US News rankings change with better jobs data; which law schools are now unranked?
New York Law School is no longer ranked by U.S. News & World Report.
Neither is John Marshall Law School, Southwestern Law School, the University of Toledo College of Law and Willamette University College of Law, the National Law Journal reports. They have fallen out of the top 145 schools and into the second unranked tier in rankings released Tuesday by U.S. News.
Big changes are afoot because U.S. News is factoring in new jobs information for law grads that is now required by the American Bar Association, according to the NLJ and Bloomberg Law. Most affected are law schools in the 50 to 150 range, says Bob Morse, director of data research with U.S. News, in a Bloomberg Law interview.
Graduate placement rates account for 20 percent of a school’s overall score. Greater weight is now given for permanent, full-time jobs that require bar passage or for which a J.D. is an advantage.
The largest drop for any law school in the rankings was a 38-rank decline experienced by the University of San Francisco School of Law. It now has the 144th spot. The school with the biggest rankings gain is the University of Mississippi School of Law, jumping 33 spots and moving into the No. 102 rank. The NLJ charts the biggest gainers and losers.
The top law schools didn’t change much. The top five are:
1) Yale University
2) Harvard University and Stanford University (a tie)
4) Columbia University and the University of Chicago (a tie)
Last year, Yale also had first place, but Stanford beat Harvard for second place, and Columbia beat Chicago for fourth place.
