Stanford Is No. 1 in Prof’s Take on Princeton Review Survey

Stanford Law School comes out on top in a law professor’s analysis of a new guide to 172 law schools.

Paul Caron, author of TaxProf Blog and the associate dean of faculty at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, looked at five categories in the Princeton Review’s guide, Best 172 Law Schools, to devise his list. The Princeton Review ranked law schools in 11 different categories, but did not combine them for a list of overall top law schools.

Caron’s top five are:

1) Stanford

2) Chicago

3) Virginia

4) Boston University

5) Texas and Vanderbilt (tied)

Yale is ranked first by U.S. News & World Report, but it is ranked 37th in Caron’s analysis of the five Princeton Review categories. Harvard, ranked second by U.S. News & World report, is 26th on Caron’s list. Another curious finding: Yale was at the bottom of a list of schools where students studied the hardest; the Princeton Review survey found Yale students studied only 1.5 hours a day.

Caron’s analysis of Princeton Review data last year put Stanford on top, followed by Virginia, Chicago, Northwestern and Pennsylvania. Caron’s categories were academic experience, admissions selectivity, career preparation, and professors that are rated accessible and interesting (the latter is a combination of two Princeton Review categories). The Princeton Review did not release response rates at each school, so it’s unclear how many students at each school contributed to the data.

The Princeton Review’s guide is based on surveys of more than 18,000 law students and data from school administrators.

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