Visualizing the U.S. News Rankings

Visualize Law provides a pretty cool graphical representation of the overall scores of the 2011 U.S. News Rankings. Click the small image above to see it.

U.S. News Looks Into Brooklyn Law School's Survey Responses

Robert Morse, of U.S. News and World Report, confirms that the magazine is looking into "reports [that] Brooklyn Law School in New York appears to have given U.S. News only its 2008 full-time entering class admission data for the LSAT, undergraduate grade-point average, and applications and acceptances instead of the requested data combining full-time and part-time students for those same variables."

There is certainly much debate over the U.S. News law school rankings methodology, and--in accordance with the common critiques advanced along these lines--the school has responded to the said allegations in an official statement. Specifically, the school claims that some of the alleged inaccurately reported data was simply provided "consistent with [the school's] prior practice . . . [which was to decline] to provide U.S. News with LSAT/GPA information about [its] part-time students," despite the recent (direct) request.

U.S. News is waiting for the ABA to publish its law school data on May 22, in order to "cross check Brooklyn Law School's and other law schools' statistics with the association's official data."

We will keep you updated on any developments in this story.

Law School Is For Everyone?

I think the headline to this piece was missing the following line: "Who Likes Being 150k in Debt."

I have nothing more (at least non-profanity laced) to say.

Random Musing #2: USNWR Rankings and The Case of The Ineffective Administration and Broken Wings...

And we're back: Today's Random Musing involves my bewilderment at the steep plunge in my school's ranking. When I signed up for this gig, Ol' LUC was sitting at 70. There was some talk at admitted students day that we were primed for climbing, if not nationally, then at least regionally. Two years later, and we're down 21 spots. Three letters, two commas and one question mark sum up my dismay: W, T, F?

BBLers, I look to you for advice-- what's a 2L who's on the verge of attending a TTT to do? What advice should I/We give my administration? What can be done?

[Ed. Note: I realize that some of the snobbier people in the world consider anything outside the T14 or T25 as "TTT." Notwithstanding that ATL commenters-esque definition, my concern is more with falling off the second page...]

U.S. News Rankings Leaked (UPDATE)

We have received some e-mails notifying us of a new lead regarding the controversial copy of the supposedly leaked 2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings, providing color photographs of the allegedly new rankings.

Although U.S. News declined to comment when contacted by Above The Law, the rankings appear to be legitimate dispelling our prior belief that the leaked rankings were a hoax.

This interesting development is sure to prompt tons of controversy. We hope, however, that prospective students will heed Craig's sage advice that all rankings--whether "real" or "fake"--be taken with a grain of salt.

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UPDATE (Apr. 20, 12:35 PM): Here are links to scans from the magazine: 1-55; 56-100.

U.S. News Rankings Leaked?

Due to an overwhelming amount of e-mails, we want to clarify to the Blackbook Legal faithful that we are aware that the 2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings have purportedly been leaked--both on the Critical Badger and the Top Law Schools Message Board. There is a reason, however, that we have not posted them. After much investigation, it is our initial (preliminary) opinion that they are not accurate.

Every year at about this time someone always seems to leak an "official-looking" copy of the rankings. These copies are easy to fake even if it does take some effort to make them. Forgive us for being skeptical, but before we post anything, we want to be 100% sure that what we post is legitimate.

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UPDATE (Apr. 19, 8:56 PM): Apparently it is easier than we thought to manufacture "fake" scanned copies of the rankings. A reader sent this copy to us, which paints a different picture than the original leaked rankings, and further supports our point that we should take all of these leaks with a grain of salt.

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UPDATE (Apr. 20, 12:00 PM): An update to this developing story has been posted here

Here they come (with some controversy)

It's nearing that time of year again when U.S. News and World Report release their annual graduate school rankings. According to Robert Morse, the rankings will be published online on April 23, 2009--roughly a month later than last year's. The law school rankings "will be getting an upgrade" as U.S. News will publish its "first-ever ranking of part-time J.D. law programs."

I also came across an interesting article from last year providing a comprehensive summary of a debate among various legal blogs on the other changes implemented by U.S. News in the ranking methodology employed for this year's edition.

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Check out some other blogs on these issues: TaxProf Blog, The Shark