Law School Faculty & Student Quality Rankings

As noted in an earlier post, the relative ranking of student quality scores and faculty peer assessment ratings is one of the few significant features of the annual US News Law School Rankings. Law Prof J. Gordon Hylton (Marquette) agrees

The only categories that should matter in law school rankings are the quality of the students and the quality of the faculty....Peer assessment tells us what other law professors think about individual law schools; LSAT scores tell us what students think about the school.

Hylton has performed a great service to potential law school students by creating an index using LSAT scores and peer assessment ratings in The US News and World Report Rankings Without the Clutter. Here are the top and bottom 10 (corrected):

1. Harvard 92.0
2. Yale 90.5
3. Stanford 87.5
3. Columbia 87.5
5. Chicago 87.0
6. NYU 86.0
7. Virginia 84.0
8. Michigan 83.5
9. Pennsylvania 82.5
10. Cal-Berkeley 81.5

170. Mississippi College 36.0
170. Oklahoma City 36.0
172. Florida Coastal 35.0
172. Univ. of Dist. Col. 35.0
172. Detroit Mercy 35.0
175. St. Thomas-Miami 33.5
176. North Carolina Central 32.5
177. Thomas Cooley 32.0
178. Texas Southern 31.5
179. Southern 29.5

Check out Hylton's ranking of all 179 law schools.

Hat tip to Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog.

See also Michael Sauder and Ryon Lancaster. Do rankings matter? The effects of U.S. News & World Report rankings on the admission process of law schools. 40 Law & Soc'y Rev. 105 (2006). [L]|[W]