If you think our unscientific top law school bracket is shaking things up, wait until the real U.S. News rankings come out. As a refresher, Yale announced its objections to the existing U.S. News ranking methodology and decided the best way to address these concerns would be to withdraw from submitting its data at all. Which prompted a bunch of other law schools to follow suit. So now we’re going to get some version of the U.S. News rankings based on some educated guessing.
So what happens under this new model? Mike Spivey of the Spivey Consulting Group is an expert in dissecting these rankings and offered his thoughts in a post over the weekend. You can check out his prediction for the full complement of 191 law schools, but here’s the T14 based on median rank in the scenarios he’s run:
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There’s potential for a tie at the top… and even a possibility that Yale falls below Stanford! Chicago — a school that notably did not withdraw from the ranking — is in the mix for number 1! NYU appears to be charging back and leapfrogging Columbia! Penn’s recent assent could reach the podium! Harvard could be as low as 10th! Georgetown may leave the T14 again!
Will any or all of these things happen? Unclear, but given Spivey’s experience with the rankings, these are all serious possibilities. Check out the explanation of Spivey’s approach in creating this list at his blog.
For the record: ASS Law — the school almost certain to win our bracket — clocks in somewhere between 26th and 38th. Can’t win them all with aggressive bot-based voting!
A Look At Possible U.S. News Rankings [Spivey Consulting]
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.