It’s been a ROCKY few years for the U.S. News law school rankings. In November of 2022, Yale Law School announced they were pulling out of the rankings, and that quickly escalated to over 20 percent of law schools exiting along with Yale. The boycott of U.S. News spread to elite medical schools as well. U.S. News changed their methodology in an effort to soften critics, but last year’s ranking was delayed and rejiggered as errors kept on being found in the data. This year’s had similar — though not as severe — issues, and corrections were made to the embargoed rankings before the final version went out.
Given all this drama, you have to wonder, do the rankings even matter anymore? According to a new survey by Kaplan of law school admissions counselors, 51 percent of law schools said the once-premiere rankings “have lost some of their prestige over the last couple of years.” I mean… fair. When a ranking ties Duke with Harvard Law, it’s hard to argue it does the best job of sorting law schools. But 18 percent of those surveyed disagreed, and the remaining 31 percent didn’t take a position.
But pre-law students — folks who haven’t yet been exposed to the realities of the legal industry — still see the value in the ranking. In a separate pre-law survey by Kaplan, 53 percent of respondents said there was still value in the ranking, while 37 percent said it would be a “positive development for both law schools and applicants to no longer have rankings at all.”
All of which leaves a rather complex environment, as Amit Schlesinger, executive director of legal and government programs, Kaplan, notes, “Throughout the years, numerous admissions officers have quipped that ‘U.S. News Rankings Eve’ is often a sleepless night for law school leaders, as the fate of their positions may hang in the balance. That’s how important it is for some law schools, many of which use their ranking as an important student recruitment and fundraising tool.” He continued, “We believe that the rankings can be a useful aggregate for pre-law students for important stats like post-graduation job numbers and starting salaries, but the risk is giving a school’s ranking too much weight in determining where you ultimately enroll. Above all else, discover which schools seem like the best fit for you personally and your professional goals. To do this, we strongly advise pre-law students to visit the schools they’re interested in and connect with current students and alumni to discuss their experiences. Through this discovery process, many aspiring law school students may be surprised by what schools are good matches, which may also open more scholarship opportunities for them. Of course, many cost-conscious aspiring law school students are looking at sticker price, which remains a top factor too. That may even supersede the rankings, for many.”
But the fact that we’re even questioning the U.S. News ranking — once thought of as decisive factor in the admissions game — shows how far it’s fallen.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
