first

Thanks, Lat! (Oh, and I don't care that I'm first)

oh noes! can i still get a job from this TTT????

It's going to be a rough day at ATL

And near Columbia will drop a spot, Duke will be back at 10, Northwestern will say bye-bye to the top 12, and so on, and so forth. Yawn.

The People's Republik of Berkeley above Chicago? I used to generally be in agreement with U.S. News, both for colleges and law school rankings, but they really are off this year.

Ahh! Vault rankings!

And............................................................NO ONE CARES

These rankings are a joke. Penn (State?I don't even know anymore) is not as good as Chicago. Berkeley is a great school, but not better than 7-9. All of this is common knowledge.

Yep, just as I thought. Vault > US News

UIUC got pwn3d. What gives?

Anyone that truly thinks Cornell, Duke and Michigan are better law schools than Georgetown is crazy. The only reason G-town is low is because they are so large. Their resources and access to law makers should make them a top 10 school every year.

GeorgeTTTown

Funny how when one doesn't like the rankings, it's an off year, and when they do, they're the most legit rankings ever.

Vault rankings make much more sense these days. It shows employability for people who are considering going into debt by about 200K.

Who cares about scholarly professor ranking if the school produces good lawyers who hiring lawyers want? Bar passage rates and employment opportunities are what matters. Instead of the LSAT/GPA splits at 25th percentile and 75th percentile they should do median salary for each quartile of the graduating class. It would allow a much more informed decision for people entering law school with such a high cost attached.

Any chance Vanderbilt knocks Georgetown out of the Top 14 next year? This list, and these scores, don't inspire much confidence.

F)@#$(*!

I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO BOALT OVER HLS!

Now I have all these loans and would have probably ended up in the same prestigious firm!

9:59 - Your statement is consistent with the reputation scores (which are probably not given enough weight).

not a bad day for GW

How long before Lat gets a letter from USNWR threatening a lawsuit for posting a pdf of their magazine?

10:03 - not very subtle Michigan troll.

Vandy = propped up by ridiculously good bar passage rates

What "gives," 10:00, is that UIUC apparently turns out graduates who can't spell "owned," much less use it intelligently in a sentence.

9:59, years ago it used to be common knowledge that NYU was not a top 5 school, now it is, things change.

10:02: I think the point is that the "permanent" rankings are correct, i.e., if you average the rankings for the last 10 years, you would get the right rankings. But to the extent that the rankings vary from year to year (as with Boalt moving up this year), this is bullshit. The true rankings really don't change all that much.

LOL berkeley's patchouli julie school of law?

When a law school has 200 students and is in TN, I am sure it is easy to make sure they are all employed. Not many others competing in that Memphis/Nashville market. Also, that TN bar is notoriously difficult. Com'on G-Town's bar passage rate is almost the same as Yale's.

LOOK AT THE BAR PASSAGE RATE FOR YALE -- THEY SHOULD NOT BE #1.

CHICAGO NEEDS TO FIRE DEAN LEVMORE. HOW CAN ITS NUMBERS ALL BE HIGHER THAN THREE AROUND IT, BUT STILL BE FALLING EACH YEAR!?!?

GW Rules.

The only reason it's known as T14 is because certain schools are in the elite and will stay there no matter what USNews says. So if they decide Vandy is 14 and Georgetown is 15, the new standard will be USNews T15. Similarly, if Northwestern drops to 14 or below (where they belong), USNews T13 will be the standard.

What was GW last year? Aren't they still the second best in DC?

I just took my chicago diploma off the wall... lest some MORON from Penn or Berkely wander by and drool at my door. I have a gun in my mouth and am conteplating pulling the trigger. I sure hope this is a hoax.

10:07-LOOK AT BERKLEYS BAR PASSAGE RATE (especially versus Chicago)

Lynch Dean Levmore (Chicago). My diploma is losing value each year. Maybe we could ban internet use in classrooms and lose some more professors to Harvard!?!?!

I think the large majority of Vanderbilt students leave TN for jobs (and the Bar Exam). Vanderbilt has separated itself from and triumphed over UCLA and UT.
I don't think Georgetown is in very much danger -- its LSAT scores are still much better -- but Georgetown is failing to keep pace with the rest of the T14.

Cardozo = /wrists

Note the particularly atrocious LSAT scores for Berkeley: 163-170! The next school in the rankings with comparably mediocre scores is Vanderbilt, #15. Any school can inflate the GPA of its entering class by recruiting students from less selective colleges.

Should have gone to Vandy if I had known they would have ended up in the top 15.

US News sees through the Chicago mystique. A school full of Harvard rejects and strivers, which is bleeding faculty, that has high clerkship numbers only because the federal judges on the faculty refuse to hire non-Chi students, which has now apparently shut off the wireless access in classrooms.

Chicago trolls think that just because Dick Posner is being pushed around the halls in a wheelchair by a hospice worker that their school is top 5. It is not.

10:07, it would probably make more sense to compare Boalt's bar passage rate with that of Stanford. The CA rate is much lower than NY.

Woot! No change for WashU! (who?)

Proof the economy is in TTT land: There will be 200 posts on this thread by noon (If Lat's servers don't crap out first)

10:14 - worst post ever. Not funny.

levmore got's to go--what a disgrace. 10:07 is right on. better scores, better peer rating, better lawyer rating, better bar passage, but lower ranking. wtf???

reality

GW>G'TTTOWN

thx Fred!

Breaking News: Dean Levmore (Chicago) attempts suicide!!!

[in a dream world...]

I mean, who even applies to Chicago? Yuck!

I wish I had gotten in to Boalt.

Georgetown should be ranked much higher! The reason why people go to law school is to learn the different areas of law and to get a job. Georgetown offers a wide variety of classes and has the most law firms and employers visit and recruit from the school than ANY other law school (including all 13 ranked before it!).

There is no reason why these other schools should be ranked higher. It doesnt matter if some professor at that school wrote a book or paper, people want class selection and JOBS!!

These rankings, much like the same rankings for undergraduate institutions, are the only way for people who spend all of their time studying and agonizing over their class rank to feel good about themselves. Sort of a sad trade-off, no?

Those ties create a mess. At least Vault has the stones to go 1-25.

10:09's comments re Gtown are right on the money. As for the possibility of Vandy knocking Gtown out of the top 14, as 10:09 says, it wouldn't matter. It would just be seen as an act of humanitarian kindness or a meaningless statistical flutter that would do nothing to alter the universal perception of either school as elite (Gtown) and second-tier (Vandy).

That is strange that UIUC dropped (it should have gone up one or two, or at least maintained). Berkeley ranking over Chicago is just plain nuts. Wash U seems a little high (Emory maintained its spot at 22; one wonders whether - were it not for the scandalous departure of its career services dean during recruiting season and the wildly imprudent online response of a couple of its students - it and not Wash U would be at #19). Vandy will no doubt jump to 14 (or 13?) next year. Harvard would be #1, were it not for the fact that its class is more than twice the size as Yale's. Michigan is far superior to G-town (Cornell and Duke are another story).

What are the chances USNews let these out because of the hype surrounding the Vault release? DAMN GOOD

10:01 - Georgetown's "access to law makers should make them a top 10 school." That's too funny for words.

Is Dubya hanging out giving guest lectures? Who the fuck cares that you're in the same shithole of a city as Congress? I've never met a Georgetown grad with an IQ over room temperature.

10:14 -- say all that is true, but it STILL better than Penn and Berkley and NYU -- which don't have faculty to bleed, no judges to push around (or hire) and no clerks. Chicago also has 99% employment, top placement at NYC and CHi firms and high bar passage rates in IL, NY and California.

Its peer assesment and judge assement put it in the top five.

Wow, New York Law School moved way up to 5th!

***Chicago trolls think that just because Dick Posner is being pushed around the halls in a wheelchair by a hospice worker that their school is top 5. It is not.***

hilarious post, 10:14, hilarious.

Lat -- I'm coming for your lunch money!

THIS "EARLY RELEASE" IS A HOAX YOU IDIOTS!!! PUT OUT BY VAULT TO BOOST ITS OWN EVALUATION OF LAW SCHOOLS OR USNEWS TO GENERATE DISCUSSION! CALM DOWN... law firms and judges know Chicago is top 3. Leiter knows Chicago is top 3. Judge Wood (7th), Posner, Easterbrook, Scalia all still love Chicago.

But really, WTF is up with Northwestern? It's last in the T14 in the reputation, GPA, and LSAT scores. How is it now in the top ten? How?

Can I sue US News for libel and devaluing my degree?

Fed Soc @ 10:12: The reason Boalt's LSAT scores are garbage is that they have an especially aggressive diversity recruitment program.

US News is irrelevant. I'm sure USC and WUSTL love it, but for people who are putting their money where their mouth is (law students) Vault matters a hell of a lot more than which school manipulates its LSAT range and other metrics more, or which one hires what brilliant but has-never-practiced-and-can't-teach professor.

Time for another coolest law school run off March-madness style, like last year....

ALLAH AKHBAR! HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL DESTROY THE INFIDELS! ALLAH BE PRAISED!

Not sure how these rankings will change anything. Not sure why anyone cares about them.

GW awesomeness!

Question -- why is GW's "jurisdiction bar pass rate" listed as 93.9% in New York????

NY? wtf?

In other news... NY Therapists Raise Rates 10%...Suicide Rate among Legal Professionals Spikes...Law School Applications Up (see employment at graduation)

HILLARY LIED; PEOPLE DIED

(its true, see Bosnia Sniper story)

Look at Texas' peer assessment ratings and adjust its GPA and LSAT statistics for the huge class size: it's TEXAS, not Vandy, that should be knocking on the doors of the T14. Texas, the Harvard of the South...plus, the girls are much hotter.

10:26 - see 10:18[1].

Chicago is so TTT.

I went to Yale, and my Boalt friends are way cooler than my Chicago TTT "friends" (conservative jerk-off gunners).

G-Town = lawyer factory without a distinct culture, almost like a commuter school. I don't know anyone who chose G-Town over a better or comparable school. Quit complaining.

Hofstra is second tier again!

o-O

US News still uses number of volumes in law library when law students use Lexis on their laptops and rarely even go into the law library?

And Illinois shouldn't go anywhere but T2.

yes, the girls are hotter in Texas

10:26--they will be changing Dean Levmore's day at Chicago... I can guarantee that! "GET ME SAUL ON THE PHONE!!!"

OUCH UNC TTTT!!! Maybe they need to admit tyler hansbrough to the law school.

Where's W&M? They're the first law school in the country!

Harvard = Duke of the North!

WTF is up with UIUC!

You down with OPP? YEAH YOU KNOW ME!!

So Leiter crusades against US News, announces he is going to Chicago, and then US News drops Chicago a peg just for spite.

10:27 - Because most students in DC law schools take the NY bar. It is based on where the majority of students at a school take the bar.

If UVA just hired some more faculty and pumped up their applications (by, say, not charging applicants for submitting), they could climb as high as #6.

10:26 -- Markets are down 1% on the news... nice try!

Now NYU's going to be out for blood in the Dean's Cup.

FYI - it appears GW grads pass the bar at a higher rate than those of Georgetttown.

anyone who thinks GW is better than GULC deserves to go to GW.

during EIW last fall GW students trolled the halls of the Washington Court hotel hoping to hand their resumes to firms who only recruit at GULC.

GULC's median LSAT broke the 170 barrier for the first time this fall (class of 2010). i am surrounded by extraordinarily talented and accomplished people here -- as i would be at any other leading law school.

we find the GULC bashing amusing. we have great jobs lined up, awesome faculty, live at the center of the american empire, and can walk over to the Court any time we want to hear an oral argument. moreover, we don't spend our time hating on other schools.

10:20 must be measuring IQ in Kelvins. Idiot.

Georgetown lets students choose not to take fundamentals. Of course they are going to produce a lot of shit practical lawyers.

10:20 must be measuring temperature in Kelvins. Idiot.

GW > G-town

notice that GW has more people employed at graduation that G-town and has a higher bar passage rate. that shows you that these rankings are stuck with past tradition.

10:33: Wish it was true!. Too bad for the UChicagoians. Should have protested his hireing

Georgetown lets students choose not to take fundamentals. Of course they are going to produce a lot of shit practical lawyers.

Hofstra leads all other Tier 2 schools in big state governors.

emory stays at 22, hooray!

In two years when this year's graduate employment rate factors in, WUSTL's going to sink like my morning coffee dump. (I don't remember eating corn ...?)

"Their resources and access to law makers should make them a top 10 school every year."

And yet their TTT students keep holding them back.

How Columbia, which has not had a significant lateral hire in years finish in front of NYU? Columbia does not even have too many superstars left for other schools to poach? They have one professor, Tim Wu, who other top five schools want. That is about it.

