The University's Law School ranks seventh among the nation's top law schools, according to the 2013 Best Graduate Schools rankings released yesterday by U.S. News and World Report.
The Law School tied for seventh place with the law schools at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, improving on its ninth-place spot in the 2012 U.S. News law school rankings.
The full list included statistical information for about 1,200 of the nation's higher education programs and featured rankings for business, law, education, engineering and medicine schools, according to a statement released yesterday by U.S. News.
U.S. News rankings expert Robert Morse said the organization considers a number of factors to create the rankings, including consulting practicing legal professionals, comparing admissions statistics and analyzing the success of the law schools' graduates.
The published information includes the schools' tuition and fees, enrollment rates, median LSAT and GPA scores, acceptance rates, assessment scores by lawyers/judges, and employment rates nine months after graduation.
The list showed University Law School graduates had a post-graduation employment rate of 98.1 percent, the highest of all the 145 top-tier schools included in the rankings.
Yale University, Stanford University and Harvard University topped the list of law schools overall, holding the first, second and third spots respectively.
Brian Kelly, editor of U.S. News, noted the importance of the rankings.
"Both students and law firms pay close attention to how law schools are performing," Kelly said in a statement released by U.S. News. "The U.S. News Best Law Schools not only include the ranking lists, but also additional data about these law schools and their academic programs."
Martha Ballenger, Law School assistant dean for student affairs, said she thought the list could impact students applying to graduate school.
"It's of course gratifying to move up in rankings because they do seem to figure prominently in the decision of many applicants," Ballenger said in an email. "We hope, however, that prospective students will base their choice of a school on a thoughtful consideration of factors particularly relevant to them."
Second-year Law student Alex Aurisch, the Student Bar Association president, however, said students should not solely consider the Law School's rankings when evaluating its appropriateness.
"Rankings are certainly influential for prospective law students and very helpful for giving them an overview, but there are also other factors that students consider important when choosing a law school, such as financial support, specific areas of law that schools have strong programs in, and proximity to home," Aurisch said.
Highlights of the rankings will be published in the "Best Graduate Schools 2013" book, which goes on sale April 3 2012.
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