsoxfan2495]

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