The peer and lawyer assessment scores seem a bit off. How many really believe that UMICH is an equivalent or better law school to NYU?

The fact that Yale crushes (by 9 points! or about 10%) the closest competitors is proof in and of itself that the Vault rankings are more useful than these. Yale is good at turning out future professors who have never practiced a day in their lives and like to teach useless theories. Law schools where firms atcually look to hire "real" lawyers are more useful to 99% of law students.

Also, if these rankings are to be believed, how is Emory on this first page? Emory is the place that rich parents send their idiot kids who couldn't get in anywhere else. This is the reason the LSAT scores are so low. They are only above 160 because of the few smart kids who look at these shitty rankings and think the school is any good. A buddy of mine with a rich father and a 151 LSAT and a 2.8 GPA from SMU (another stupid rich kid mecca) got into Emory, and did just fine.

GW > G-town

notice that GW has more people employed at graduation than G-town and has a higher bar passage rate. that shows you that these rankings are stuck with past tradition.

AND a lower admission rate

10:34(3) - yeah, and I bet those employers are really happy when you fail the bar

10:40, you don't go to NYU by any chance, do you?

NYU is going to be out for blood in the Dean's Cup.

Nice to see NYU pushed back a bit. Now we just need Chicago to reclaim its former glory and things will be back to normal (oh, yes. Harvard needs to knock Stanford down a peg . . . that may happen in a few years when the Kagan effect begins to take hold . . .)

wisconsin looks a hell of a lot better on vault

If UVA just hired some more faculty and pumped up their applications (by, say, not charging applicants for submitting), they could climb as high as #6.

Newsflash! If you have more than a room temperature IQ and took the LSAT half sober, UVA, like most law schools, doesn't charge you for submitting an application!

GTown is fundamentally a JD factory. Sure they produce some great attorneys, but how can you separate the wheat from the chaff amongst a 1k+ graduates each year?

yeah their location and past prestige will keep them afloat for a while but, fundamentally, they are the equivalent of GW

How is Fordham ranked below GW?

Chicago should be lower than Penn and Boalt. Chicago's reputation scores are higher than they should be because 10 years ago they were a top five school and 20 years ago they were arguably amongst the top 3 schools in the country.

They are losing top quality professors each year and have trouble attracting new ones.

Northwestern's rise is the strangest part. Makes no sense.

Wow, Georgetown kids really are hung up on this prestige thing. I'd go to Michigan over Georgetown in a second. A top-tier school with a part-time program, puh-lease. Oh, and Yale... You just get #1 because you're soooo small.

10:41(3) -- yeah, i guess that's why they keep coming back and hiring here year after year.

AU WCL SHOULD BE TOP 10 YALL

Yale turns out you law professors... I turn out young college coeds... I win!

So disappointed in Cardozo. Can someone explain why US News lists Cardozo's bar passage rate as 88.8% for NY even though it was actually 92% in 2007 (higher than Fordham and Cornell's) ??

Oops, I didn't read the headline fast enough and peed as soon as I saw the picture. I'm still sittin' in my filthy pee pants.

Actually, Vandy's major reasons for a jump this year were a higher 25% LSAT, rising prestige amongst practitioners, and a significant drop in student faculty ratio.

Where Vandy gets killed is the rankings from other law schools. It seems that the New England liberals who dominate this crap will always be biased against a school in the SE.

GW has always been underrated by USNEWS, the same for Fordham. It's just that GW has a much better reputation and facilities.

FWIW, GW lists the NY bar passage rate b/c that's where the majority of GW grads go. IT shows that GW can compete in NYC with Fordham, while Fordham cannot compete in DC.

Did you count both July and Feb bars in your #'?

"we have great jobs lined up,"

Clearly, you're not a lawyer.

"live at the center of the american empire,"

You should openly ridiculed for that remark. Do you describe DC as the "center of the Am. Emp." when talking to your friends? Toolshed.

"You shoudl eb and can walk over to the Court any time we want to hear an oral argument."

Big deal.

"moreover, we don't spend our time hating on other schools."

Other than skewering GW kids as a bunch of beggars in the very same post. Nice.

Over / Under = 400 posts

Nice - I paid all this money for a school that has dropped 14 slots between the time I applied and the second semester of my 2L year.

10:46 - yeah, because only people who don't work during the day could possibly be intelligent enough to qualify as top law student material.

US news counts July & Feb numbers -- is that what you are referring to with "Dozo's?

Penn State has lost seven tenured faculty members in the last month. It should be in the fourth tier, not at 77.

Replying to 10:45 am:

even without Sunstein, Chicago still has a much stronger faculty than either Boalt or Penn by every measure I have ever seen.

10:46(2) - I guess they're looking for the diamonds in the rough. [GW > GTTT in grads employed by graduation. I'm pretty sure GW gets a lot of employers to visit during fall recruiting. Not sure, though.]

10:41. No offense, but you are an idiot. Numerically that argument makes no sense. If the 25th - 75th for LSATS is 162-166 then very few people got into Emory with less than a 162, much less a 160. It deserves to be on the first page and in the 22nd spot.

Yalies can barely pass the NY bar.

HLS to #1! (or at least undisputed #2!)

Berkeley 25% LSAT is lower than most around it, but look at its GPA range. Higher than everyone but HYS.

10:46[1] - yeah, because only people who don't work during the day could possibly be intelligent enough to qualify as top law student material.

Wisconsin is a hell of a lot better on Vault because their graduates are actually good at practicing law.

Between the ties and the private schools and being the public law school in a state with two, Wisconsin gets hammered by US News.

10:51- credited re: GW & Fordham. Another reason why Fordham is worse than GW is the quality of student they attract. Both seem to be "destination schools" (ie I go there because I really want to be in the respective city). However, GW does much better in its home-market than Fordham.

GULC2L: I like the trolling, but you're living in a world of sick delusion.

W&M getting no respect. Seriously, why is W&L still ranked higher?

10:34, "Kelvin" is singular. Idiot!

10:46[1] - yeah, because only people who don't work during the day could possibly be intelligent enough to qualify as top law student material.

Chicago has not won a top lateral battle in years.

Penn at least has some rising stars such as Roosevelt.

The real school that got shafted was NYU. NYU is the best school in the country in tax and international law and is up there in corporate law. The one and only area that NYU is weak is IP.

Yet Chicago, Mich., and UVA all have better reputation scores with attorneys and judges. This would be in part based on NYU being less good thirty years ago. But it seems dubious that NYU which gets better every year has seen its reputation score drop as opposed to rise in the recent rankings. It seems some of these lawyers are trying to drop NYU's ranking.

10:54- given the rampant UG grade inflation and variation between institutions, I think this should totally be discounted.
The only thing that should count is LSAT, as it's truly objective

10:29 - a number of GULC students chose to attend it over schools like duke and UVA...as for it being a commuter school, well yea students "commute" to school. we live in a f*ckin city. I wonder whats students in large cities like boston (harvard) or NY (columbia, NYU) do to get to class. Perhaps they magically wake up at their designated classrooms and turn on their laptops. You sound like a UMich student who got screwed - poor little wolverine...

10:45 - Northwestern has been busted in the past for blatant ranking manipulation (boosting employment by giving research assistant jobs to unemployables).

That they go up should be no surprise.

10:56 are you an idiot?

I went to Wisconsin and then transferred to a different law school. WI does NOT turn out lawyers that can practice law -- it is the exact opposite. WI has no bar exam for UW graduates so they have no incentive to actually teach the law.

Do NOT go to WI unless you want to learn nothing except theory and policy -- and you love tree-hugging hippies.

how is Washington & Lee ranked so high if only 75% of their 3Ls are employed at graduation? That's pitiful.

Given the long-standing dominance of Yale and the aggressive rise of Boalt Hall, the real catalyst in this survey is the existence of a pass/fail system of grades.

In turn schools that use arcane logarithms to determine grades are punished, e.g. the University of Chicago.

I have done lengthy research that supports these findings, which will be published shortly in numerous journals, so don't humiliate yourself by trying to contest these assertions.

Why is PENN ST. listed on there twice? At 7 and 77... I think that's a pretty clear typo.

Yaaay GW! We love you fred lawrence!

No need for the hate GULC2L, we're not bashing g-town, we just love our school!

And I call BS on GW students trolling the halls at your recruitment hotel. Got any names?

11:02 knows more than the Vault survey, apparently.

Probably an angry Chicagoian.

Vote: Bigger east coast bias - US News or ESPN?

My guess is that UIUC got knocked down in the rankings due to the poor basketball showing this year. No other possible explanation.

I'm annoyed.

Good catch 11:06. Someone should contact the US News editor.

10:20 must be measuring temperature in Kelvins. Idiot.

Don't they get the bar waived in wisconsin if they went to a wisconsin school?

Give me a friggin' break. Quality control indeed.

BYU Got the shaft big time....46th. If you look at their LSAT/GPA and go up the list, you don't find anyone as good as them until UCLA. I guess that's what you get when you only charge $8,000 a year for tuition (and consequently have a high student-to-faculty ratio).

7 is UPenn, 77 is Penn State. Not the same school.

Where are the 3rd and 4th tier rankings?

10:05 (3) is right.

Except a few big changes helps sell magazines and allows law schools to try and game the system which, in turn, makes them care even more about the rankings since there is something within their control to change their stature in the rankings.

If Vault would actually develop a ranking system which properly accounted for the difference in prestige of various big-firm, gov't, and not-for-profit jobs it would surpass US news within no time.

vault already has as much, if not more, credibility than US News and 99% of students attending law school want to know which school gives them the best odds of getting the job they want.

If I were applying to law school, the only thing I would want to know is median 25-75% starting salary.

Its SAT Time!
Boalt Hall: Chicago::Walmart Brand clothing:Armani

whooo hoo..... we're up to 32

What's with bashing GULC's part-time program? Same LSAT and GPA range. The people just happen to be working professionals (from the Hill, consulting, lobbying, etc.) instead of insecure, immature twits.

Guys from my high school use to leak USNWR Rankings all the time, it was no big deal.

Both Georgetown and GW get shafted on "student-faculty ratio." DC is filled with top practitioners, legislators, and judges who want to teach, which is to the benefit of DC law schools, who get those great minds as adjunct faculty members. But USNews only counts full time faculty, so a Ken Feinberg or a Deputy Solicitor General counts the same as some two bit insurance defense lawyer trying to boost his resume by teaching legal writing at Northwestern.

"Chicago has not won a top lateral battle in years."

Facts please?

Bernstein turned down Yale to stay at Chicago, Weisbach turned down Harvard to stay at Chicago, Nussbaum turned down Harvard to stay at Chicago, Case turned down NYU in favor of Chicago, McAdams turned down Virginia in favor of Chicago, Leiter turned down Penn in favor of Chicago.

Partial list. You can find this stuff on the Leiter Law School blog.

JT's schools will continue to be #1 and #2 forever!

USC will leave the Top 50 once that football program gets the sanctions it has been baiting for the last decade.

-

Wisconsin grads are a mixed bag. Because the state is the last one with diploma privilege, it does not teach to a bar. HOWEVER, in order to get said privilege, you have to take a highly specified list of practical courses that controls 2/3's of the credits needed for graduation.

The issue is with people who go to Wisconsin but do not plan to practice in Wisconsin, and don't realize that you actually need to take most of the privilege classes if you want to pass the multi-state. Dumbasses, but it happens.

Transcripts from Wisconsin grads should be reviewed carefully for excessive "squish" and stupid shit like not taking Evidence.

BC Law still reigns supreme over BU, particularly in Boston. Everybody knows that.

11:02, that's rich. I have no doubt there are a few who chose GULC over Dook and UVA, but I'll bet those folks 1) regret it, and 2) did so for geographical/family reasons. GULC was my safety. I even got $$ there. But when I went to visit that "facility" of yours (more like concrete fortress in the middle of a sketchy neighborhood) and had the opportunity to meet with some of the prestige-obsessed student body, I decide to go somewhere better.

So by selectivity Georgetown should be about #8 yet it remains #14?

And to think I just got used to saying "T15" with a straight face.

Damn you, Vanderbilt.

Any pdfs of T3 or T4?

11:13- BYU gets the shaft because your religion/lifestyle scares people. It has a bad reputation because of that (PS- Jesus & Satan are NOT brothers)

11:17- you're right about the people GULC PT attracts. However, it also fundamentally detracts from the law school. PT student never can and never will be the equivalent of full-time. I know, I did my first year at GULC PT and then transferred elsewhere full-time. PTs add NOTHING to a law school other than fees and some butts to keep the seats warm at night.

How is George Mason ranked 20? That's a pretty big jump from last year.

11:14(1) - I don't get it... no matter where you put the "University" in the name, it's still Penn State Law School right?

Further proof that the rankings are rigged... seeing how a school gets on there twice.

Rankings of T3 and T4 matter?

Penn State and U Penn are two different schools. Idiots...

@11:25 - Pennsylvania State University is not the same school as the University of Pennsylvania. That's like saying the University of Michigan is the same as Michigan State University, or that the University of Florida is the same as Florida State University. They are two different schools, period.

The Lawyer/Judges score is the only one which counts for me.

The following schools therefore tie for 10th:

Cornell
Duke
Georgetown
Penn

11:18:

Yea, but I'm willing to bet that outside of the classroom, these "high-profile" individuals are next to inaccessible to students. That's the purpose of the ratio; it isn't a measure of how many classes there are...

11:24 - "Will never be the equivalent of full-time." You're right... most PT students at Gtown (and at GW) are already accomplished professionals instead of fresh out of undergrad. If you mean they aren't equivalent in terms of mental ability, then you must be delusional.

10:54--

roosevelt is definitely a rising star at Penn
as are bibas and burke-white

and burbank is pretty much the man-- especially with all his recent work on CAFA-- even if Judge Doty gave Michael Vick his money back

should have gone there over Michigan State. but my borther got a ll the smart genes. at least I have vault. 11:06- -that joke never gets old! Go Tom Izzo!!!

PDFs of T3? Uhh, serious?

The Lawyer/Judge score is the only one which counts for me.

The following schools therefore tie for 10th:

Cornell
Duke
Georgetown
Penn

I can't believe JoePa let our ranking fall. I'm crushed.

Seems that US News got spooked by Vault, and for good reason.

What people who actually do the hiring think is relevant.

Washington and Lee University is a pathetic little nothing of a school and shouldn't even be ranked.

Looks like we are stuck in TTT-dom forever.

You cannot have a Big Ten law school in the top 10 -- Michigan or PEnn --- it is a blasphemy!

It was only a few months ago when LAT ran the story on Cardozo beating Cornell and Fordham to join the top 3 law schools for bar pass rate in NYC. According to this US News chart, Cornell has a 3 percentage point higher NY bar pass rate and Fordham's is also higher. Those numbers are just flat out wrong. I guess US News likes to use three year old data when generating its 2008 rankings. What a load of Sh-t!

10:31(1) - Obvious Duke troll. I guess when your basketball team stinks, you attack the law school.

Enjoy your $100k of debt in that beautiful NJ office.

BC Law's wicked lame, Chief, we all know that. Heck, it's not even IN Boston, technically! :)

Wow. has anyone else noticed Iowa's recent swan dive from 18 all the way down to 27? (Now tied with UIUC, which is a punchline school.)

Hmm.

I should have gone to Georgetown.

It was only a few months ago when LAT ran the story on Cardozo beating Cornell and Fordham to join the top 3 law schools for bar pass rate in NYC. According to this US News chart, Cornell has a 3 percentage point higher NY bar pass rate and Fordham's is also higher. Those numbers are just flat out wrong. I guess US News likes to use three year old data when generating its 2008 rankings. What a load of Sh-t!

flutter that would do nothing to alter the universal perception of either school as elite (Gtown) and second-tier (Vandy).

Georgetown elite? Nonsense- Its a great school that produces good competent lawyers but elite? Not- For elite see, Yale, Harvard Stanford period.

flutter that would do nothing to alter the universal perception of either school as elite (Gtown) and second-tier (Vandy).

Georgetown elite? Nonsense- Its a great school that produces good competent lawyers but elite? Not- For elite see, Yale, Harvard Stanford period.

11:33 - you're not a UVA student/grad.
No one from UVA would be that petty, crass and stupid.

Wow. has anyone else noticed Iowa's recent swan dive from 18 all the way down to 27? (Now tied with UIUC, which is a punchline school.)

Hmm.

I should have gone to Georgetown.

11:24 - your bigotry may make for a good sound bite, but you should actually make an effort to read up on something before you attack others.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Jesus_Christ_is_the_brother_of_Satan

Seriously - who uses a law school rankings thread as an opportunity to bash a religion?

I get a huge kick out of Northwestern bashing. There's little basis for it. I had great faculty (most of whom could really teach and were accessible), the best practical opportunities in the Top14 and classmates who were bright and actually wanted to be at NUSL. Since I've left, the school's only gotten better. What kind of TTT (your lingo, not mine) has three law clerks now serving at the Supreme Court?

Northwestern is by far the least known law school in the Top14. It is smaller than most, and many of its grads stay in Chicago. That explains why arrogant (and I need not say ignorant, as that is self-explanatory) shits on this board think they can deride it. You know little about it, but you assume you would know something if NUSL were good. You're mistaken. NUSL offers a fantastic education in a great city with great peers and faculty support. Please brush up on your facts before you bash anybody or anything. One day you may find yourself on the other end of the stick.

PS Lest you think I'm just a Northwestern troll, I must point out that I hated law school and have little love for much of the practice of law. I do believe, however, that I received some of the best education my $50K/year could buy.

GULC has a better library, student center (ooo...fountains), and its own gym. Other than that, it is qualitatively identical to GW...as soon as GW builds a fountain, we will tie with GULC

hey fordham 1L read carefully GW is number 20 not George Mason. And if you read CAREFULLY the U.S. News reports from 2008... GW was still ranked higher than Fordham. NO SURPRISE THERE.

GO GW!!!

As predicted ... two hundred comments before noon.

And not a NUGGET of insight or valuable thought. Penn sucks. Penn RUles. Penn Football Rules! Penn is not Penn State... blah blah blah...

Replying to my replier:

In my initial response, I mentioned a couple of faculty that had offers from other top schools (NYU, UVA, Penn), who chose Chicago. Can you name any lateral who chose NYU or Columbia over Chicago? Maybe there is someone, I don't know.

Chicago didn't make Sitkoff an offer, even though he wanted one, so not suprising that he is bitter about his alma mater. Chicago did not make Yoo an offer either. Chicago has high standards, other schools are desperate to add bodies. Weisbach is a much bigger deal than Wu or Feldman. Talk to some law professors, and not ones whom Chicago turned down. I have.

10:09(1) - word, my friend, word...

11:24 - you should take the time to read up on something before you just blurt out a sound bite you heard.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Jesus_Christ_is_the_brother_of_Satan

Seriously - who uses a law school rankings thread as an opportunity to bash a religion?

hey fordham 1L read carefully GW is number 20 not George Mason. And if you read CAREFULLY the U.S. News reports from 2008... GW was still ranked higher than Fordham. NO SURPRISE THERE.

GO GW!!!

hey fordham 1L read carefully GW is number 20 not George Mason. And if you read CAREFULLY the U.S. News reports from 2008... GW was still ranked higher than Fordham. NO SURPRISE THERE.

GO GW!!!

Yeah. GW Law and GTown Law really should be ranked the same at this point.

The relative quality of the lawschools are a wash. If I wanted to go to school with Republicans in DC, I would go to Gtown. If I wanted to go to school with Democrats in DC, I would go to GW.

GW Law is only ranked lower than Gtown because it gets dragged down by GW's pathetic undergrad program.

11:40 (Hawkeye):

Chances you chose Iowa over GULC = 0. Iowa is an all-around TTT in every way, shape, and form, and deserves nothing more than to sit in its smelly-ass state and wonder how the fuck it's still accredited.

htfh.

These rankings are so lame. They NEVER mix up the top 14, even though lots of those schools don't belong there. Cornell, Duke, Berkeley, and Georgetown can't touch UCLA or BYU. From the people I've met (and I've met a lot), graduates from the latter two schools have impressed me way more than graduates from the former four. I'm glad to see Vanderbilt move up, though.

How is it that Cardozo's bar passage rate went up and we dropped three places from last year's rankings?

This is ridiculous.

BC is ranked higher than BU by lawyers and judges if you look at the pdf--the only ranking someone here thinks matters.

11:41(2) - GW needs more professors.... 135 students in one class????? Crazy.

Why do so many people who don't go to GULC feel the need to bash it? Check out the acceptance rates and admission numbers - GULC has higher quality students than several schools "ranked" above them like Michigan, Duke, and Cornell. GULC should be rated higher than these schools; they only get ranked above GULC because of people like the posters on this board who know nothing but the ability to regurgitate the rankings of past years and contribute to the assessment ratings.

P.S. No one in their right mind would choose GW over GULC.

lulz 11:45 --
When you grow up and have real-world perspective then perhaps you would understand why someone would choose Iowa over G-Town, or, for that matter, G-Town over Yale, or whatever.

Not everyone is a ratings whore, and some people have responsibilities that go beyond stroking their tiny little ego (cock) at the US News Circle Jerk.

Although... judging by your anger... I'm guessing you might also be one of those who chose Iowa over another school. I probably know you.

Fordham 1L, I think George Mason made the jump to #20 by achieving the highest VA bar passage rate, along with a 95.1% employment rate at graduation. Kudos to GMU.

These rankings only matter to applicants, not to employers. Hence, they should not matter to anyone

You part-time program bashers are idiots. The part time students at my law school were, hands down, much smarter than the full time students.

I had airline pilots, surgeons, and high up Hill staffers in my law school classes. Sure beats going to school with a bunch of 22 year olds who's only job was an unpaid internship at daddy's law firm.

The only reason GW is creeping up in rankings is because people that can't get into GULC because they only have a 165 LSAT go there.

I have no idea who Chicago has made offers to but I do in the last few years (and I doubt you had any idea unless you are a Chicago administrator), NYU has picked up Issacharoff, Estlund, Choi, Waldron, Yoshino, and a host of others that almost any other school would want.

Chicago has not had the same success.

Agree 11:33 -- Washington and Lee is a pathetic little school. No one wants to employ those kids.

How long until USN&WR sues lat for posting that cut? They make you pay for the numbers after 2.

What the rankings should be:

1. Yale
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. NYU
6. Chicago
7. Michigan
8. Virginia
9. Penn
10. Berkeley
11. Northwestern
12. Duke
13. Cornell
14. Georgetown

If Chicago did not make an offer to Sitkoff, than they are stupid. He is arguably the best professor that I have had at law school and he is going to be the leading T&E scholar in the country. So much for high standards.

I agree in not believing that 11:33 would actually be associated with UVA. In fact, I'm gonna go lash myself for even reading and responding to this crap.

Hawkeye 11:49:

You wish I were that bitter Iowa student don't you? Not a chance in hell.

I'm no rankings whore myself, but Iowa is a TTT that deserves to be held in contempt. UIUC aint no Harvard, but the fact that you think Iowa can even compare to a "punchline" school is laughable. This is further bolstered by it's pathetic football program, in an overall weak (but improving) conference.

Enjoy BIGSOYBEANLAW.

If Chicago did not make an offer to Sitkoff, than they are stupid. He is arguably the best professor that I have had at law school and he is going to be the leading T&E scholar in the country. So much for high standards.

These were "leaked"? I saw the US News grad school rankings at B&N on the Upper West side last night.

I WISH I HAD GOTTEN IN TO BERKELEY!

Good Bye ATL--I wonder who US News is going hire in its copyright infringement suit against Lat

"GW Law is only ranked lower than Gtown because it gets dragged down by GW's pathetic undergrad program."

No GW is ranked lower than GW because GW admits TTT students to its TTT school!
See LSAT range:

GULC: 167 - 171
GW: 163 - 168

They are not even in the same league! Enjoy your TTT!

"GW Law is only ranked lower than Gtown because it gets dragged down by GW's pathetic undergrad program."

No GW is ranked lower than GULC because GW admits TTT students to its TTT school!
See LSAT range:

GULC: 167 - 171
GW: 163 - 168

They are not even in the same league! Enjoy your TTT!

LOL....how are these not in the same league?

GULC: 167 - 171
GW: 163 - 168

The only reason GW is creeping up in rankings is because people that can't get into GULC because they only have a 165 LSAT go there.

For an Iowa resident, going to Iowa and doing very well there makes a hell of a lot more economic sense than going to Georgetown, racking up $200K in debt, and not being able to get a job that can really pay off that debt because you were marginal at Georgetown.

If you were a strong candidate for Georgetown, you also should be Top 5% at Iowa and be able to get any damn job you want, so that could make sense for a really good app as well.

What Iowa suffers from the most is its location. Minnesota has all the Twin Cities firms feeding off the gigantic amount of Twin Cities corporate work. Wisconsin has SE Wisconsin and Chicago.

Iowa has...corn?

A lot of Chicago bashing here! It's interesting to see how little students know about the actual reputations of their professors among professionals. (Roosevelt at Penn a rising star? Truly weird.) NYU hires a lot of professors, but only Issacharoff and Waldron would count as "big stars" that other schools would want. NYU is lucky because they can't leave NYC because of spouses, and they both got pissed off after the Columbia Dean Search. The other NYU hires are nothing to write home about.

