Earlier today, the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law became the third top law school, after Yale and Harvard, to withdraw from the US News law school rankings. Yesterday, Yale and Harvard announced they were withdrawing from the US News law school rankings.
As with so many issues these days, this revolves around equity. The law schools believe the rankings create perverse incentives to award financial aid to applicants with the highest grades and LSAT scores. They also believe the rankings put too much emphasis on graduate salaries that harm public interest career support.
Berkeley became the third top law school to withdraw from the US News rankings.
Eric Gertler, the CEO of US News, explained the publication’s position, “The U.S. News Best Law Schools rankings are for students seeking the best decision for their law education. We will continue to fulfill our journalistic mission of ensuring that students can rely on the best and most accurate information in making that decision. As part of our mission, we must continue to ensure that law schools are held accountable for the education they will provide to these students and that mission does not change with this recent announcement.”
In the field of law school, there really is only one ranking that most applicants care about at all. And that is the rankings compiled by US News. We understand that at least a few additional top law schools are considering joining the withdrawal movement, and we expect more schools to follow in the weeks ahead.
It is our hope that “cooler heads” can prevail and that some type of compromise can be reached. (Perhaps with respect to the rankings criteria and weightings.) The rankings do provide useful information to prospective applicants and students benefit when information is widely shared and disseminated. Unfortunately, a compromise could not be reached before this fissure occurred.
Oftentimes, these disruptive events cast far-spread ripples, and other institutions in adjacent spaces are similarly affected. Thus far, and very much to our surprise, however, there are no indications any of these universities’ business schools or undergraduate programs are discussing potentially withdrawing from their respective rankings.
