Cooley Is Latest Law School Taking a Blog Battering
Thinking of transferring from Thomas Cooley Law School to a better-ranked school? Good luck with that.
That’s the message from U.S. News & World Report’s Get In: Law School blog. It advises law students who want to “transfer up” that good grades and class rank are a factor, but so too is the quality of their present law school. “After all, since everyone from the top 10 is trying to transfer to Harvard,” the blog says, “and everyone from the top 20 is trying to transfer to the top 10, you won’t be transferring from Thomas Cooley to Harvard. (Actually, it’s extremely difficult to transfer from Thomas Cooley to anywhere.)”
The U.S. News blogger, Ann Levine, says she has worked with some students who were able to make the leap to a higher-ranked school. She gives these examples:
• Cardozo to Columbia.
• Touro College to Cardozo.
• Southwestern to the University of Southern California.
• Catholic University and Loyola at Los Angeles to Georgetown.
• New York University to Stanford and Harvard.
Touro didn’t fare as well in a blog post by Above the Law, which noted its $40,000 tuition. “We don’t cover Touro Law School a lot on these pages because frankly it would just be mean,” ATL wrote. “The school, located in New York, is ranked fourth tier by U.S. News, and that’s probably generous.” The blog later ran a rebuttal from a student who wrote about a sense of camaraderie at the school and professors who actually care about their students.
Cooley didn’t supply enough information for a U.S. News ranking in 2010. An associate dean at Cooley blasted U.S. News early last year, saying its emphasis on LSAT scores has led to a drop in the percentage of minorities entering law schools. Associate dean John Nussbaumer said Cooley doesn’t go along with the emphasis on high LSATs, but its graduates can still pass the bar and be great lawyers.
Above the Law noted the latest Get In: Law School post.