Who picks law schools based upon the lateral movement of their profs? Most are buffoons, and there's no guarantee that a student can even get a spot in a class.

Vandy moving up kills me. A high bar passage rate- in TN. Come on, what kind of metric is that? Have fun doing bestiality defense in Appalachia.

NW vs. GULC...I think I'd rather come from a city's best law school.

BC BC BC. They got the best Boston hockey and the best Boston law school (Note: Harvard isn't a school it's social club).

12:03:

You make a decent point, though it only applies to Iowa residents or those sure they want to go there.

HOWEVER: strong candidate for GULC =/= Iowa Top 5%. Sorry, it just doesn't.

Honestly, who cares about Iowa. At all?

"It is smaller than most, and many of its grads stay in Chicago. That explains why arrogant (and I need not say ignorant, as that is self-explanatory) shits on this board think they can deride it."

This arrognat shit derides it because its student are idiots. Many of its grads stay in Illinois, yes. Many others go elsewhere and fail the bar. Why is it that over the past 5 years NU has averaged almost 30 grads per year taking the California bar, and less than 70% of those pass? Every fucking year they are the worst of the "top" schools. We've gone past the point of small sample size.

UVA grads are the kind of people who wear UVA tshirts, hats, shoes to the MPRE test site to show off...no one's impressed, you're not Harvard

12:01 - it's obvious. GULC's median LSAT of 170 is points above GW's. In the competitive world of law school admissions that's a big difference.

T3 and still making 225K. Suck it!

So much of these rankings are subjective. The Lawyers/Judges and Peer asessments? I mean come on...how does a judge really decide that a g'town grad is worthy of a 4.2, whereas a student from northwestern is a mere 4.1? Any school on that list in the top 20 has absoletly no reason to hang their head. The only truly objective factors that arguably matter are things like bar passage rate, average LSAT/GPA, and employment rate. And even employment rate is going to be a bit off...

Incidentally, most people that go to GW do "enjoy" their school. So if you want an education and job prospects that are on par with GULC *and* you want to not kill yourself after 3 years, GW is the place.

Ohio State is underrated and should be ranked in the top 20-25. Their placement office probably isn't doing much to place people outside Ohio or contiguous midwestern states. If you do well at OSU, you can go to either coast. Probably should be ranked like Illinois.

What is a WashLee?

Chicago and Penn attract insecure strivers who didn't get into schools ranked above Columbia. They didn't realize that going to Berkeley or UVA would be much more fun. Idiots.

Never noticed before, but USC and UCLA have a higher bar passage rate than Berkeley. That's, um, interesting.

12:06

That's right. It takes much more than that to make top 5% at Iowa.

12:07 - people from UVa wear UVa stuff because they love their school, not because they want to show off. If you're offended, tough.

12:10 - well my good friend, subjectivity is, in itself, objectivity for controlled comparison purposes.

It is very hard to get admitted into Berkeley. Sorry for those who didn't make the cut.

Cal gaming the rankings?

They have the highest "grads employed at graduation" at 99%. Nobody else is close. What is going on there?

12:15/11:33 - please stop. You're not affiliated with UVa.

Strong Autoadmit douche vibe during the last few days. Can we get a salad-tossing piece, please?

Vandy in the top 15 wont last.

Look at the bar passage rate! Geesh.

For overall scores; Vandy is at 72, UCLA and Texas at 71. GULC at 74.

Really all three schools have a shot at the t14 next year, but IMO Texas and UCLA have the best shot.

Vandy in the top 15 wont last.

Look at the bar passage rate! Geesh.

For overall scores; Vandy is at 72, UCLA and Texas at 71. GULC at 74.

Really all three schools have a shot at the t14 next year, but IMO Texas and UCLA have the best shot.

its like everyone (immature arrogant prestige whores) from autoadmit migrated here. sigh. lat, you suck today. prestige is nothing.

I got a decent GPA (3.4) from an Ivy, but have a high LSAT (172). Can I get into Berkeley?

W&M = already improving after dumping Gene Nichol. Not surprisingly UNC-CH is going down again, after taking Nichol back.

It is very hard to get admitted into Berkeley. Sorry for those who didn't make the cut.

Thankfully Columbia gone back past NYU. Now all those only concerned with splitting hairs about prestige and rankings will return uptown, leaving the village to very intelligent people who can make major life decisions based on something other than a poorly compiled list.

About time Boalt assumed it's rightful place-

- Top GPA outside of HYS
- Lowest acceptance rate outside of HYS
- Top IP program

12:27,

If you went to Princeton, perhaps. Berkeley prefers a higher LSAT score. Even with a 3.2 GPA, however, you could get into Chicago, because that is the main factor that school considers.

W&L may be small but that makes it even more impressive that we have so many people graduating this year going to good firms (Cravath, Skadden, Pillsbury, Weil Gotshal, Mayer Brown, K&E, Arnold & Porter, etc.). We don't pretend we're much better than anyone else but we're secure enough not to put down other schools.

11:52 - Nice attempt at a grammatically correct sentence.

I don't understand the hatred coming from GULC towards GW. The hatred sure doesn't exist at GW towards GULC.

Must be that Davidson loss, makes GT scared of the "lower ranked" school who will Stephen Curry their face.

That's right, their face.

Atta boy Fred!

The REAL question is - why is NYU #5? Wasn't NYU #10-15 throughout the 90s? And NYU is the only law school in these rankings that is tied to a mediocre university.

lots of iowa kids go to big law in cities like NY and Chicago...so basically, we are paying half the tuition and making the same money as t14s...plus we have some great eye candy here. makes you gtown douchebags and ranking whores regret that $200k debt huh?

Chose Berkeley after being Columbia and NYU. Outside of the "top 3," it doesn't make much of a difference where you go until you hit #10.

Seth, Ryan, Kirsten, I have to share something with you.

Having grown up in NY, it was hard to pass up my acceptance at NYU and Columbia, which were just too damn expensive, given my desire to do public interest work. On my way out west, I stopped in Chicago. A very fine, world class city, despite the pizza and baseball. However, I had to decline my acceptance from that city's top school as well, again because of cost. So I wound up at Berkeley. Those were heady days indeed. I saw Jerry Garcia on campus my first semester, and new I was in the right place. I got a decent legal education, for about the cost of the fees, parking and books at most private schools. Turns out I made a wise choice. Now if I could just do something about my eyebrows.

I can't stop laughing at this post. I graduated from a 4th tier school without any loans to pay off, and ended up with three offers from V50 firms. These rankings don't mean crap, they just make you feel better about your 200k debt.

TTTT to 180!

There are more hippies at NYU than at Berkeley Law. Grow up.

LOL at fucking Vault employees/Chicago students trolling for Vault rankings. OMG a partner said MY school produces good lawyers: thank god I didn't go to YALE!!!! idiots.

In the real world, Georgetown is regarded much better than GW.

i love fred lawrence. go gw.

Eye candy at Iowa?? Hahaha

12:33 you are a lying troll and it is TTT not "TTTT"

12:21 - I am really sorry. You are right. Seriously, I am really sorry.

10:06-2

Very few people from Vandy end up working in TN. The large chunks go to NY, Chicago, Atlanta, DC, Charlotte and a few to good shops in LA or SF. Moreover, the few good firm jobs available in Nashville are extremely competitive.

oh noes now i'll never get off the columbia waitlist!

There is a 4th tier?

These postings are exactly why US News is ruining higher education, including law schools.

Iowa should take a hit in the rankings. It's suprising that it hasn't sunk lower. While the school has a handful of very strong professors, they don't seem to be doing anything to build and/or maintain a strong faculty. They have yet to find a quality replacement in Criminal Law after Bibas left, and a good deal of the teaching is done by adjuncts.

With their focus on "diversity," the school seems to be headed toward becoming the Rutgers-Newark of the midwest.

12:00--ever heard of fair use?

very few people from Vandy end up woking in TN?????????

For all schools USN posts the bar passage rate for the market where the plurality of their students go.

They list TN.

I'm trying to choose between UT-Austin, GW, and Fordham, and I want to work in New York. Where should I go?

12:32(2) = Funniest Post. Ever.

"Those were heady days indeed. I saw Jerry Garcia on campus my first semester, and new I was in the right place. " >anyone who mixes up the verb know with the adjective new and doesn't know what a comma splice is would not have been admitted to a top tier law school.

12:32(2) = Funniest Post.

Ever.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE TOP 3 or "HYS". It's all about the points. Yale is 100. Then there is a huge drop to Harvard and Stanford at 91, Columbia at 88, and NYU at 85. It's more like the TOP 1, YALE, and then a cluster of HSC and maybe N.

12:44 goes to Chicago. Seeks validation. It is almost spring, so it is warming up. Hopes not to get mugged.

12:45 -

Yale rep score = Harvard rep score = HY

Handsome Rob, trust me on this. The W&L bashing is not from UVa students; it's from people masquerading as UVa students. No one here thinks poorly of W&L. Mad respect.

12:42, go to GW. We all end up in New York.

12:45,

Anyone who tries to rope Columbia into Stanford is an idiot. There is a reason why you didn't get into Stanford, Harvard, or Yale.

Seriously - Wasn't NYU #10 like 5 years ago? How did they rise with such a mediocre university?

Most legal scholars seem to agree that the drop in NYU's ranking and the rise in Berkeley's ranking seem to be strongly tied to the transfer of law student Dave Trossen from NYU to Berkeley last year.

So UCLA's Law Review ranks in the top 10 (per Wash. and Lee) and their appellate clerkship placements are also in the top 10-- and they are more selective than many schools ranked more highly-- why did they move DOWN in the rankings??

CLS Rep scores - 4.7 & 4.7
NYU Rep scores - 4.5 & 4.5
Michigan Rep scores - 4.5 & 4.6

Sorry village hippies - by reputation it's CCM.

I'm trying to choose between UT-Austin, GW, and Fordham, and I want to work in New York. Where should I go? UT-Austin is ranked highest, but do the students get recruited to top NY firms? I can't get any reliable stats.

12:32(2) = Funniest Post.

Ever.

BU has one of the top 5 national bar passage rates -- yet GW launches 4 spots? What has GW done other than steal our Professor to be its Dean?

"In my initial response, I mentioned a couple of faculty that had offers from other top schools (NYU, UVA, Penn), who chose Chicago. Can you name any lateral who chose NYU or Columbia over Chicago? Maybe there is someone, I don't know." > Elizabeth Emens

12:32(2) = Funniest Post.

Ever.

Boalt rocks.

BU has one of the top 5 national bar passage rates -- yet GW launches 4 spots? What has GW done other than steal our Professor to be its Dean?

BU has one of the top 5 national bar passage rates -- yet GW launches 4 spots? What has GW done other than steal our Professor to be its Dean?

Anthony Ciolli brought down Penn's ranking. Penn should be top 5

Anthony Ciolli brought down Penn's ranking. Penn should be top 5

Can we add Law School Rankings to Stuff White People Like?

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Yes we can!

Part time programs = Not elite. Sure, you might have some smarty-pants, accomplished folks in class with you, but they rarely contribute to the school's soul or extracurriculars. They swoop in for class, work, study their butts off, kiss their partners and go to bed. That's by G-Town is considered to be an overly-competitive place with no soul.

Not only did US News list Penn St. Law School on there twice (7 and 77), but Rutgers is on there twice too (See both at 77).

I am losing faith in these rankings.

sorry for the multiple posts. computer issue

GTown law sucks. Everyone everywhere knows it. It smells bad - its in the black area of DC and is pure shit. You know your school sucks and that is why you are on blogs trying to defend it. GTown is the butt of our jokes here at HLS. No one respects grads from GTown because they are stuck up little whiny girls. GW is much better. Deal with it. Your law school is overrated and is where I take my dog to shit whenever I'm in DC. And I don't pick up after him.

Just so everyone is aware, a majority of Vanderbilt students do not stay in TN or take the TN bar. Instead they take your jobs all around the country! Don't knock Vandy for actually going up in the rankings two years in a row. They earned it. Why don't you comment on the fact Duke blows and keeps dropping?

I'm trying to choose between UT-Austin, GW, and Fordham, and I want to work in New York. Where should I go? UT-Austin is ranked highest, but do the students get recruited to top NY firms? I can't get any reliable stats.

BU 2L, GW launched 2 well deserved spots for a variety of reasons, but Fred sure did help. He's the best. I'm sure GW will be jumping even higher next year. This place is amazing. 12:52, choose GW. We pass the NY bar in high numbers and we're a much happier lot in general. Lots of us choose to work in NYC after graduation. Also, don't choose your school based on ranking alone. That would be plain silly.

