Law Schools, Rankings

A Sneak Peek At The 2016 U.S. News Law School Rankings

The rankings aren't out yet, but let's take an exclusive look at the new Top 10 law schools in the nation!

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We hope that you’re ready, because it’s almost the most wonderful time of the year for law schools. That’s right, the 2016 U.S. News law school rankings will be published on March 10, 2015. Hooray!

Law school deans are saying their last prayers to rankings god guru Bob Morse in the hope that they won’t be ousted from their positions thanks to a few lost spots on the list, while prospective law students are getting ready to send out seat deposits to the law school with the best rank. As for current law students, they’re just waiting to see if the school they’ll graduate from will be considered more or less prestigious than when they first arrived.

Although the U.S. News law school rankings are a bit controversial thanks to what they measure (inputs like GPAs and LSAT scores) and what they don’t measure so well (real law jobs for graduates), they’re still a pretty huge deal to everyone in the legal profession. FYI, the rankings will likely be published online in the wee hours of the morning, but the anticipation is simply killing us, so we scoured the internet for a little U.S. News teaser.

Are you ready to take a look at the new, top 10 highest-ranking law schools in the nation?

Aww, you thought we had the actual rankings. Don’t be mad, but all we’ve got is a list in alphabetical order. Do you notice anything different about the new top 10 for 2016?

At first glance, it seems that the latest top 10 ranking is the same as last year’s top 10 ranking — but that’s not true at all. If you take a look at the 2015 U.S. News law school rankings, you’ll see that there’s a tie for 4th place between Columbia and Chicago and a tie for 10th place between Duke and Michigan. If there were more than one tie in the 2016 top 10, then the preview above would list 11 or more schools. Instead, there are only 10 schools listed, and Michigan’s name doesn’t appear at all. Sorry, Wolverines, but it looks like you’ve been pushed out of the top 10 in the 2016 U.S. News law school rankings.

While we’re at it, riddle us this: why on earth does the top 3 preview of the current U.S. News rankings — the 2015 rankings — list Yale, Harvard, and Stanford like this?

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If you’ve been watching the U.S. News rankings for a while, you’d know that Harvard and Stanford haven’t been tied for second place since the 2014 list (ranked in 2013) was released. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but if Harvard and Stanford are truly tied for second place in the 2016 rankings, then you saw the news here first, folks.

UPDATE (12:30 p.m.): After we first reported the possible Harvard/Stanford second-place tie for the 2016 U.S. News law school rankings, U.S. News changed the preview picture to reflect the current 2015 rankings. We’ll take that as confirmation that we were correct in our initial reporting earlier today. Thanks, U.S. News!

What other shocking changes will we see when the rankings are released? Will law schools plummet again due to their employment statistics? What effect will the GPA/LSAT brain drain have on the rankings for the nation’s top law schools? There are so many questions that need answers right now! We’re so excited, we’re so excited, we’re so… scared?!

You’ll have to wait until midnight to get the scoop on the latest U.S. News rankings. Until then, all you can do is cross your fingers and hope that your alma mater fared well.

2016 Best Graduate Schools Preview: Top 10 Law Schools [U.S. News & World Report]

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