EVERY year, thousands of colleges and graduate programs are ranked. Every year colleges and graduate schools complain that the rankings are unfair and do not clearly show which schools are better. One of the most vigorous attacks on the rankings system has come from law schools. The only problem is that the law schools are wrong.
In the 2000 U.S. News & World Report Graduate School rankings, the magazine notes, "In the past few years, law-school officials have expressed concern that applicants pay too much attention to rankings."
Several years ago, most of the leading law schools wrote a letter attacking the rankings system. The apparent target of this letter was U.S. News. The letter implied that the rankings were seriously flawed and therefore should not be used.
The problem was that the number of students applying to law schools nationally was declining. The number of law school applications did not rise for seven years between 1991 and 1998. Many law school deans apparently worried that part of the decline could be a result of the rankings system and students only wanting to go to the top law schools. But another explanation could be that the main problem was that the economy was doing so well, and traditionally less students go to graduate school in times of economic prosperity.
Regardless of their reasons, law schools' hatred of the rankings make no sense. Law schools routinely base much of their admission process simply on numbers. Many schools use an "index number" to aid their admission process, which consists simply of a formula combining an applicant's grade-point-average and their LSAT score.
Law schools typically rely more on numbers in their admissions process than other schools.
|
Rankings are important because they indicate which law schools give their applicants the best chance for success. While a ranking is not necessary to know that Stanford has an excellent law school, it would be helpful to know that the University of Texas has a top law program - ranked 15 according toU.S. News. While it may be true that a person's graduate school will only matter in terms of getting a first job, that first job is important.
The law schools' rankings also usually take into account a number of important factors such as a school's reputation, its student-faculty ratio and the percent of students employed at graduation.
Dean John Jeffries of the University's School of Law has a more enlightened view. In a personal interview, he said, "Personally, I see no problem at all in U.S. News or any other source evaluating law schools and other institutions. The criteria they use, while flawed, are generally not silly, and the information they provide could be genuinely helpful."
Jeffries said he has a problem with U.S. News' expenditure per student, which is a part of its faculty resources overall measure. U.S. Newscounts financial aid in this equation, which helps out private schools and puts public schools at a disadvantage. The public schools usually cost less, but give out less financial aid as a result. Rankings are not perfect, as this shows, but they are valuable tools for students.
Rankings encourage schools to continue to thrive to be better than their competitors. Although the rankings may sometimes obstruct the hidden qualities of some institutions, they also show which institutions are doing their job well. While professors and deans may complain about the rankings, they are always aware of where their school was ranked. Why should a student pay almost $30,000 a year to one law school that will not necessarily give the student the same education as another law one?
If law school deans spent more time worrying about improving their schools rather than complaining about rankings, their rank would not only increase, but their law school would actually get better.
(Harris Freier's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at hfreier@cavalierdaily.com.)
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 19 hours agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | YesterdayAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | 6 days agoEvery student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
