2010 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Best (and Worst) Academic Experience

Last week, I blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in eleven categories posted on Princeton Review's web site in connection with its publication of the 2010 edition of Best 174 Law Schools (with the University of Cincinnati College of Law on the cover).  The rankings are the result of Princeton Review's survey of 18,000 students at the 172 law schools, along with school statistics provided by administrators.

I have extracted from the individual profiles of the 172 law schools all of the available data to rank the schools in six categories. I will report each day on one of the ranking categories.

Academic Experience Rating:  The quality of the learning environment, on a scale of 60 to 99.  The rating incorporates the Admissions Selectivity Rating and the average responses of law students at the school to several questions on our law student survey.  In addition to the Admissions Selectivity Rating, factors considered include how students rate the quality of teaching and the accessibility of their professors, the school's research resources, the range of available courses, the balance of legal theory and practical lawyering skills stressed in the curriculum, the tolerance for diverse opinions in the classroom, and how intellectually challenging the course work is.

Here are the law schools with the best and worst academic experience rating:

	School	Score		School	Score
1	Chicago	99	139	Akron	70
	Stanford	99		Albany	70
	Virginia	99		Arkansas-Little Rock	70
4	Michigan	98		Hamline	70
	Texas	98		Hofstra	70
	Vanderbilt	98		Maine	70
7	Georgetown	97		North Dakota	70
	Northwestern	97		Pace	70
	NYU	97		Touro	70
10	Boston University	96		Washburn	70
	BYU	96		Widener-Delaware	70
	Geo. Washington	96		Wyoming	70
13	Loyola-L.A.	95	151	Colorado	69
	Pennsylvania	95		Connecticut	69
	UCLA	95		District of Columbia	69
16	Boston College	94	154	Capital	68
	Duke	94		Dayton	68
	UC-Berkeley	94	156	Loyola-New Orleans	67
19	Chapman	93		Santa Clara	67
	Fordham	93	158	La Verne	66
	Wake Forest	93		Widener-Harrisburg	66
22	Emory	92	160	Memphis	65
	Georgia	92		Phoenix	65
	Harvard	92	162	Northern Illinois	64
25	Columbia	91		Oklahoma City	64
	Illinois	91	164	St. Thomas (Miami)	63
	Washington & Lee	91		Syracuse	63
			166	Cornell	62
				Idaho	62
			168	Appalachian	61
				Nova	61
				South Dakota	61
				Southern	61
				St. Mary's	61

Unfortunately, the Princeton Review did not release the response rate per school, so it is impossible to determine how the rankings are affected by each school's representation among the respondents.

For prior years' rankings, see:

• 2009 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings
• 2008 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings
• 2007 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings