New 2013 U.S. News Tax Rankings

Here are the new 2013 U.S. News Tax Rankings, along with last year's rankings. For the second year in a row, Florida is ahead of Georgetown at #2:

2013 Rank	Tax Program	2012 Rank
1	NYU	1
2	Florida	2
3	Georgetown	3
4	Northwestern	4
5	Harvard	6
6	Boston University	9
6	UCLA	7
6	Virginia	8
9	Miami	5
10	Loyola-L.A.	10
11	Michigan	14
12	Columbia	10
12	USC	14
14	Boston College	16
14	San Diego	16
14	Texas	10
17	Pennsylvania	16
17	Stanford	10
17	Villanova	16
20	Chicago	22
21	Denver	n/r
21	Indiana	n/r
23	Duke	n/r
23	Florida State	n/r
n/r	U. Washington	20
n/r	Chapman	21
n/r	UC-Hastings	22

The biggest movers are:

• +3:  Boston University (#6)
• +3:  Michigan (#11)
• +2:  Virginia (#8)
• +2:  USC (#12)
• +2   Boston College (#14)
• +2:  San Diego (#14)
• +2   Chicago (#20)
• -7:  Stanford (#17)
• -4:  Miami (#9)
• -4:  Texas (#14)
• -2:  Columbia (#12)

Denver, Duke, Indiana, and Florida State were unraked last year and are ranked this year. Washington (#20), Chapman (#21), and UC-Hastings (#22) were ranked last year and are unranked this year.

Here are the rankings of the graduate tax programs, along with last year's rankings. For the first time, Boston University is ranked higher than Miami.

2013 Rank	Grad Tax Program	2012 Rank
1	NYU	1
2	Florida	2
3	Georgetown	3
4	Northwestern	4
5	Boston University	6
6	Miami	5
7	Loyola-L.A.	7
8	San Diego	8
9	Villanova	8
10	Denver	n/r
n/r	U. Washington	10
n/r	Chapman	11

Denver was unranked last year and is ranked this year. Washington (#10) and Chapman (#11) were ranked last year and are unranked this year.

For the 2008-2011 U.S. News tax rankings, see here.

The U.S. News tax survey instrument states that it is intended "to identify the law schools having the top programs in tax law." The survey is sent "to a sample of law school faculty listed in the AALS Directory of Law Teachers 2009-2010 as currently teaching a course or seminar in tax law." Recipients are asked "to [i]dentify up to fifteen (15) schools that have the highest-quality tax law courses or programs. In making your choices consider all elements that contribute to a program's excellence, for example, the depth and breadth of the program, faculty research and publication record, etc."

As Donald Tobin (Ohio State) has noted, it is more than strange that NYU has finished ahead of Florida and Georgetown each year that U.S. News has conducted the survey.  Because the survey ranks the schools by how often they appear on the respondents' "Top 15" lists, this means that some folks list NYU, but not Florida and Georgetown, among the Top 15 tax programs.

For more on tax rankings, see our article, Pursuing a Tax LLM Degree: Where?, which compiles information about 13 highly ranked tax LLM programs: (1) NYU; (2) Florida; (3) Georgetown; (4) Northwestern; (5) Miami; (6) Boston University; (7) San Diego; (8) Loyola-L.A./LMU; (9) SMU; (10) Denver; (11) University of Washington; (12) Villanova; and (13) Chapman. The topics on which information is reported in the Article include: (1) tuition; (2) scholarships; (3) the full-time tax professors who teach in each program and the tax courses they teach; (4) the number of full-time and part-time students enrolled in each program; (5) general information about adjunct professors teaching in each program; (6) required courses; (7) elective courses, specialty certificates, and concentrations; (8) opportunities to develop tax practice skills by taking experiential learning courses and simulated practice courses; (9) extracurricular tax activities; (10) opportunities to graduate with honors or receive academic prizes; and (11) career planning and placement services offered to students in each program. The article also ranks the tax faculty at these thirteen law schools by citations (the Top 5 are NYU (1), Florida (2), Georgetown (3), Miami (4), and Northwestern (5)) and SSRN downloads (the Top 5 are Loyola-L.A. (1), NYU (2), Chapman (3), Florida (4), and San Diego (5)).

Other resources available on TaxProf Blog include:

• Links to All 32 Graduate Tax Programs
• Tax Faculty Rankings
• Graduate Tax Faculty Rankings
• Tax Professor Rankings
• Tax Faculty Metropolitan Area Rankings
• Links to Tax Colloquia Workshop Series (left column of the blog)