U.S. News Delays Release Of Law School Rankings By One Week Due To 'Unprecedented Number Of Inquiries From Schools.' Is Bar Data To Blame?

Update: 

• The U.S. News Law School Rankings: Say Hello To The New T14 (Apr. 15, 2023)
• What Is Behind The Delay In Releasing The U.S. News Law School Rankings? (Apr. 18, 2023)
• U.S. News Delays Release Of Law School Rankings Again Due To 'Unprecedented Number Of Inquiries,' Including From Schools That Are Ostensibly Boycotting The Rankings (Apr. 19, 2023)
• U.S. News Indefinitely Postpones Law And Medical School Rankings Amid Backlash (Apr. 21, 2023)
• NY Times: Rankings Schadenfreude — Elite Law Schools Boycotted U.S. News But Now May Be Paying A Price (Apr. 22, 2023)

At 3:15 PM ET today, U.S. News emailed Deans and other law school administrators the following:

As part of its normal graduate school ranking publication process every year, U.S. News gives schools an opportunity to review their data during an “embargo period”. This year, we received an unprecedented number of inquiries from schools and are devoting additional time to comprehensively address these inquiries.

As a result, U.S. News will now publish the full 2023-2024 Best Graduate School Rankings on April 25, 2023.

Schools participating in the embargo period will receive a link to the updated embargo site on Wednesday, April 19. Information found on that site will be embargoed until 12:01 am ET on Tuesday, April 25, at which time it will be live at usnews.com/best-graduate-schools.

In my March 15 post, Preview Of The 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings: First-Time Bar Passage, I noted apparent miscalculations or discrepancies/inconsistencies in the data of eleven law schools on the ABA bar passage spreadsheet of all 196 law schools and noted the ABA's warning at the top of the spreadsheet:

First Time Bar Passage Calendar Year 2021 (Any corrections in the data after April 23, 2021 can be found at http://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/BarPassageOutcomes.aspx)

I wonder if U.S. News relied on the ABA bar passage spreadsheet without checking the ABA site for corrected data for updated bar passage information for each of the 196 law schools. 

Shades of 2021:

• U.S. News Makes Last-Minute Changes to Law School Rankings, Fueling Criticism And Concern (Mar. 26, 2021)
• U.S. News Issues THIRD Version Of Law School Rankings In Advance Of Their Public Release On Tuesday (12:01 AM ET) (Mar. 29, 2021)