Prospective law students, current law students, and law school alumni are eagerly awaiting the release of the 2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings, which usually occurs sometime in March.
Will U.S. News dare to change its rankings methodology yet again?
We suppose we’ll have to wait and see… but what if we told you that we had an admissions-based “preview” of those rankings? Sounds great, right? Let us help you scratch that rankings itch.
The current methodology used by U.S. News places a 10% weight on law school admissions in the overall ranking. That category is comprised of three separate components, each with a different weight: acceptance rate (1%); median undergraduate GPA (4%); and median LSAT (5%) (GRE scores omitted for lack of data). Which schools come out on top using this data?
Dean Paul Caron of Pepperdine University School of Law recently provided charts for all of the ABA data for those components, and now, he’s created two admissions rankings using that data. The first ranking is simple, while the second ranking better approximates the U.S. News rankings using Z scores.
Here are the Top 14 schools, using each of Caron’s rankings.
RANKING 1
| School | Acceptance Rate Rank | UGPA Rank | LSAT Rank | Weighted Ranks | |
| 1 | Yale | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1.40 |
| 2 | Harvard | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2.90 |
| 3 | Washington Univ. | 25 | 2 | 3 | 4.80 |
| 4 | Chicago | 9 | 9 | 3 | 6.00 |
| 5 | Stanford | 2 | 11 | 3 | 6.10 |
| 5 | Virginia | 13 | 2 | 8 | 6.10 |
| 7 | Northwestern | 17 | 5 | 8 | 7.70 |
| 8 | Penn | 3 | 10 | 8 | 8.30 |
| 9 | Columbia | 6 | 20 | 3 | 10.10 |
| 10 | UCLA | 19 | 5 | 15 | 11.40 |
| 11 | NYU | 20 | 15 | 8 | 12.00 |
| 12 | Georgetown | 27 | 11 | 12 | 13.10 |
| 13 | Cornell | 33 | 23 | 3 | 14.00 |
| 13 | Texas A&M | 11 | 1 | 25 | 14.00 |
RANKING 2
| School | Acceptance Rate Rank | UGPA Rank | LSAT Rank | Weighted Z-Scores | |
| 1 | Yale | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1.64 |
| 2 | Harvard | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1.58 |
| 3 | Virginia | 13 | 2 | 8 | 1.56 |
| 4 | Chicago | 9 | 9 | 3 | 1.54 |
| 5 | Washington Univ. | 25 | 2 | 3 | 1.54 |
| 6 | Northwestern | 17 | 5 | 8 | 1.53 |
| 7 | Stanford | 2 | 11 | 3 | 1.53 |
| 8 | Penn | 3 | 10 | 8 | 1.52 |
| 9 | UCLA | 19 | 5 | 15 | 1.48 |
| 10 | Columbia | 6 | 20 | 3 | 1.47 |
| 11 | Texas A&M | 11 | 1 | 25 | 1.47 |
| 12 | NYU | 20 | 15 | 8 | 1.44 |
| 13 | Georgetown | 27 | 11 | 12 | 1.42 |
| 14 | USC | 8 | 15 | 19 | 1.39 |
Click here to see the full rankings at TaxProf Blog.
We bet Washington University and Texas A&M wish that the U.S. News rankings were based only on their admissions profiles right about now, while schools like Duke, Michigan, and UC Berkeley are thanking their lucky stars that the rankings are based on more.
We’ll check back in sometime this spring to see how close to reality these partial rankings are. In the meantime, check out the Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings for a better, outcome-based methodology.
Preview Of The 2024-2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions [TaxProf Blog]
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 Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.