US News Won't Alter Old Surveys, But Foresees 'Negative Impact' re New Villanova LSAT, GPA Info
Admitted fudging of the LSAT and GPA data provided by Villanova University to U.S. News & World Report won’t change its place in the magazine’s prior law school rankings.
That’s because U.S. News has decided to stick with its policy of making no after-the-fact changes, writes research director Robert Morse today in the magazine’s Morse Code blog.
However, Morse predicts a “meaningfull negative impact” on Villanova’s ranking in 2010 based on the law school’s certified-to-be-correct LSAT and GPA numbers for 2010, compared to what was previously provided for 2009.
This year, Villanova reported a median LSAT of 160 and median undergraduate GPA of 3.33 for the class that entered law school in 2010. Last year, the numbers the school reported for those entering in the fall of 2009 were 162 and 3.44.
For 2010, “we have had these numbers verified as part of an independent investigation conducted by Ropes & Gray,” writes the law school’s new dean, John Gotanda, in a Feb. 10 letter to Morse (PDF). “Because our investigation is still ongoing, we are not able at this time to provide information concerning the scope of the inaccurate admissions data for earlier years.”
As detailed in a previous ABAJournal.com post, the law school self-reported the data problem as soon as Gotanda discovered it.
