The University of Minnesota Law School has slipped out of the top 20 in the influential rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, the Pioneer Press reports. The PiPress goes on to say:
The picture was mixed for the state's three other law schools. The PiPress notes a jump for Hamline University's law school, which joins the University of St. Thomas in the ranking's "third tier." Meanwhile, William Mitchell College of Law fell from the third tier to fourth.The university now ranks 22nd among national law schools, according to the 2009 rankings due to be released today. That's down from a rank of 20 in 2008 and 19 in 2007.
While many experts attack the U.S. News rankings as a poor and superficial way to judge an institution's quality, the numbers carry tremendous weight with prospective students and law firms looking to hire top graduates. The university has promoted its law school as a "top 20" destination. In December, as it named David Wippman its new dean, the university referred to its law school as "consistently ranked in the top 20."
For more from the PiPress click here.
I have written before about how little stock I put in the accuracy of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Drawing such fine distinctions between law schools -- the difference between a #20 and a #22 school, for example -- is completely arbitrary. Tweak your magic formula of weightings a bit, and, lo and behold, the schools flip flop positions on the list.
It would be almost laughable, except there is no doubt these ratings have real world effect, particularly if your law school drops out of the "Top 20," as the U of M did. The U of M can now expect a drop in its law school applications and for its law graduates to have a slightly harder time in securing big firm jobs outside the region.
I don't know about you, but that makes me mad enough to cancel my U.S. News & World Reports subscription, if I hadn't already done that a decade ago, that is ...
7 comments:
I agree with the idea that the USN&WR rankings as being a joke (maybe the law schools should have to list the type of job that the graduates have, not just if they are employed or not...)
I'm not sure that the "Top 20" distinction is even anything other than arbitrary.
Most law students seem to be hung up on whether or not your school was in the top 14 or not (with the usual suspects in that list). The U of M isn't part of that list so a drop of a few spots isn't going to make a significant difference. If you are going to work outside of the immediate area and want anyone to know your school, then you need to go to the U of M. Otherwise, any of the others will get the job done.
I'm sure St. Thomas will find a way to keep their numbers high enough (re:$$$) to stay in the third tier, but Mitchell and Hamline will continue to move back and forth between third and fourth tier as their numbers vary each year.
If students or employers come up with cutoff points based on these rankings, blame them, not a magazine.
You bring up a good point, the magazine is not really the guilty party here. The employers and students ultimately must take responsibility for giving any credence to these rankings. (That was the focus of my column on this issue a few months back.)
Prospective students don't really know any better, but employers should. I recall picking between three law schools when I was a college senior -- and, having not much else to go on -- looking to the US News & World Report ratings to distinguish between the schools' reputations. I would have thought that a better system would have evolved by now, but, unfortunately, it hasn't.
By contrast, I have no patience for a recruiter or hiring partner who thinks it makes a difference whether the U was ranked as #20 or #22 when a student went there. I guarantee that the students who went to the school during the two different ratigs periods did not have substantially different educational experiences.
As TaxProf Blog notes, however,
(h/t Instapundit), the U. does quite well when ranked by reputation (# 15).
And when ranked on the basis of friendliness to gophers -- #1!
UMN law is ranked 16th on vault.com's employer survey
http://www.vault.com/lawschool/top25/
Honestly, for job placements Minnesota Law School, isn't even 4th tier. We send less than 20% of our graduates top the top 250 firms, while most schools in the top 30 send at least a third. We have significantly lower salaries than other comparable law schools In my 3l class most students do not have jobs.
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