Prospective law students, current law students, and law school alumni have seen the recently released edition of the 2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings, and they’re wondering what could possibly happen next. With a tie for the most prestigious school in the nation and four schools tied at the bottom of the top to create a 17-school T14, how many more ties can the legal profession possibly stand? Will any school ever be able to unseat Yale as #1? When will the rankings madness end?
We suppose we’ll have to wait and see… but what if we told you that we had an overall “projection” of next year’s rankings? Sounds great, right? Let us help you scratch that rankings itch.
The current U.S. News methodology uses ABA data for student outcomes, accounting for more than half (58%) of the rankings scheme. That data includes first-time bar passage (18%), ultimate bar passage (7%), and employment (33%). Dean Paul Caron of Pepperdine University School of Law has created a chart using that ABA data, as well as data from the current U.S. News ranking, for all other parts of his projection (admissions (10%): median LSAT (5%), median UGPA (4%), acceptance rate (1%); resources (7%): student-faculty ratio (5%); student-librarian ratio (2%); and quality assessment (25%: dean/faculty (12.5%) and lawyer/judge (12.5%)). Which schools come out on top using this data?
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Here are the Top 14 schools, using Caron’s components — and he urges readers to “take these rankings with a grain of salt,” as 42% of the data is subject to change. We heard you like ties, so this version of the top of the U.S. News rankings has even MORE ties:
| School | Projected 2026-2027 Rank | Current 2025-2026 Rank | Difference |
| Chicago | 1 | 3 | +2 |
| Stanford | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Virginia | 3 | 4 | +1 |
| Duke | 4 | 6 | +2 |
| Penn | 4 | 5 | +1 |
| Yale | 4 | 1 | -3 |
| Harvard | 7 | 6 | -1 |
| Michigan | 7 | 8 | +1 |
| NYU | 7 | 8 | +1 |
| Columbia | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Northwestern | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Cornell | 12 | 18 | +6 |
| Texas | 12 | 14 | +2 |
| UC-Berkeley | 12 | 13 | +1 |
| UCLA | 12 | 12 | 0 |
| Vanderbilt | 12 | 14 | +2 |
Down goes Yale! Of course, because this is U.S. News, Yale has been replaced at No. 1 with yet another tie between Chicago and Stanford. UVA is the only school here that gets its very own rank. On top of all of that interesting news, say hello to not-the-T14, but the T12, now with 16 schools. Guess who’s back? Back again? It’s Cornell, but Wash U. is out, as is Georgetown. We have a feeling that U.S. News would like what it sees here.
Click here to see the full rankings at TaxProf Blog.
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We’ll check back in sometime next 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.
Projected 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Overall [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.