Changes To U.S. News Law School Rankings Methodology Could Result In T14 Shake-Up

Stay tuned to see which schools have been affected by these changes.

onMarch 15, 2022 at 3:29 PMMarch 15, 2022 at 2:27 PM

We would predict possibly two changes in the top 6 alone but will wait for the public release the 29th to be sure.

— Law school admissions consultant Mike Spivey of Spivey Consulting, commenting on how changes made to the U.S. News methodology used to calculate law schools’ overall ranking may have affected the prestigious schools in the T14. As noted by Spivey on his blog, U.S. News not only increased the weight for its bar passage score to 3%, but it also changed how the bar passage metric is scored, now considering first-time bar passage rates in every jurisdiction where a school’s graduates took the exam. U.S. News has also consolidated its seven library metrics to just one (the ratio of full-time equivalent professional librarian positions to students), and it’s weighted at 1%.

Sponsored

The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm

ChatGPT ushers in the age of generative AI – even for law firms.

From THOMSON REUTERS

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.