« Tax Rock Star: A Web Site for Tax Students | Main | NYLS Faculty Presentation Day 2008 »
April 2, 2008
Average U.S. News Ranking, 1996-2009
Adjunct Law Prof passed along the average U.S. News & World Report overall ranking from 1996-2009 for the Top 30 law schools from 1996 (with data from Law Librarian Blog), to which I have added each school's 2009 overall ranking (red indicates the 2009 ranking is higher than the 14-year average):
1996-2009 Mean School 2009 1.00 Yale 1 2.36 Harvard 2 2.36 Stanford 2 4.43 Columbia 4 5.00 NYU 5 5.43 Chicago 7 7.57 Michigan 9 8.21 Virginia 9 8.57 Penn 7 8.79 UC-Berkeley 6 10.14 Duke 12 11.64 Northwestern 9 11.79 Cornell 12 13.64 Georgetown 14 16.50 UCLA 16 16.57 Vanderbilt 15 16.86 USC 18 16.93 Texas 16 19.43 Minnesota 22 21.00 Washington & Lee 25 21.93 George Washington 20 23.14 Iowa 27 23.50 Illinois 27 24.64 Notre Dame 22 24.93 Boston College 26 25.50 Emory 22 26.07 Washington (St. Louis) 19 26.71 Boston University 21 28.21 Washington (Seattle) 30 30.29 Fordham 27
See Brian Leiter's caution about reliance on the overall U.S. News ranking.
Update: Adjunct Law Prof adds:
[N]otice that the virtually all of the top 30 schools for 2009 are ranked within a few points of their their 14 year average. The notable exceptions are:
- Washington University (St. Louis) +7.07
- Boston University +5.71
- Emory +3.5
- Washington & Lee -4.0
- Illinois -3.5
- Iowa -3.86
Plus 5 (Boston University) and plus 7 (Washington University (St. Louis)) over a 14-year period, considering the average movement was 1.98, is a GIANT leap forward. Did those schools get THAT much better, or just that much better at playing the rankings game?
April 2, 2008 in Law School Rankings | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c4eab53ef00e551a559118834
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Average U.S. News Ranking, 1996-2009:
Comments
Paul, instead of citing my caution, why not stop posting this silliness about the overall rank--particularly silly in this instance because the US News ranking method wass quite different in the late 1990s compared to after 1999. If you want to look at comparative data over time, look at something that might be relevant, like reputational scores.
Posted by: Brian | Apr 2, 2008 1:23:02 PM
Or, we could calm down on our obsession with prestige. That's another approach.
Posted by: NYUer | Apr 2, 2008 5:16:09 PM
can you do this for the top 50?
Posted by: 2L | Apr 2, 2008 5:56:19 PM
Brian,
I was trying to advance your point about the the worth of USN rankings--notably that USN's overall rank for schools basically was static, even when comparing different methodologies (pre- and post-1999), for 15 years.
The numbers speak for themselves (and were easily calculable using the spreadsheet data posted Law Librarian Blog). The fact that the differences in overall rank over a 15 year period remained static, to insignificant, for the "top 30" USN law schools, even under different methodologies, shows that all these ranking exercises are merely games that validate existing preconceptions and to the extent dissatisfied schools can, and some do, game the ranking system.
I guess where you and I disagree is that there can be an objective ranking system or that any numerical system of ranking will have merit. The players will always try to game the system.
And if "reputation scores" matter at all, shouldn't they be calculated based on an objective system? For example, (1) ask the person submitting a "reputation ranking" to rank the importance of objective categories (lsat score, etc.,); (2) determine the weighting multiplier for each of the objective categories based on the responses received; (3) multiply the weighted multiplier against each schools objective categories to achieve a raw score for each category; (4) calculate the total raw score (add up the individual raw scores arrived at by by applying the weighted multiplier); (5) create a list (ranking) based on the total raw score.
You would need an appropriate number of respondents to create a statistically relevant sample (i.e., multipliers and raw scores that would be statistically significant). I have no doubt this could be achieved by surveying law schools--faculty, administration, and students; lawyers; and judges. It would be hard to cook the books as no one would know what multipliers, weights, or raw scores would be achieved by their single response (as opposed to what do you think of X law school? or "on a scale of one to five, how would you rate X law school?")
Posted by: Adjunct Law Prof. | Apr 2, 2008 7:48:36 PM
It's an interesting info set. I think it's just as valuable as any other abstract look at rankings. It's certainly entertaining and I appreciate the effort it took to put it together.
Posted by: Ned Astley | Apr 2, 2008 8:57:48 PM
What a snub! William & Mary is tied for 30th w/ Washington, but is left off this list. I'm gonna have to sick Glenn Coven on you, Adjunct Law Prof! Watch out!
Posted by: W&M 3L | Apr 3, 2008 2:51:19 PM
Setting aside the question of whether anyone should put any stock in the U.S. News rankings, the fact remains that at least some segments - important ones - of the potential audience do put tremendous stock in the rankings. Given that the rankings over a period of time are relatively static, it is easy to see why students would be up in arms about a 1 or 2 place drop, or why people might start to attach a great deal of positive buzz to schools that manage to rise 4-5 places over time. Given the effect positive or negative buzz may have on reputational scores, it would be interesting to see how many schools trended downward at one point, then managed to rebound and move upward, or vice versa.