Do some research. NYU has been in the top ten since US News began the rankings and was # 7 in the second US News Rankings. It has been consistently in the top five since at least the mid-90's. Who cares about the undergrad school? Yeah, it would be nicer if it was called Princeton Law School for prestige whores but it would not add to the quality of faculty or legal education.

Just so everyone is aware, a majority of Vanderbilt students do not stay in TN or take the TN bar. Instead they take your jobs all around the country! Don't knock Vandy for actually going up in the rankings two years in a row. They earned it. Why don't you comment on the fact Duke blows and keeps dropping?

12:49,

I am at Yale. It is Y, then HSCN. The end.

Just so everyone is aware, a majority of Vanderbilt students do not stay in TN or take the TN bar. Instead they take your jobs all around the country! Don't knock Vandy for actually going up in the rankings two years in a row. They earned it. Why don't you comment on the fact Duke blows and keeps dropping?

1:00(2) - how do you respond to reputation scores LOWER than Mich?

Do some research. NYU has been in the top ten since US News began the rankings and was # 7 in the second US News Rankings. It has been consistently in the top five since at least the mid-90's. Who cares about the undergrad school? Yeah, it would be nicer if it was called Princeton Law School for prestige whores but it would not add to the quality of faculty or legal education.

Both Cardozo and Brooklyn slipped in the ranking. WTF is wrong with the data? The numbers look wrong / outdated for both school...especially the bar passage rate.

St. Johns also feel like crazy 70-86 Wow.

NYC T2s are getting trashed by USNWR...unfairly.

"Fordham 1L, I think George Mason made the jump to #20 by achieving the highest VA bar passage rate, along with a 95.1% employment rate at graduation. Kudos to GMU."

First - GMU isnt top 20

Second - Impossible that GMU has a 95% employment rate at graduation. According to GMU it is 94.9% 6 months after graduation
http://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/admissions/admissions_data_sheet.pdf

"NYU has been in the top ten since US News began the rankings"

NYU was #9. The only reason it rose, despite its low peer evaluations, is because it gamed the rankings. Every school in the top 10 is tied to a great university, which makes sense, except NYU. And, yes, the overall quality of the university matters. If ITT Tech opened a law school, would anyone take it seriously?

I'm happy to see that UC Davis dropped from 34 to 44. Please move them back to Tier-2 where they belong.

So UCLA's Law Review ranks in the top 10 (per Wash. and Lee) and their appellate clerkship placements are also in the top 10-- and they are more selective than many schools ranked more highly-- why did they move DOWN in the rankings??

Because the rankings are disconnected from reality and serve only to validate the existence of the prestige whores..

"In my initial response, I mentioned a couple of faculty that had offers from other top schools (NYU, UVA, Penn), who chose Chicago. Can you name any lateral who chose NYU or Columbia over Chicago? Maybe there is someone, I don't know." > Elizabeth Emens

Northwestern RULES the rest of the law schools are bush league.

12:49,

I am at Yale. It is Y, then HSCN. The end.

Northwestern RULES the rest of the law schools are bush league.

12:42 - If you are in the top 25% at UT, you would have no problem getting a good NY job, and law review here would get you a "top" job. We've got kids going to Cravath, S&C, Weil, etc. I'm sure GW is solid, too, but I can only speak about UT. Plus, the undergrad co-eds here aren't bad to look at.

It gamed the system? NYU should be ranked higher except for its outdated peer and judge evaluations. The incoming class over the past 10 years at NYU has a higher LSAT median and GPA than Chicago or Michigan yet they consistently finish tied or above NYU in reputation ranks.

Also, I fail to see UMICH as a much better undergrad school than NYU. I would say they are pretty comparable.

How in the hell did FSU drop to 55? They should be Tier I.

To hell with T14, these rankings only matter for us TTTs.

1:08 - sorry to break this to you. The legal community sees your schools as equal to or slightly worse than Michigan.

12:49 and 1:06,

If you are at Yale, why do you care so much about NYU and Columbia? You are either trying to drap H and S down, or C and N up. Either way, you are lame. Look in your pants. Small, isn't it.

UMich's grad programs are consistently among the top in the country. NYU? Not so much.

In the eyes of the non-U.S. News community, NYU is more along the lines of USC.

It's obvious:

You should write US News and let them know that W&L has ranked UCLA Law Review in the top ten. A serious error has been made.

I should've gone to medical school.

I should've gone to medical school.

Is this ATL or autoadmit?

The bottom half of students at UCLA have trouble getting jobs.

Opening Arguments: Columbia, NYU Vie
To Become New York's Top Law School
By DANIEL GOLDEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 28, 2001

NEW YORK -- John Sexton, dean of New York University Law School, says that nobody who makes policy based on magazine rankings "should be allowed to walk the streets." But his detractors at Columbia University Law School accuse him of doing just that.

NYU, where classes began Monday, reduced its entering class this fall to 385 students from 426, sacrificing at least $1.2 million in tuition. While Mr. Sexton says the move is educationally motivated, his uptown rivals call it a transparent bid to leapfrog Columbia in the influential U.S. News & World Report law-school rankings. The magazine pegged Columbia fourth last year, one notch ahead of NYU.

"Their other tactics have failed," says James Milligan, Columbia's law-school admissions dean. "Now they're willing to take a giant financial hit to come closer to Columbia."

What Duke and the University of North Carolina are to college basketball, Columbia and NYU are to legal education: two evenly matched, ambitious neighbors, each perpetually seeking an edge. Separated by a 30-minute subway ride on the Broadway IRT, staid Columbia in Morningside Heights and brash NYU in Greenwich Village vie for students, faculty and Manhattan bragging rights.

"New York thinks the world revolves around New York," says Brian Leiter, a University of Texas law professor. Yale may be No. 1 in U.S. News, he says, but "being No. 1 in New York may matter more." (Stanford is currently No. 2, Harvard No. 3.)

More than half of Columbia's law applicants seek admission to NYU, and vice versa. Mr. Milligan says Columbia, whose school year begins next Tuesday, "dominates" in landing students accepted by both schools. Mr. Sexton disputes that. Neither school will divulge the numbers.

Both schools claim the third-largest law library in the country. NYU says Columbia's is fourth; Columbia says NYU's is eighth. The difference is that Columbia counts titles, while NYU counts volumes. One title -- say, a reference work -- may contain many volumes. Kent McKeever, Columbia's library director, suspects that NYU has bought loads of microfilm and microfiche documents in recent years to boost its ranking in U.S. News, which counts both volumes and titles. NYU denies any such intent.

In 1999-2000, when NYU overtook Columbia in U.S. News for a year, a Columbia student publication parodied NYU's dean. "We will not rest," its April Fools' issue quoted Mr. Sexton as vowing, "until we are the only law school in the top 10." This past spring, NYU's troupe of "Law Revue" students turned the popular song "Blame Canada" into "Blame Columbia."

Next year, emulating Duke-North Carolina and other undergraduate rivalries, the law schools plan to play each other in the inaugural Dean's Cup basketball game. "I can take [Columbia dean] David Leebron one on one," jokes the six-foot-tall Mr. Sexton, who has a three-inch advantage over Mr. Leebron. "The guy can't go to his left."

"Everyone's aware of the rivalry," says Noah Feldman, a former Rhodes scholar with an Oxford doctorate and a Yale law degree. Mr. Feldman, 31, was recently wooed by both schools as a professor and opted for NYU, impressed by its "exciting" young faculty in his field of constitutional law.

When the rivals were after John Witt, another junior faculty candidate, the 29-year-old specialist in legal history dined at the Gotham Bar & Grill, courtesy of NYU, while Mr. Leebron, the Columbia dean, treated him to lobster and Riesling at Jean Georges, on Central Park. Mr. Witt opted for Columbia, which also called in such heavyweights from its history department as Alan Brinkley to work on him.

Messrs. Leebron and Sexton, temperamental opposites, have vied with each other since their days together at Harvard Law School. The low-key Mr. Leebron, 46, vacations in France and has season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera. The outgoing Mr. Sexton, 58 -- who will become president of NYU next spring -- is given to hugging reporters and other strangers. He has season tickets to the New York Knicks and Yankees, and is trying to kick his habit of drinking 20 cups of coffee a day.

In 1978, Mr. Leebron defeated his older classmate in an election for the coveted presidency of the Harvard Law Review. But in 1988, when both men were teaching at NYU, it was Mr. Sexton who plucked the plum job -- the deanship. Mr. Leebron soon left for Columbia.

At that time, Columbia's superiority went largely unquestioned. The Ivy League institution, alma mater to presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, regularly placed graduates in white-shoe firms and judicial clerkships. Even today, a higher proportion of Columbia graduates get clerkships; 19.5% to NYU's 15.1%, according to the American Bar Association.

NYU, whose graduates include New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his predecessor, Ed Koch, was known primarily for public-interest law and its association with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The mergers-and-acquisitions law firm, whose four founders earned their degrees from NYU, has donated heavily to the school.

NYU did have one advantage: a bigger endowment, the legacy of its 1976 sale of the Mueller Macaroni Co., which it had acquired decades earlier. Using his financial edge, Mr. Sexton raided top-flight schools for star faculty and bought million-dollar Greenwich Village townhouses as residences for them.

NYU has particularly ramped up in international law -- Mr. Leebron's scholarly specialty and a field Columbia once dominated. This year, NYU snared Harvard Prof. Joseph Weiler, a leading theorist on European Union issues, and Philip Alston of the European University Institute in Florence. Mr. Alston had been on the short list of potential candidates for a chair at Columbia.

In 1994, NYU became one of the first major law schools to give merit aid to top students. Columbia, reluctant to break with the Ivy League tradition of need-based aid only, responded with a smaller merit-scholarship program in 1999.

This year, both schools offered such aid to Shanna Bar-Giora, a Cornell University graduate who scored the maximum 180 on her LSATs. She chose Columbia. "NYU tried too hard to impress me," she says.

Aryeh Haselkorn, a second-year student at NYU, is glad he ended up there instead of Columbia, which waitlisted him. "All the people here are happy, and all my friends there are unhappy," Mr. Haselkorn says.

The rift between the schools -- and their deans -- widened in 1997, shortly after Mr. Leebron took over at Columbia. Mr. Sexton boasted in a New York Times Magazine interview that Columbia was "yesterday's war" and that he had "sucked dry" the faculty at another premier law school, the University of Chicago.

Afterward, he wrote a letter of apology to the Chicago faculty and, in a further show of remorse, publicly knelt down and kissed the shoes of Chicago's dean. But Mr. Sexton did not apologize to Mr. Leebron.

Columbia has boosted its endowment -- which now stands at $281 million -- past NYU's, which has $222 million. And after falling behind NYU for the first time in 1999-2000 in U.S. News, Columbia bounced back ahead, aided by an improved passage rate of graduates on the bar exam and a 9.9% boost in applications, which increased its selectivity. Mr. Leebron attributes the spike to "vigorous outreach," which lowered Columbia's acceptance rate to 17.4% of its applicants.

Columbia will have 357 first-year students this year, 28 fewer than NYU's pared-down enrollment. By admitting fewer marginal applicants, NYU generates a better student-teacher ratio, reduces its acceptance rate to 21% from last year's 22.2%, and raises its median LSAT score -- all points winners at U.S. News.

Mr. Sexton says his aim is to foster smaller classes, regardless of the rankings. Kenneth Kleinrock, the school's admissions director, says the goal is to avoid inconvenience during campus construction.

Yet while cutting law-student numbers, the school is increasing its contingent of foreign graduate students from 435 to 450. Although these students take regular law-school classes, they pursue master's degrees in law, so U.S. News doesn't count them. Columbia has about 160 such students.

Some insiders believe the law schools' feud will wane when Mr. Sexton steps up to the presidency of NYU. But if he has his wish, the rivalry may ratchet up a notch. Columbia University is looking for a president. Mr. Sexton's advice: Hire Mr. Leebron

the GW trolling on here is OUT OF CONTROL!!!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
inferiority complex much?

Not to be a rankings-obsessed prestige whore, but why is Penn ranked higher than UVa? Penn's a great school, I just don't see it in the numbers or think it's as good as Chicago.

Peer Prestige UVa 4.4 v. Penn 4.3
Lawyer Prestige UVa. 4.6 v. Penn 4.4
GPA 3.51-3.87 v. 3.52-3.86
LSAT 167-171 v. 166-171

What am I missing (other than something better to do)?

Also, UVA students like Washington & Lee - it's a great school.

where does tier 1 stop and tier 2 begin? (real inquiry)

12:57 - Rutgers is on twice because there are two Rutgers schools Newark and Camden (ghetto and ghetto-er). As a proud alumnus of RU-Newark, I am disappointed that they keep slipping in the rankings. The faculty and the classes were great when i went there (recently), it just sucks that NJ is in such a budgetary shit-hole that they keep cutting funding to the state schools.

