U.S. News will release this year's ranking of law schools to the schools themselves on Thursday, followed by public release on Friday. There's been no change in methodology, so, except for arbitrary fluctuations or particularly aggressive fibbing (or, shall we say, "creative" data reporting) by the schools, there really shouldn't be any changes in the overall rankings--though I'm sure there will be a few.
I'm most interested to see what the feedback effect was, if any, between last year's survey of more than 150 leading legal scholars (including Richard Posner, Saul Levmore, Mark Tushnet, Daniel Farber, John Coffee, Roberta Romano, and many others) and the "academic reputation" surveys that are part of the U.S. News rankings. Evidence of some feedback would be, e.g., noticeable increases (more than .1) in the academic reputation score for schools like San Diego and George Mason, and noticeable decreases (.1 or more) for schools like Duke. We'll see...
Meanwhile, various students have sent friendly e-mails inquiring about when my law school ranking site will next be updated. This one is representative:
"I am looking forward to the 2004-2005 rankings, and am wondering when it will be released. Most people, and that includes me, believe that your ranking
methodologies are sound and accurate, while that of the U.S. news is fundamentally flawed. I used your rankings in making up my mind about whether or not to enroll at the University of Chicago Law School, and I have found your analysis to be right on the money. I will be graduating in June and I am always in awe at the quality and prolificness of our faculty at the law
school. Your ranking is gaining in popularity and it is only a matter of time for your ranking to replace the U.S. News ranking as the number one ranking source for Law Schools. Please do e-mail me to let me know when it is released. Thank you so much for your tremendous service to the legal community."
Gratifying response, and I hope I can dislodge US News over the next few years, not just among academics (which is fairly easy), but prospective students. We'll see....
Anyway, the plan is to update much of the "objective" data on the law school ranking site (Supreme Court clerkship placement, student credentials, perhaps some of the aggregated citation studies) this summer, and to conduct a new, systematic reputational survey to assess faculty quality in the fall.
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