Law School Rankings By Student Quality (LSAT And UGPA)

Christopher J. Ryan Jr. (Vanderbilt) & Brian L. Frye (Kentucky), The 2018 Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools:

In A Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools, [69 Ala. L. Rev. 495 (2017),] we presented a law school ranking based exclusively on the combined scores of the students in a school’s 2011-16 incoming classes. ... In this article, we present a law school ranking based exclusively on the combined scores of the students in a school’s 2017 incoming class.

Our ranking relies on the ABA Standard 509 Information Reports submitted by all 204 ABA-accredited law schools. Among other things, the Reports provide the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile UGPA and LSAT scores of matriculating students. We used the 2017 Reports to derive an index score for each reporting law school, using those six data points and giving each equal weight. That index score reflects a law school’s ability to compete for the most desirable matriculants. The higher the score, the stronger the students; the lower the score, the weaker the students. Or, viewed another way, the higher the score, the more effectively the school appeals to prospective law students; the lower the score, the less effectively the school appeals to prospective law students.

We then ranked all 204 law schools by index score in decreasing order, creating the 2018 Revealed-Preferences ranking of law schools. ...

The 2018 Revealed-Preferences Rankings of the top 10 law schools is broadly consistent with the 2018 U.S. News & World Report ranking. However, the Revealed-Preferences Rankings of law schools outside the top 10 diverges significantly from the U.S. News rankings. For example, UCLA cracks the nearly time-invariant T-14s, sneaking in at 14, while Georgetown finds itself on the outside, looking in. Just outside this group, USC also fares better, at 16, than the U.S. News rankings, while Texas and Washington University lost 4 and 2 spots compared to their U.S. News rankings, respectively. BYU, however, was among the biggest winners, gaining 23 spots and checking in at 18 in our rankings.

In the next grouping, UC-Irvine slipped precipitously from 21 in the U.S. News rankings to 37 in our rankings. Minnesota also dropped from top 20 in the U.S. News rankings to 24 in the Revealed-Preferences Rankings, while George Washington fell from 24 in the U.S. News rankings to 27, outside the top 25 in our rankings. This year, again, William & Mary and Alabama, gained the most around the top 25 grouping, with Alabama gaining 6 spots at 21 and William & Mary increasing its placement 11 spots at 26. Washington & Lee recorded the greatest loss in this group, slipping from 26 in the U.S. News rankings to outside the top 50, at 55, in our rankings. Similarly, Iowa and Wisconsin tumbled greatly from 27 in the U.S. News ranking to 43 and 48 in our rankings, respectively, while Boston College fell from 27 to 33. Also, Illinois, a perennial top 40 school in the U.S. News rankings fell to 47, while North Carolina dropped from 45 to 50.

LSAT & GPA Rank	Law School	U.S. News  Rank
1	Yale	1
2	Harvard	3
3	Stanford	2
4	Chicago	4
5	NYU	6
6	Pennsylvania	7
7	Virginia	9
8	Columbia	5
9	Michigan	8
10	UC-Berkeley	9
11	Northwestern	11
12	Cornell	13
13	Duke	11
14	UCLA	16
15	Georgetown	14
16	USC	19
17	Vanderbilt	17
18	BYU	41
19	Texas	15
20	Washington U.	18
21	Alabama	27
22	Emory	22
23	Boston University	22
24	Minnesota	20
25	Notre Dame	24
26	William & Mary	37
27	G. Washington	24
28	Arizona State	27
29	U. Washington	32
30	Indiana	32
31	Ohio State	32
32	Georgia	32
33	Boston College	27
34	George Mason	41
35	Florida	41
36	Fordham	37
37	UC-Irvine	21
38	UC-Davis	37
39	SMU	50
40	Northeastern	74
41	Wake Forest	32
42	Colorado	46
43	Iowa	27
44	Arizona	41
45	Nebraska	80
46	Florida State	47
47	Illinois	37
48	Wisconsin	27
49	Utah	54
50	North Carolina	45
51	Pepperdine	RNP
52	Houston	56
53	Villanova	56
54	Cincinnati	65
55	Washington & Lee	26
56	Loyola-L.A.	65
57	Oklahoma	63
58	St. John's	83
59	Temple	47
60	Baylor	50
61	Richmond	50
62	Cardozo	56
63	UNLV	59
64	Tennessee	65
65	Penn State	74
66	Case Western	65
67	San Diego	95
68	Maryland	49
69	Florida Int'l	101
70	Georgia State	65
71	Tulane	54
72	Connecticut	50
73	Kansas	74
74	Michigan State	88
75	UC-Hastings	58