12:50--

For practical purposes, NYU has never been ranked lower than #6

http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_school_ranking__usn_history

1:25 -- Chicago Tier 1 -- below...tier 2

12:57(2)

There are two different Rutgers law schools -- Camden and Newark. Different schools with different admissions offices, financial aid programs, recruiting programs, etc.

1:27,

You just supported 12:50's point. Before 1990, it was #9.

Anyone at GW who asserts they wouldn't go to Georgetown if given the opportunity right now is lying.

You know it and we know it.

1:27 - According to that link, NYU was #9. Even that seems high for an overall mediocre university. I would think it should be somwhere around #15 (which is still way higher than the undergrad program).

Rutgers hates white people- If you're a minority with a 155 LSAT and a pulse you get in, if you're white you can be waitlisted with a 164.

I am at Chicago, and I feel no need to defend my 12 callbacks and 6 offers. I will be applying to Judicial clerkships and I am confident. SUCK IT PENN, BERKLEY, NYU HIPPIES!

So Vanderbilt pulled ahead of UCLA based solely on the opinions of lawyers??!?? Where are all these great Vanderbilt lawyers anyway -- never met one and likely never will. This is bogus

fuck USN

Why do we all hate everyone else's school so much?

Can't we all just agree that Phoenix School of Lawyers is at least Tier 2?

The bottom line is professors who are passed over at NYU go to other top five schools and become dean. Leebron and Stanford's Dean Kramer are prime examples. Can Columbia or Chicago say that?

As for that posted article, if NYU was so concerned about gaming the rankings why is their current 1L class considerably larger than any other T14 school with the exception of Georgetown's? If NYU went back down to 375, it would have better LSAT and GPA scores than everyone but Harvard and Yale. If it was named Princeton, it would rank #3 as well. The only reason anyone goes to CLS over NYU (and many do not) is b/c CLS is an Ivy league school.

Moreover, except for the first US News ranking, NYU has been in or close to the top five in every one (it was #9 only once).

the PT program at GULC is a real problem. SOME of the PT students may have distinguished careers, but that does not make them great law students. often, they seem to think that their expertise in some small area of law or regulation constitutes command of the law and the underlying theory. NOT!

OTHER PT students could not get into the day program and didn't deserve to, but use the PT program as a back door in. everyone knows this.

unfortunately, the school is not about the change the PT program, b/c it's embedded in the school's history and presumably raises easy $$$.

having said that -- and go ahead and flame me about being delusional -- but i've never had my GULC degree close a door i wanted to open, ie, BigLaw. of course, i had no ambitions to clerk on the SC, so i'm not about to dispute that i did not acquire a HYS credential.

1:36,

You do need to defend your choice of attending law school in a cold slum. Before you apply to clerkships, you probably should know that judicial is not capitalized.

Once you have all gotten your big law jobs and some of you have made partner at your V-whatever firms in NYC and your are in your 50s, what will you rank next? The size of your homes? Which of your kids gets to attend the best private high school? Who has the bigger dick? Who has the most expensive car?

Insecurity is a bitch.

"The only reason anyone goes to CLS over NYU (and many do not) is b/c CLS is an Ivy league school."

So you agree that the overall quality of the university does matter to a lot of people?

12:01(2), the G[eorgetown]W[aitlist] and GULC LSATs are not in the same league because your whole student body would be in the bottom 25% at GULC (and we know the bottom places at GULC are reserved for certain people, so you actually wouldn't even be able to get those spots).

Some guy wrote:

GULC: 167 - 171
GW: 163 - 168

They are not even in the same league! Enjoy your TTT!
-----------------------------------------

That's just so silly. This actually represents, in the starkest way, the out of control silliness of rankings and the people who care. What is that, a difference of at most 5 maybe 6 questions on the LSAT? So GW students are not even in the same league with you, and condemned to the dreaded TTT status (oh heavens!). Please, everyone, if this is the sort of you thing would write, or even consider, drop out of law school. Your humanity is at stake.

got into Columbia, NYU and Boalt. Rejecting NYU among the three schools was a no-brainer. Rejecting Columbia was a bit more difficult but paying significantly more for the same education did Columbia in.

12:22- you're an idiot. Vandy mainly went up because they dropped their student faculty ratio and increased their incoming LSAT

Everyone remember, the Vault survey of hiring partners (ie the only ones who matter), put Vandy at 11. Just think about that, when you wonder why you're one of the 200+ GULC kids who graduate without a real job every year.

1:06 - Although you are likely full of shit; if you are at Yale, enjoy teaching contracts at the University of Buffalo School of Law in 4 years.

1:32, when I didn't get into GULC I was initially upset...but now I'm really glad I'm at GW. If I was given the opportunity to transfer right now I wouldn't do it. This place has been good to me. Plus, we have Fred Lawrence!

These rankings don't matter to anyone at a Top 14

If you want to work in NY and your are choosing between UT, GW, and Fordham, your best bet is Fordham.

One or two more years with Elena Kagan and Harvard will fell Yale.

One or two more years with Elena Kagan and Harvard will fell Yale.

If you want to work in NY and you are choosing between UT, GW, and Fordham, your best bet is Fordham.

I didn't even apply to Chicago because it was in the ghetto, cold, and the students there are prestige whores that didn't get into Columbia.

"Although you are likely full of shit; if you are at Yale, enjoy teaching contracts at the University of Buffalo School of Law in 4 years"

I'm at biglaw - and teaching contracts at univ of buffalo sounds pretty darn good right about now.

Penn Law all the way...! Go Mike Fitts...Ben Franklin is smirking in his grave...Penn continues to be a solid Ivy League choice for many Quakers!

Can someone give me advice on which law school is the best, assuming correctly that I have been accepted to all of them?

Washington & Lee = the most unknown school in the Top 25.

"Where did you go to school again? William and Lee? Washington and Mary? Wash U in St. Louis?"

It's a great school, but to most lawyers and firms outside of the South, it is completely unknown.

ATL -- maybe you will bring it fame!

I cant believe how just a few GW nerds can ruin the reputation of your school. No one. Absolutely no one would ever go to GW over Georgetown unless incredible financial incentives were in play--but even then, the great possibility that you wouldnt get a job after graduation would have to force you to rethink that decision. Georgetown kids should not post again on this thread. At Skadden NY, no one gives a damn about where you went to school as long as you can work long hours intelligently. This thread is for 1Ls, transfers, and douche bags at GW.

Anyone at GW who asserts they wouldn't go to Georgetown if given the opportunity right now is lying.

You know it and we know it.

-------------------------------------------

Not really. People at GW know that if you get top grades first year you can transfer to Gtown without much trouble. Some do but most don't. Those that do are ridiculed - and rightly so.

First, its much better to be a top student out of GW than an average transfer to Gtown. Second, Gtown isn't so much higher ranked than GW that it justifies transfering - if you are a top GW student you have the same or better opportunities as any Gtown student.

More importantly, lawschool is about more than rankings. Its about friends you make in the trenches, relationships with the professors who actually care about you, and learning how to work hard. You can get that at any school. If you don't, the problem is most likely with you, not the school. To turn your back on those friends and professors to go to a school with a marginally better ranking is just shameful. Employers (like me for example) know this, and question transfer students hard about their reasons.

If I want to do bet-the-company litigation or complex, cross-border transactions work, which school should I attend? After reading these rankings I am leaning towards Emory. How crazy does that sound? Wow, hope Daddy still has his connections there with my 154 LSAT. Watch out world, here I come.

1:40- highly credited re: PT programs

First: The PLURALITY of Vandy grads take the NY Bar (all NYC plus about 90% of the DC people), TN is probably the 3rd most popular bar (TX being second).

Second, yes Vandy is more highly regarded by the people that matter (hiring partners, judges, managing partners) than useless people (law school deans). That's why we succeed.

2pm sounds bitter. Cheer up, it's a beauuuutiful day in DC! You'd be happier if you were at GW right now!

1:24 doesn't appear to be missing anything. Penn games the rankings by waitlisting people that clearly won't go.

Hey 2PM, maybe that applies to GU-G-Town situation but most transfers to T-14 schools do really well. I went to NYU and was not a transfer. However, transfers to NYU from places such as BU and Texas on average did considerably better than the average NYU student. I always thought this was unfair as I never thought a 3.7 at BU was better than a 3.3 at NYU, but employers thought differently. I don't know a single transfer who did not get at least one offer from a top twenty firm and most who wanted one got offers from at least one top-ten firm.

the east coast bias is worse than NCAA selection commitee or BCS!!!

I couldn't agree more with 1:47 GW 3L. I was also initially upset after not getting into G-Town. Now, after three great years at GW and with a job at a major firm in Chicago (after turning down several others in NYC and DC), I wouldn't change a thing.

What a joke... this list gets weaker each year. How the hell did Wash U in St. Louis (???) get ranked #19?

almost 400 comments

I'm proud to say I attended Franklin Pierce. I have no idea where they ranked and quite frankly, I don't care. I do know that an alumni sticker, regardless of the law school, would look horrible on my AM Vantage.

I'm surprised Fordham dropped 2 spots. I thought it would stay at 25 at the very least.

2:07 Penn early admits any player from its football team...BIG TEN bias!!!

To settle the GULC v. GW debate, they're both TTTs, although GW much more so than GULC. My Yalie friend did not even know where GW was located.

1:11,

All I'm saying is that Y is by itself. Anyone who says H and S in the same breath as Y is an idiot. The points gap between Y and H and S is huge. H and S are much closer to C and N than they are to Y. Let's be real.

To "Response to 2PM:"

Fair enough. I was really only speaking to GW- G'town transfers. I don't doubt that transfers generally do well at the schools they transfer to - why shouldn't they? They obviously did well at the school they transfered from.

A move from a much lower ranked school to a much higher ranked school is well justified, because it likely will translate into better opportunities. I don't believe that's true for GW v. G'town.

What school has the best medical program for becoming a doctor?

Four hundredth!!!

Evidently, I haven't been paying attention the past several years. I'm shocked by most rankings after top 10. When did Syracuse drop to the bottom of the barrel? #100, below Hofstra?

To "Response to 2PM:"

Fair enough. I was really only speaking to GW- G'town transfers. I don't doubt that transfers generally do well at the schools they transfer to - why shouldn't they? They obviously did well at the school they transfered from.

A move from a much lower ranked school to a much higher ranked school is well justified, because it likely will translate into better opportunities. I don't believe that's true for GW v. G'town.

haha...2:14, you need smarter friends. who doesn't know where gw is?? that's just weird.

"if you are a top GW student you have the same or better opportunities as any Gtown student. "

That's just wrong on its face. #1 at Georgetown has better prospects than #10 at GW, even though the latter is clearly a top GW student.

Look at the high end DC jobs and there are more Georgetown grads there than GW grads. GW is a fine school and I would have gone there if I hadn't gotten in to Georgetown (any other law school in DC is not worth the money), but to say that top GW students have equal or better prospects than any GULC is incorrect. Certainly better than some GULC students, but not "any."

UCLA stinks. I went there and, as an earlier poster pointed out, the bottom half struggles to find jobs. The dean is a self-obsessed pompous greasy jerk and the administration treats the students like babies in need of daycare.

It's worth pointing out, though, that the % employed statistics are bogus for all these schools -- many schools employ their own grads for the purposes of inflating the number. UCLA does some, but not as much as other schools, of that. UCLA also holds back its weakest students to inflate its July bar passage rate, although I wonder if that is uncommon.

On the other hand, admission to UCLA is harder than the published statistics would suggest because the administration (in violation of California state law) still practices affirmative action. One day they will be sued for that, although how disappointed will a student be at not getting in where she wasn't wanted?

2:01 Vandy Troll: People hate Vandy because it is in Nashvegas. That is the biggest issue the social retards on this board have with Vandy. Nothing in the South can be worth a damn. I beg to differ and say that our women are 10x hotter than the pale skanks in the north. That should count for more that some bullshit acceptance rate.

What school has the best medical program for becoming a doctor?

400th?

haha...2:14, you need smarter friends. who doesn't know where gw is?? that's just weird.

The obsession with these rankings -- particularly by people out of school -- is beyond silly. The same "top" schools churn out BigLaw associates and law clerks year after year, regardless of minor annual variations designed to sell magazines.

Get over it.

Do these rankings favor prestige over LSAT/GPA? If so... errrrrrr

TN's high bar pass rate should not inflate Vandy's actual pass rates by that much. While there may be exceptions, typically, the TOP of Vandy's class goes to NY, Chicago, TX, Atlanta, DC, NC, CA. The portion of Vandy's class that stays in Nashville are by in large the bottom of the class.

If you want further evidence, look at the pay discrepancies between Nashville and the other markets I listed.

