U.S. News Law School Rankings Officially Released

Well, its finally out. The U.S. News official rankings are out and available here. The April 22, 2009 Wall Street Law Journal Blog ran an interesting story entitled Here It Is where they previewed the rankings (which were already leaked) and explained some of the changes in methodology. As the article states:   

According to Bob Morse, the director of data research for the magazine, the staff made several changes to the methodology this year. For starters, in the main law school rankings, the staff combined admissions data for full and part time students. “In the past, we’d just used full-time,” said Morse. “But some schools we think were gaming the system. There were some part-time programs that were set up just for US News reporting purposes.”

Other changes made by Morse and his crew:

• Traditionally, when calculating post-graduate placement rates, the staff lumped those students who weren’t looking for a job in with those students who were but were still unemployed. That was changed for this year. “We just didn’t count those who aren’t looking as part of the calculations,” says Morse.
• The staff changed the timing of the bar-passage rate calculation. Instead of examining two half-years: or a split between the winter of one year and the summer of the following year, for this year’s survey, the magazine looked at one full calendar year — in this instance, 2007.
• For the reputation surveys sent to lawyers and judges, the staff used a calculation aggregated over the last two years, rather than just using a one-year snapshot. “We tried to reduce any volatility caused by having a low response rate in one year or another.”

And for the rankings, the top schools are:

1. Yale, 2. Harvard, 3. Stanford, 4. Columbia, 5. NYU, 6. Berkeley, 6. (tie) Chicago, 8. Penn, 9. Michigan, 10. Duke, 10. (tie) Northwestern, 10. (tie) UVA, 13. Cornell, 14. Georgetown, 15. UCLA, 15. (tie) Texas, 17. Vanderbilt, 18. USC, 19. Wash U, 20. BU, 20. (tie) Emory, 20. (tie) Minnesota, 23. Indiana, 23. (tie) Illinois, 23. (tie) Notre Dame, 26. Boston College., 26. (tie) Iowa, 28. William & Mary, 28. (tie) George Washington, 30. Fordham, 30. (tie) Alabama, 30. (tie) UNC, 30. (tie) Washington & Lee, 35. Ohio State, 35. (tie) UC Davis, 35. (tie) Georgia, 35. (tie) Wisconsin.

The top PT programs, which are ranked for the first time, are as follows:

Of the 87 accredited law schools with part-time programs, here are the top 15: 1. Georgetown, 2. George Washington, 3. Fordham, 4. American University, 5. George Mason, 6. Maryland, 7. Temple, 7. (tie) University of San Diego, 9. University of Denver, 10. Illinois Institute of Technology, 11. New York Law School, 12. Seattle U., 13. Loyola Marymount, 13. (tie) Suffolk University, 15. Georgia State.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein