2011 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Best (and Worst) Academic Experience

I previously 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 2011 edition of Best 172 Law Schools (with the University of Cincinnati College of Law again 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	Duke	99	145	Albany	70
	Stanford	99		North Dakota	70
	Virginia	99		Ohio Northern	70
4	Chicago	98		Syracuse	70
	Michigan	98		Touro	70
	Northwestern	98	150	District of Columbia	69
7	Boston University	97		John Marshall	69
	NYU	97		Kentucky	69
	UCLA	97		Mississippi College	69
10	Georgetown	96		West Virginia	69
	Geo. Washington	96	155	Maine	68
	Vanderbilt	96		Missouri-KC	68
13	Boston College	95		Wyoming	68
	Pennsylvania	95	158	Idaho	67
	UC-Berkeley	95		Nova	67
16	BYU	94		Widener-Harrisburg	67
	Loyola-L.A.	94	161	Capital	66
	Pepperdine	94		Dayton	66
	Texas	94	163	Loyola-New Orleans	65
20	Harvard	93	164	Phoenix	64
	UC-Hastings	93	165	Cornell	63
22	Emory	92		N. Illinois	63
	Florida	92		Oklahoma City	63
	Fordham	92	168	South Dakota	62
25	Chapman	91		Southern	62
	Columbia	91		St. Mary’s	62
	Georgia	91	171	Appalachian	61
	Richmond	91	172	N.C. Central	60

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:

• 2010 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings
• 2009 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings
• 2008 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings
• 2007 Princeton Review Academic Experience Rankings