Posted by: chris | Apr 3, 2008 4:49:29 PM
W&M 3L:
I ran the numbers for all the schools in the spreadsheet. I think I gave them all to Paul, but if not my bad. Here are the rest of the averages based on the spreadsheet data:
William & Mary 30.50
Colorado 41.29
Georgia 31.36
Wisconsin 32.86
Arizona (Rogers) 40.43
California Hastings 39.21
North Carolina 28.86
California Davis 34.57
BYU 35.86
I'm not sure that this will make you any happier, as W&M is #32--it has a lower avg. score than any of the 30 Paul listed as well as UNC (which also was not included).
-AT "I just run the numbers" P
ps: with apoliogies to Prof. Leiter for giving this subject any more publicity.
pps: After thoroughly looking over and inspecting the horse, I am quite confident it is dead--and my arms are tired.
Posted by: Adjunct Law Prof. | Apr 3, 2008 10:23:28 PM
"Did those schools get THAT much better, or just that much better at playing the rankings game?"
I think Washington University might have gotten that much better. If you look at its current reputational scores (in either catagory), they're greater than or equal to those of every lower-ranked school. This didn't happen by accident. During the last 10 years the law school has moved to a new building (the old building was a concrete monstrosity from the 70s), aggresively recruited new faculty and given out a lot of scholarship money to incoming students. If improving the quality of the faculty, students and facilities is "playing the rankings game," so be it.
Posted by: WashU Alum | Apr 4, 2008 1:57:51 PM
WashU Alum (presumably JD):
"If improving the quality of the faculty, students and facilities is "playing the rankings game," so be it."
Actually, that is part of playing the rankings game: spend, spend, spend. Buy better professors. Buy better students. Buy better facilities. Will Wash U go up another 5 or 10 placed when the new addition the law school is added? Not likely, as I am guessing it is harder to move from 19 to 14 or 9 than from the middling 30's to 19.
I liked the old monstrosity. It had a brutish charm in its ugliness and fabled stories (e.g., the school ran out of money to install a copper roof, so they had to paint the entire roof that horrid green color to simulate a patina). Mind you, the campus looks much better with the new integrated architecture of Busch Hall (like the 4th Building on campus named after the Budweiser Family).
Wash U has the money and the willingness to spend it to improve its standing in the rankings. Personally, it has shown that using money can break down perceived /well entrenched perceptions about a school. 20 years ago it was the "Harvard of the midwest," now it is content to stand on its own name.
I have no problems with what Wash U did (I guess by now I might have some connection to the school). Most east coasters probably never hear of it before they went on their spending spree and marketing rampage. That did not mean it was not a good school and that it did not merit a greater reputation.
The alternative possibility is that Wash U did NOT get any better, simply that it got the recognition it deserved 10 or 20 years ago. But to get the reputation and the rank it may have deserved, it had to aggressively target USN's ranking categories and spend large sums of money on profs, on students, and on facilities--something that some schools can emulate and others cannot.
For schools that were good, but a little more obscure, USN's rankings can prove a way to grab attention to your school and get a ranking more in line that it deserves. For schools that were good, known, and on top (whether it is top 10, top of the 1st tier, or good enough to be in the top 100), this is a scary proposition--that other schools can buy their way ahead of you.
The reality is that, regardless of USN's worth, there are people whose job is one the line based on what USN reports. And I agree with Brian that they are worth less than the paper they are printed on.
I'll throw this challenge out to USN and see if they bite:
Just like you got rid of the numerical rankings of the 3rd and 4th tier schools (except for the glitch this year), get rid of the rankings for the top 100. Have a 1st tier, 2nd tier, 3rd tier, and 4th tier ONLY. And only print some of the stats you use: like LSAT score, student to faculty ratio, and other concrete objective measurements that cannot be tampered with and are meaningful (I don't care how much a school spent on flowers).
I know it will never happen, but I think these groupings (distinctions) are more meaningful as is there really a difference between #1 & #5 or between #55 & #65 (or #75). Everyone knows that the schools really do fall into broad groups: Those that recruit and place nationally no matter what the weather (the elite so called "top 10"--the 1st tier); the really good schools but who aren't quite top 10 worthy and whose reputation may be regional rather than national (the second tier); the third tier: schools that are regional; the fourth tier: schools that will award a J.D. to those who matriculate. I hazard a guess that the 2nd tier in my world really ends far above #100.
Posted by: Adjunct Law Prof. | Apr 6, 2008 8:42:58 AM
At BU, everyone jokes about how we have moved up so high in the rankings. Of course, we love it. We cut our class size in half in 2001 and started providing major scholarships to incoming applicants. we include our undergraduate library in the statistics. And of course, we hire our unemployed grads to keep our employment stats up.
Nothing new.
I dont thik there is anything wrong with what our school does. I personally think everyone games the rankings. If you don't, you fall behind. Look at UNC and BC. Those ships went down.
Posted by: BU3L | Apr 14, 2008 2:48:05 PM
