Law Schools, Rankings

An Interesting New Set Of Law School Rankings

How does your law school fare under this metric?

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decision choice chaos confusionSpring is officially here, and we all know what that means: time for admitted students to decide where to go to law school. And when choosing between law schools, students pay a lot of attention to rankings, for better or worse.

The U.S. News rankings, which came out earlier this month, remain dominant. But we respectfully submit that the Above the Law rankings, which focus on post-graduate employment prospects and debt, provide information that’s more relevant to most aspiring law students than the factors considered by U.S. News.

The U.S. News and ATL rankings are by no means the only rankings out there. We briefly mentioned a new ranking system on Friday, and we thought we’d give you more details today. It’s described in a new article by Christopher J. Ryan, Jr., a Ph.D. candidate at Vanderbilt, and Professor Brian L. Frye, of the University of Kentucky School of Law. From the SSRN abstract:

This article assumes that the purpose of ranking law schools is to help students decide which school to attend. Accordingly, it describes an approach to ranking law schools based entirely on the revealed preferences of students. Law schools admit applicants based almost entirely on their LSAT score and undergraduate GPA, and compete to matriculate students with the highest possible scores. Our de gustibus approach to ranking law schools assumes that the “best” law schools are the most successful at matriculating those students. This article concludes with a “best law schools ranking” based exclusively on the LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs of matriculating students.

Here are the top 25 schools[1] according to Ryan and Frye’s “de gustibus” system (“DG,” with U.S. News and ATL rankings provided as well):

DG – LAW SCHOOL – U.S. NEWS – ATL

1. YALE – 1 – 1
2. HARVARD – 3 – 5
3. STANFORD – 2 – 2
4. CHICAGO – 4 – 3
5. NYU – 6 – 15
6. U. PENN – 7 – 4
7. COLUMBIA – 5 – 11
8. UVA – 8 – 6
9. DUKE – 10 – 7
10. UC BERKELEY – 12 – 10
11. U. MICHIGAN – 8 – 13
12. NORTHWESTERN – 10 – 8
13. CORNELL – 13 – 9
14. GEORGETOWN – 15 – 21
15. UCLA – 15 – 19
16. USC – 19 – NR
17. VANDERBILT – 17 – 14
18. UT AUSTIN – 14 – 12
19. MINNESOTA – 23 – 34
20. BYU – 46 – 40
21. U. ALABAMA – 26 – 26
22. EMORY – 22 – 38
23. BU – 23 – 17
24. WILLIAM & MARY – 41 – 23
25. U. GEORGIA – 30 – 23

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The (not very surprising) takeaway: aspiring law students are addicted to prestige. The longstanding, highly influential U.S. News rankings are the closest thing one has to “prestige rankings” for law schools — indeed, prestige (as measured by reputation) is an important factor in those rankings — and students with the best credentials flock to the most prestigious schools. There’s not a huge amount of daylight between the U.S. News and “de gustibus” rankings, especially at the top. (There’s more divergence farther down; for some highlights, download the complete paper and flip to page 9.)

Of course, picking a law school isn’t (or shouldn’t be) just about rankings. A whole host of considerations, including post-graduate career plans, financial factors, and geography, come into play.

Are you a “0L” struggling to make up your mind about where to matricuate? Here at Above the Law, we have a series called “The Decision” in which we offer advice on the subject. If you spin through the archives, you can get a sense of the types of questions we tackle and the kind of counsel we provide.

If you’d like to submit a scenario for consideration in “The Decision,” feel free to send our way by email (subject line: “The Decision”). We will keep you anonymous but might reprint all of part of your message if we use your question, so include only those details you’d be okay with seeing on ATL. We look forward to your queries.

[1] Why the top 25? Well, why not? Now that the vaunted “T14” has been disrupted, 25 is as good a number as any, right?

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A De Gustibus Approach to Ranking Law Schools [SSRN]

Earlier: The Law Schools With The Highest LSAT Scores
Is T14 Dead? Is It T15? T13? Was T14 An Arbitrary Ranking All Along?

DBL square headshotDavid Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at [email protected].

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