Paul L. Caron
Dean





Thursday, August 19, 2010

Forbes Law School Rankings

Forbes For three years, Forbes has published a ranking of America's Best Colleges, based on this methodology.  Unlike U.S. News & World Report, which separately ranks national universities and liberal arts colleges, Forbes does a combined ranking of 610 colleges and universities.  Here are the Forbes Top 50 Colleges in the ranking released this week:
  1. Williams
  2. Princeton
  3. Amherst
  4. U.S. Military Academy
  5. MIT
  6. Stanford
  7. Swarthmore
  8. Harvard
  9. Claremont-McKenna
  10. Yale
  11. U.S. Air Force Academy
  12. Wellesley
  13. Columbia
  14. Haverford
  15. Wesleyan
  16. Whitman
  17. Pomona
  18. Northwestern
  19. Cal-Tech
  20. Chicago
  21. Carleton
  22. Harvey Mudd
  23. Vassar
  24. Centre College
  25. Rice
  26. Middlebury
  27. Boston College
  28. Colgate
  29. U.S. Naval Academy
  30. Dartmouth
  31. Colby
  32. Kenyon
  33. Notre Dame
  34. Tufts
  35. Smith
  36. Penn
  37. Washington & Lee
  38. Bryn Mawr
  39. Holy Cross
  40. Bowdoin
  41. Duke
  42. Wabash
  43. Vanderbilt
  44. Virginia
  45. Brown
  46. William & Mary
  47. Rhodes
  48. Davidson
  49. Union
  50. Lawrence
Forbes reportedly is at work on its first law school rankings, based in part on an alumni survey and salary information (immediately after graduation and five years out), which Forbes will use to produce a "return on investment."

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/08/forbes-law.html

Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink

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Comments

Other than rankings and job placement stats, how do high school students determine the "quality" of a school?

Posted by: Dino | Sep 15, 2010 7:50:54 AM

Forbes needs to stabilize their technique. Almost half the schools in last year's top 100 now aren't, and some of those now in the top 100 were below 300 last year. US News is always fiddling at the margins to produce some drama about the order of the top schools, but sheer chaos isn't really a decent alternative, either.

Posted by: tired of blogs | Aug 21, 2010 8:34:45 PM

How come Duke? It should have been banned after it's abusive, strip 'em of their rights and condemn them on racial profiling treatment, egged on by Duke faculty, of their innocent lacrosse team. Avoid like the plague.
National Review did a better job. This is just the usual circuit of suspects, with bait and switch - they advertise professors but deliver cheapo graduate assistants, force "approved tolerance thinking" on freshman, and charge families thru the nose for propaganda masquerading as education. A number of those schools listed made the National Review's most notable: GULAG list. Feh!

Posted by: wanumba | Aug 20, 2010 9:07:23 PM

Gosh, this is an AWFUL list -- ridiculous in both its inclusions and exclusions, completely indefensible on any principled basis. I regret the waste of two minutes from my life to look at this list.

Posted by: Beldar | Aug 20, 2010 2:39:57 PM

Just to clarify a comment left above, there are at least two public schools in the top 50, though I think the poster's point is still valid. William & Mary is also a public school in Virginia.

Posted by: Geoff | Aug 20, 2010 12:00:53 PM

I love Princeton, but this is a pretty crazy list.

Posted by: Chris | Aug 20, 2010 9:05:43 AM

It's all http://www.Indoctrinate-U.com to me.

Posted by: FREE THE ND 88 | Aug 20, 2010 8:03:08 AM

Law School rankings or college rankings?

Posted by: rbj | Aug 20, 2010 7:57:18 AM

If nothing else, Forbes has done a service by forcing students, parents, guidance counselors and the higher education establishment to justify college rankings which are now simply treated as gospel. In my affluent Northeastern suburb, there are many stories of students who went to brand name schools and were unhappy with the quality of the education they received. If students paid more attention to what school is better for them, rather than most prestigious in the rankings, they would have a more successful undergraduate career.

The law school situation is quite different. If one doesn't attend a top ten law school, career choices are limited. So the only thing that matters is how the Forbes Top Ten will differ from the U.S. News Top Ten.

Posted by: Robert | Aug 20, 2010 7:28:51 AM

I find it odd that only one public school made it into their top 50. Followed by 3 more in 50-75, and 4 more in 75-100.

Posted by: Stan Olshefski | Aug 20, 2010 7:19:42 AM

There will be lots of angry Blue Devils.

Posted by: Sou'western SongDog | Aug 20, 2010 7:13:41 AM

Is woody a Navy Man?

Posted by: Mark | Aug 20, 2010 7:00:48 AM

I suspect the focus on income fails to acknowledge that a lot of schools attract a certain group. For instance, Georgetown, which isn't on the list, has a lot of people going into the government and foreign service.

Posted by: Dude | Aug 20, 2010 6:11:14 AM

I should clarify: I went to the master list and sorted by name. I am not simply referring to the list above.

Posted by: David | Aug 20, 2010 6:06:15 AM

At least two colleges (both most definitely 4 year) I am personally aware of are not on the list.

Posted by: David | Aug 20, 2010 6:05:08 AM

The 25-point spread between military academies is enough to make this dubious in my view.

Posted by: mike livingston | Aug 19, 2010 7:21:06 PM

Clearly, this isn't the pre-season football poll.

Posted by: Woody | Aug 19, 2010 7:06:33 PM

I think this will become the new "US News Rankings"

Posted by: MAD JD | Aug 19, 2010 6:28:24 PM