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With help from
Netscape Web Tutorial
by Charlton D. Rose
and David Chang

Understanding the US News Rankings

Useful USNews Information

There are a lot of things I don't like about the USNews rankings of law schools; (I discuss them here.)  But there are also several good things about them.

One that is least often discussed is the amount of honesty and uniformity they have brought to law school data reporting.  Before USNews, some schools published no data at all about their admissions process.  By using exceedingly low (some would claim deliberately low) estimates for unreported data, USNews compelled many law schools to liberate information previously kept under lock and key.  By exposing schools who reported different numbers in their publicity than they reported to the ABA, USNews forced a level of uniformity on reporting.  For this I give them my heartfelt thanks.  

In addition to their efforts in shedding light on the law school admissions game, USNews conducts surveys and gathers valuable information.  The single most important piece of info that they gather and publish is the academic (or peer) and professional (be lawyers and judges) reputations of the law schools.  What most people think they're looking at when they see a school's rank is its reputation.  The first two columns of the USNews report give this information, and it shows exactly what I would expect it to show -- that within broad classes, many schools are considered equal.  Here's my breakdown of one year's reputation results.  

Another very useful part of the USNews composite is the bar passage results.  USNews appropriately shows the state's bar passage rate as well as the school's, so you can judge how well a school is doing in its own market.  

But the information gathered and published by USNews that is by far the most useful, the salary and placement data, is not included in the rankings.  Fortunately, it is published both online and in their comprehensive guide to graduate schools.  I constantly refer to their web site to see how much money grads are making and where they're working.  This info, especially when used in combination with tools like the Martindale Hubbell Lawyer locator and the NALP DIrectory, can give you an excellent sense of your career prospects if you attend a particular school.  

So my considered advice is to take the USNews rankings with a grain of salt, but definitely buy them, in either the online or book form.