>> haha...2:14, you need smarter friends. who doesn't know where gw is??

Applicants / Lawyers with High GPA and LSATs.

TN's high bar pass rate should not inflate Vandy's actual pass rates by that much. While there may be exceptions, typically, the TOP of Vandy's class goes to NY, Chicago, TX, Atlanta, DC, NC, CA. The portion of Vandy's class that stays in Nashville are by in large the bottom of the class.

If you want further evidence, look at the pay discrepancies between Nashville and the other markets I listed.

Correct rankings:

1. JT
2. JT
3. JT
4. Taco Bell
5. JT
6. Nintendogs

The obsession with these rankings -- particularly by people out of school -- is beyond silly. The same "top" schools churn out BigLaw associates and law clerks year after year, regardless of minor annual variations designed to sell magazines.

Get over it.

"This thread is for 1Ls, transfers, and douche bags at GW."

which one are you?

2:12-

No school ranked lower than Wash U has a better peer assessment score or a better assessment score by judges/lawyers. Haven't they been ranked in the top 20 for a couple years now?

Is it safe to assume that HLS is just better than Vassar?

did anyone who got into Chicago honestly not get into NYU (assuming they applied)? Most of the people I know that ended up at NYU didn't get into Chicago. Chicago's accceptance rate is lower because not as many people apply--some people are enamored with NYU (I guess they love sht holes).

This GW-GULC debate is heating up like the Yankees-Red Sox.

Keep it coming, makes for great entertainment between two schools that really should get along. The sheer massive number of students at both schools and proximity to each other at least implies you all cross paths often.

1) Chuck Norris
2) Ninjas
3) Yale Law
4) Pirates

UVA students generally have a lot of respect for W&L and W&M...whover is trying to establish some kind of snooty rivalry, please stop.

NY to GW-GULC rivalry!

UChicago is TTT law school propped up by right-wing news rag US NEWS. NYT rankings of law schools is what I want to see!!!

The great thing about Vandy is that it's attended by people who don't much care if it's ranked 14th, 15th, or 16th. It's a great school, and whether other great schools have a slightly higher ranking is just not important. The ultimate testament to Vandy's quality is that firms flock to recruit there every fall, even though the school dictates most of the firms' recruiting schedules. Having access to those kinds of employment opportunities, and not having to spend 3 years surrounded by insufferable, rankings-obsessed twits in the process, is a very good thing.

Also I did not wear UVA shirt/shorts/shoes to the MPRE, but so what if I did? Since when does school pride = showing off?

FIRE DEAN LEVMORE!!!

I'm kind of surprised Harvard still rates at number 2. They get some pretty impressive students, but seemingly 90% of them come out the other side lazy and poorly equipped to do real legal work.

Talk about a school thats getting by on its reputation.

Given Berkeley's trajectory, I wouldn't be surprised if it passes NYU (or Columbia) next year.

But Yale will always rule.

just wanted to join the clusterf**k

The "GW-GULC Rivalry" is a dead as the Sox-Yanks one. GULC is the old guard, who is trying to hold onto a persona that is no longer reality; it is the Yanks, who count their titles from last century and ignore the fact they have achieved very little recently. GW is the current cream of the crop, it just takes USNews a while to realize it. In another 3-4 years they'll finally catch up and GW and GULC will switch places in the magaize too, like they already have in the real world.

2:20- Oy vey.

Fine, #1 at Georgetown may have better prospects than #10 at GW. That's not the point. The point is that # 1 at Georgetown does not have betternprospects than #1 at GW just by virtue of a "town" at the end of their school name. #10 at Georgetown does not have better prospects than #10 at GW. And I am quite certain that #899 at Gtown has the same crappy prospects as number #599 at GW. Need some evidence? How many Gtown grads? Now how many GW grads? (How bad are we all getting destroyed by Harvard and Yale - making this argument patently ridiculous?)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts
1. William Baude (Yale 2007 / McConnell)
2. Jeffrey Harris (Harvard 2006 / Sentelle / Silberman)
3. Erin Murphy (Georgetown 2006 / Sykes)
4. Porter Wilkinson (UVA 2007 / Kavanaugh)
Justice John Paul Stevens
1. Jessica Bulman-Pozen (Yale 2007 / Garland)
2. Cecelia Klingele (University of Wisconsin 2005 / B. Crabb (W.D. Wis.) / S. Black (11th Cir.))
3. Lindsey Powell (Stanford 2007 / Garland)
4. Damian Williams (Yale 2007 / Garland)

Justice Antonin Scalia
1. Jameson Jones (Stanford 2007 / Sutton)
2. Yaakov Roth (Harvard 2007 / Boudin)
3. David Thompson (Stanford 2007 / Kozinski)
4. Moshe Spinowitz (Harvard 2006 / Boudin)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
1. Ashley Keller (University of Chicago 2007 / Posner)
2. Travis Lenkner (Kansas 2005 / Kavanaugh)
3. Steven Shepard (Yale 2007 / Kozinski)
4. Chris Walker (Stanford 2006 / Kozinski)

Justice David H. Souter
1. Erin Delaney (NYU 2007 / Guido-maniac)
2. Michael Gerber (Yale 2005 / Leval)
3. Warren Postman, (Harvard 2007 / W. Fletcher)
4. Noah Purcell (Harvard 2007 / Tatel Tot)

Justice Clarence Thomas
1. William S. Consovoy (GMU 2001 / E. Jones)
2. Jennifer Mascott (GW 2006 / Kavanaugh)
3. Patrick Strawbridge (Creighton 2004 / M. Arnold)
4. Claire Evans (Rutgers - Camden 2002 / Simandle (D.N.J.) / Chertoff (3d Cir.) / Sentelle)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1. Sue-Yun Ahn (Columbia 2006 / Cote (S.D.N.Y.) / Tatel Tot)
2. Miriam Seifter (Harvard 2007 / Garland)
3. Kevin Schwartz (Yale 2006 / Calabresi)
4. Rob Yablon (Yale 2006 / W. Fletcher)

Justice Stephen G. Breyer
1. Brianne Gorod (Yale 2005 / Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) / Katzmann)
2. Seth Grossman (Yale 2005 / Reinhardt / Calabresi)
3. Aileen McGrath (Harvard 2007 / Boudin)
4. Matthew E. Price (Harvard 2006 / Boudin)

Justice Samuel Alito
1. Dana R. Irwin (Yale 2002 / Scirica)
2. Jack L. White (Pepperdine 2003 / Alito)
3. ?

2:38 is dead on. Goooooo GW! GULC is still a great school though.

Again the east coast bias... the UCLA/USC rivalry is every bit as fun as the GW/GULC rivalry, particulary US News' inability to place any distance between the two in the rankings despite a measurable difference in the value of the degrees in the LA market. And who at UCLA didn't also get into USC?

Berkeley's reputation score has always placed it in the top 8.

only really good schools outside of the T14 are GW/BC/Fordham/ND. This is due to placement at large firms. See NALP rankings for firm placement.

2:01 Vandy Troll: People hate Vandy because it is in Nashvegas. That is the biggest issue the social retards on this board have with Vandy. Nothing in the South can be worth a damn. I beg to differ and say that our women are 10x hotter than the pale skanks in the north. That should count for more that some bullshit acceptance rate.

At least at GW, you can get birth control at the student clinic. GULC kids are subject to Catholic health care practices.

Your fancy degree does you no good if you are knocked up. Then again, the local Planned Parenthood is in a better neighborhood than your law school, so you can have a nice field trip.

i wish i got into yale so i don't have to take part in bickering about magazine rankings.

with that said, although i'd say Chicago lost its spot in the T6 for good, i'm pretty sure Boalt still sucks.

YHSCN and the rest.

Only reason Minnesota does well is its marketshare in the twin cities. If Iowa had a marginally large city, we would be better. Large firms in Minnesota only want those darn UofM grads.

Edit: law review at Iowa and had no callbacks to the Minneapolis shops. Off to Denver.

Will going to UVA help me get into William and Mary Law?

2:38... pepperdine, creighton, and rutgers also have a representative on that list. Are you seriously suggesting those are also on par with GULC and/or GW? As for GW being already better than GULC... the numbers don't lie... just take a look at the GPA and LSAT range (my eyes are bad but I'm pretty sure those figures are for 2007, not last century). GW is a good school... but it's still only second best in DC. Stay off the crack and kool aid.

Come on, do you really think everyone at NYU is SOOOO much smarter that a 3.3 there is really better than a 3.7 at BU (a lower ranked, but still pretty damn good school)?

A Word search of this page has revealed 33 expressions of "TTT" so far. Grow up people!

2:31 - thank you. UVa does indeed have mad respect for W&L and W&M.

Justice Thomas is skewing the SCOTUS clerkship placement stats in favor of TTT's.

Love a comment elicited by Vault's ranking survey re: widely-held opinion that YLS grads are "great lawyers if you can get them to focus on real world business issues instead of how they'd run the country". Excuse me as I go and apologize for asking jr associate again for promised re-draft.

2:45 : You make a good point. Everyone should choose schools where free birth control is available over better schools. Perhaps you should also ask employers whether they provide free birth control when job hunting.

#99 way to squeak in hofstra... now if we all just pass the bar in july ... T14 next year!

2:20 & 2:34
You hit the nail right on the head. I think they hate us because A) we're in Nashvegas & B) we have fun.
A whole lot of fun. I'm a 3L and these have been some fantastic years down here. The best part? I'm middle of the class, haven't worked too hard, and I'm headed off to a V50 firm in a top tier market.
Vandy Rules!

2:47, get over it. LSAT and College GPA aren't important anymore. GW and GULC are both awesome. 2:45, you're hilarious.

Anyone recommend a good law firm for a Mesothelioma claim? seriously.

@2:00: I was one of those shameful people who transferred from GW to Georgetown and I don't regret my decision. GW was a great place-- the professors were better teachers and the students were much more laid back--but the opportunities coming out of Georgetown are still a cut above those coming out of GW.

As for your point about law school being about "friends you make in the trenches," I don't know what to say. I'll take the better degree and meet up with my GW friends at the bar every weekend. You do know the schools are in the same city, right?

Some schools just aren't keeping up with the JOneses.

Get it? Joneses? JONESES? GET IT!!!!? ?

no?

Ok.

"Rutgers hates white people- If you're a minority with a 155 LSAT and a pulse you get in, if you're white you can be waitlisted with a 164."

With regard to minorities, the same is true at Iowa. The only difference is that with Iowa its not white people in general but out-of-state, straight white males that are hated.

Hillary Lied, People Died

Allah Akhbar!

Obama 08

Ok, Berkeley above Chicago seems truly weird, especially given interactions with students at both.

Regardless, Saul Levmore should be fired, he's a pompous asshat, and its reflecting in everything from faculty retention to attracting top students. Not to mention stupid policies like the internet ban.

If I go to UVA, and am in AP English, can I transfer to Widener?

I don't know a single person at NYU who didn't also get into Chicago. However, the schools don't tend to draw from the same types. Most people at NYU are typically deciding between NYU or CLS or another top 10 school where they have gotten a financial award.

At NYU, generally Chicago is considered at the same level as a UMICH and few, if anybody, would recommend going there over NYU unless you received an academic scholarship to do so and/or really loved law & economics.

At NYU's admitted student day, I met two people who ended at Chicago. One of them did so for the bizarre reason that he was nervous about NYU's reputation rank in US News. He had previously taught at Berkeley wanted to clerk and ended up an executive editor on Chicago's law review so I guess it worked out. Another one, was waitlisted at Yale and got money at Chicago. If NYU had matched he would have come to NYU. He also ended up on Chicago's Law Review.

NYU, is considered better than Chicago. I met two people at NYU who transferred from Chicago (along with others from UVA and Penn). No one during my time at NYU transferred from NYU to Chicago. I know of only person who transferred at all. From NYU to Yale.

Someone just put me out of my misery. Bad enough that my undergrad dropped like a rock since graduation, but now my law shcool?! So much for the promise of degree dividends.

re @1:10- It is mostly because FSU undergrad is weak academically. FSU Law is better than UF Law, but until the reputation of University as a whole improves, the peer assessment will still hurt them.

Either that, or FSU needs to start playing dirty with the rankings like UF does.

Law school rankings have just been TURNED UPSIDE DOWN... it is the end of the Chicago Era... Rise of the Big Ten (Michigan, Penn, Iowa). I am going to go burn my genitalia...

3:17 = Berkley Grad

Transfers ruin it for everyone -- ruin schools they leave and bring shame on schools they join.

STOP THE TRANSFERS!!! FIRE LEVMORE

There's only one top school where you get to see legitimate college football with 100,000+ on Saturdays. Given that the employment prospects are largely the same for top schools....

Does UVA have an exchange program with animals at the zoo in Colonial Williamsburg?

Kermit Roosevelt is top legal scholar under 40. he wrote a fictional book and does pro bono work. Penn!

3:19 Penn or Michigan?

3:19: Is there somewhere you can see "illegitimate" college football with 100,000+ on Saturdays?

This is why Penn, Michigan and Iowa should not be in top 20

Moronic chick at my firm flunked the bar. Penn grad.

2:01(1): Got rejected, huh? Enjoy Wake Forest.

Is anyone really reading anything on this post? 450 comments... and when you reply to one (like 3:25 did) it is 1.5 hours old, and again, no one is reading. POST TROLLS POST!

As usual, Dozo gets docked for being in NY. We're never going to break 50 because NYU, Columbia, Fordham, and Cornell aren't going anywhere. Also, none of us want to leave NYC. Just sit back, enjoy your job (to the extent that is possible), and enjoy living in the coolest city in the US.

Same goes for you, Brooklyn and St. Johns alumni.

It's not the top three, it's the top two. Anyone who thinks Stanford is on part with Yale and Harvard, and not with Columbia, NYU, and Chicago is a blithering idiot.

FIRST!

Since when did Penn State have a top 10 law school?

I know a 23 year old girl who goes to GW and has braces...gross!

Can someone please explain to these people that Penn is *not* Penn State, the Big Ten school?

Trust me, Penn does not have 100,000+ people watching college football on saturdays.

03:32... yes... blithering idiots... just like the people who use "part" when they mean "par."

GeorgeTTTown

03:40 You are SO clever. Give yourself a nice pat on the back. hmmm... let's see if it works with others... HarvTTTard... hmm... no. STTTanford. Yes!

3:09 -- thats a nice piece of fiction you wrote there. "NYU, is considered better than Chicago." By who? People who like to put commas in weird places?

Look, sorry to rain on your parade, but just as it may be true that everyone at NYU got into Chicago, so is it the case that everyone at Chicago got into NYU and chose not to go there.

Your school is ok, I guess, but its nothing special. You're fooling yourself if you think anyone outside the city will be impressed by your purple degree. Good luck with your doc review career.

How is a Sheiza-hole like Berkeley in the top 10, when its best faculty left five years ago and the building is unfit for a roach to live in? Not to mention their tuition has skyrocketed. Absurd.

how awesome would it be if these were not the real rankings.

Shouldn't peer assessment and lawyer/judge assessment have more importance...i.e. why did Chicago, Michigan, UVA slip? And why did NW move up?

Stupid rankings

3:16 -

Agree with your post. Undergrad is too much fun, not enough nerds and ugly girls. Also agree with UF spreading its legs for an extra point or two in any ranking list. Their law school turns out true idiots with a strange sense of entitlement. Also, really ugly chicks and guys with napoleon complexes.

If I go to Georgetown for a year, can I transfer to UVA and still have friends?

What about Seton Hall and Rutgers? I thought they were top-25 for sure. I mean, my firm only hires from there, so I figured they were top-tier. What gives?

Why do the state schools have two campuses?

Rutgers has one in Camden and Newark and UPenn St. has Happy Valley and Philadelphia.

Do they hope to attract different types of students to each campus? Do they cheer for the same teams at different campuses?

3:52: No.

3:28, shut up. We're having fun reading these. Go back to your doc review.

Rutgers is a strange phenomenon, where due to the attraction of state school tuition you end up having people with 170 LSAT and 3.8 GPAs in the same class as those with 155 LSAT and 3.0 GPAs. Low ranked state schools are an anomaly to the general rankings in that certain people choose to go there for monetary reasons as opposed to not being admitted anywhere else.

Wait, which Penn State campus is ranked #7? Philadelphia or College Park?

Thank god USC is where it belongs... 18.

PENN STATE IS NOT RANKED 7th. PENN STATE IS NOT THE SAME THING AS UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

I don't go to either and don't care, but come on.

Also, re: much earlier posts, George Washington University and George Mason University are not the same thing.

You are the epitome of the stereotype of a Chicago grad. Mean and cutthroat. Hate to break this to you, but unless you are planning to work for a small firm, you will have do some doc. review during the course of your legal career.

Hate to break to you, but even NYU grads with slightly better than average grades can get jobs at the elite Chicago firms such as Kirkland. The NYU degree is fairly well regarded across the country.

George Washington University and George Mason University ARE ULTIMATE TTTs (right behind GeorgeTTTown).

500th!

3:58 - I think you mean State College or Philadelphia. And it's Upenn @ Philly that's ranked so high, the one with the Warden's School and JoPa. I think UPenn @ State College is also a good school, but doesn't have Big 10 football or the Warden's School.

UCLA to the top 10!

UCLA to the top 10!

Wow, so this is how it feels to be Clusterf@#$#@ed.

If you really really care about whether NYU or Columbia is more prestigious, go to Columbia, please. You will no doubt feel at home surrounded by insecure loser d-bags.

4:04 --That's the Warden's School for Delinquent MBA's

hofstra squeak in #99 ... now if we all just pass the bar in July ... next year T14!

4:06=NYU loser d-bag!

why does penn state refer to their two different law schools under different names? it's like they are trying to hide the family's dirty little secret... (lest we find out that they have a law school ranked... 77! as well). well their cover is blown.

Seriously, "TTT" jokes are really poor.

Are the current and future law students so insecure they have to knock on other schools just lower ranked then them by making stupid and unfunny tier 3 jokes?

Yeesh, no wonder people hate lawyers. Certain folks are condescending and corny, making the rest of us look terrible!

The GW students that I have met are passionate about their school. I wish I felt that way about my law school (I went to GULC and, while it pains me to admit it, the school really is an impersonal attorney assembly line). Also, it was annoying going to GULC because it's in the boonies, far away from everything. GW is right in the middle of DC, three blocks from the White House, with easy Metro access, etc...

Zing!!

WE ARE STETSON!

Fuck WUSTL.

4:06 -

That was one of the more douchebaggy things said on those comments.

We can also rephrase: "If you want to be surrounded by bitter, Columbia waitlisted students with massive inferiority complexes, go to NYU". Equally douchebaggy, I know.

The reason that GTOWN lags in this thing is because of its evening program, which is much easier to get into than the day program and drops the school's numbers across the board.

The night program is supposed to be designed for those who work during the day and still seek a law school degree but inevitably students who can't make the day program enroll at night and then switch over after their first years.

George Washington University and George Mason University ARE ULTIMATE TTTs (right behind GeorgeTTTown).

This GW GU thing is a historical issue...

King George was the head of the British Empire -- a long dominant empire. But eventually, a man named George Washington led the charge to replace the British at the top of the world.

Today, the law schools replay this battle. Georgetown, named for King George, is the old guard. GW, the naming is clear, is rising up. Eventually the New Guard will pass the old guard.

And maybe one day American U. will be the new China or India. But for now, this is simply a replay of the revolutionary war. Eventually GW overtook King George... get psyched!

In response to the penn state comment...i don't get why people can't figure out that u.penn and penn state are TWO DIFFERENT schools. penn state has two campuses (but they are ranked together as one school). u.penn is a private ivy and penn state is a public state school. duh.

In response to the penn state comment...i don't get why people can't figure out that u.penn and penn state are TWO DIFFERENT schools. penn state has two campuses (but they are ranked together as one school). u.penn is a private ivy and penn state is a public state school. duh.

A vote for GW is a vote for America.

America, FU(K Yea!

4:00 writes: "even NYU grads with slightly better than average grades can get jobs at the elite Chicago firms such as Kirkland. The NYU degree is fairly well regarded across the country"

I didn't say you couldn't get a job coming out of NYU, I said no one would be impressed. And learning that you're going to work at Kirkland hardly changes that view.

4:24=either asshole or ninja--jury is still out

4:23 - your convoluted reasoning is exactly why we can't figure out why penn state has two disparately ranked law schools.

GW = Georgetown Waitlist!

500+ comments??? wtf. should tell you how many law students post, and how many attorneys are still hung up on "prestige"

4:23/4:24 - "In response to the penn state comment...i don't get why people can't figure out that u.penn and penn state are TWO DIFFERENT schools. penn state has two campuses (but they are ranked together as one school). u.penn is a private ivy and penn state is a public state school. duh."

What makes it confusing is that the "two campuses" - Penn State and UPenn - "are ranked together as one school." No matter how you slice it then, people will combine the two in their mind, and the Penn State profile is MUCH more well known than the "UPenn" one, so everyone just treats it as Penn State. Maybe some hiring partners out there keep them separate, but by and large, no one cares which of the "two campuses" you were on - YOU WENT TO PENN STATE. Deal with it.

4:24: Do you think people at Law firms make this mistake? I know my Ivy buddies consider Penn the "state" school of the Ivvies.

The law school formerly known as Boalt Hall totally rocks!

4:34--I thought that was Cornell

WOW 500+ comments... What insecurity! What need to be nurtured! Come on. These rankings are total bullshit.

4:33. No. That is incorrect.

There is actually a University of Pennsylvania (often referred to as UPenn) and a Pennsylvania State University (Penn State).

The University of Pennsylvania Law School is a private law school located in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania State University Law School is in University Park.

Do you understand now? If not, a quick google search might clear it all up.

um=total dick

Wash.U's LSAT range is either wrong on the purported, "real" U.S. News Rankings or it's wrong on their own website. Something tells me it's the former... thoughts?

http://law.wustl.edu/ataglance/

Oh, I get it. Penn State and UPenn have different campuses but they're the same school.

I googled 'Penn state law school' and something about a Dickinson school came up. Come on now... what kind of sham is this school trying to pull?! Penn State now has 3 law schools?

4:46 - yes. One is private (think JoPa, Big Ten) and one is public (think Warden's School for Wardens). The one in Philly is ranked 7.

THE ONLY RANKINGS THAT SHOULD MATTER ARE WHAT OTHERS THINK OF THE SCHOOL (the two columns after overall rank and Vault)

UPenn is a completely different school from Penn State. UPenn is in Philly. UPenn is a private Ivy. Penn State is a state school in State College, Pa...the campus itself is called University Park.

Penn State was originally Dickinson Law School in Carlisle, Pa but Penn State bought the law school a few years ago and now it's called Penn State Dickinson. The original campus in Carlisle is still considered Penn State but they have also established the campus at University Park (where the main undergrad campus is located).

Therefore, UPenn is ranked by itself because...get this...it's not the same as Penn State! Ta da! Penn State's two campuses (Carlisle and University Park) are ranked together.

As a current Penn State law student at UP, this is the legitimate word. The concept of UPenn and Penn State really shouldn't have been this hard to understand...

USNWR doesn't include the night people's numbers at GULC. So why would that be bringing it down?

University of Penn St. - Philadelphia
University of Penn St. - College Park
University of Penn St. - Dickenson

I think we finally got it.

All together now... WE ARE PENN STATE.

Thanks 4:41, I think I almost got it. So is Penn State (Philadelphia campus) ranked 7 or 77?

The students at GULC are absurdly annoying and arrogant. I know at least 6 GULC students who did not get offers from their summer employers (all at prestigious NY/DC firms). This is proof of a serious problem, especially because firms want to avoid reporting that they didn't give offers to summer associates at all costs. But it happened, because GULC students really are THAT obnoxious.

I still feel bad for the Thelen people :(

to say that UChicago is out of Berkeley's league ignores the fact that many/most of the current student body at Berkeley chose it over Chicago, and a lot of Chicago's student body didn't get into Berkeley.

Chicago's a bastion for conservatives, and they hate that their school is dropping. Get over it people. Only Yale's going to be able to maintain a ranking despite being located in a place nobody wants to live. Any of the other schools in the T14 are going to rank according to where people want to live. NY/CA > IL

"#10 at Georgetown does not have better prospects than #10 at GW" - as someone that interviews summers and laterals I find this hard to believe.

The fact that Stetson remains in the top 100 is a disgrace. Their career office recently told all their students they wouldnt be getting jobs and told me that some prior lawyers actually drove cabs. TTT

Regarding the UVA issue--I think people at uva have sincere respect for W&L, Richmond, and W&M. All the Virginia schools place people well in the Richmond and DC job markets.

4:51 - hey smart guy. If you're so smart, who owns the Warden's School? Is it UP or Philly? Betcha don't know. It's Penn Stat Philly. There goes your theory.

The fact that Stetson remains in the top 100 is a disgrace. Their career office recently told all their students they wouldnt be getting jobs and told me that some prior lawyers actually drove cabs. TTT

So between Penn St. and UPenn, which is the better school? They sound like they're the same school to me.

Most posts ever.

Regarding the UVA issue--I think people at uva have sincere respect for W&L, Richmond, and W&M. All the Virginia schools place people well in the Richmond and DC job markets.