NY Times on Law School Rankings

Interesting article in Sunday's New York Times on law school rankings:  The $8.78 Million Maneuver; How Water Bills, Temp Jobs, and Backdoor Admissions Help Law Schools Scale the Rankings at U.S. News.  The author of the article, Alex Wellen, attended our April 15 conference at Indiana-Bloomington on The Next Generation of Law School Rankings (blogged here) and in the article quotes a number of the participants in the conference (including yours truly).  The article recounts some of the maneuvers that law schools have employed to move up in the rankings, including:

Per-Student Expenditures:

• Illinois has reported the "fair market value" of the Lexis and Westlaw on-line services provided to its students ($8.78 million), rather than the amount Illinois actually paid to Lexis and Westlaw ($75k - $100k)
• Stanford is considering asking the university to separately charge it for water, garbage removal, electricity, and plumbing expenses

Student Quality:

• Rutgers-Camden has shrunk its full-time enrollment and increased the number of part-time students to 60 ("many with less competittive LSATs or grades")
• Baylor admits 100 students with lower LSATs and grades into its spring and summer classes
• Columbia, NYU, and UC-Berkeley admit "a large number of second-year transfer students, some with LSAT scores and undergraduate G.P.A.'s below those accepted in the first year"