Skip to main content

U of Chicago, Cornell Law Schools Will Stay in ‘U.S. News’ Rankings

The law schools of the University of Chicago and Cornell University may not love the U.S. News & World Report rankings, but they aren’t walking away from them.

University of Chicago dean Thomas J. Miles wrote to students that “my past practice has been to avoid direct, public comment on the U.S. News ranking. The ranking is not our guide, and I prefer to shine a light on the substantive attributes that make our Law School the home of the most intellectually ambitious faculty and the most powerful legal education. Most of the data we supply to U.S. News are already public, and the rest is information we have no reason to withhold. The rankings of academic institutions clearly have a readership, and we wish to prevent the use of inaccurate information. Fundamentally, a ranking of schools is an opinion. A ranking is the product of innumerable and contestable design choices. As our university is dedicated to the free expression of ideas and to questioning viewpoints, our aim is not to suppress opinions. Rather, we should encourage prospective students to apply critical thinking and reach their own conclusions about what value the rankings add.”

Cornell’s law school also announced that it will still participate in the rankings of U.S. News & World Report.

“My own view is that the rankings distort academic decision-making, fail to adequately capture institutional quality, and create perverse incentives that are not in the best interests of students or the legal profession,” said Jens David Ohlin, dean of the law school.

He added, “However, withdrawal from the rankings process will not have the desired impact that many assume that it will have. For one, U.S. News has said that it will continue to rank all law schools regardless of their level of participation. In addition, all law schools are already required to report most of the relevant data used in the rankings to the American Bar Association, and this information is publicly available by [American Bar Association] rule. This includes LSAT, GPA, acceptance rate, yield, number of courses, faculty head count, average financial aid package, bar passage rates, career outcomes, and more.”

Nine law schools, including those of Harvard and Yale Universities, have said they will not participate in the rankings in the future.

Ad keywords: 
Is this diversity newsletter?: 
Disable left side advertisement?: 
Is this Career Advice newsletter?: 
Live Updates: 
liveupdates0


Udimi - Buy Solo Ads from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/mNCI8uA
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Author discusses book on grad school

Graduate school is a great mystery to students, and to some faculty members, says Jessica McCrory Calarco, the author of A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (Princeton University Press). Calarco is an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University. She believes many faculty members (as well as graduate students, of course) will benefit from her book. She responded to questions via email. Q: How did you get the idea to write this book? Why did the issue speak to you? A: This book started as a tweet . Or, rather, as a series of tweets about the hidden curriculum of higher ed. Ph.D. student Kristen K. Smith had tweeted about the need to better educate undergrads about grad school opportunities, and it made me think about how opportunities in academe are often hidden from grad students, as well. Reflecting on my own experiences in grad school, I thought about the many times I'd found myself embarrassed because of what I didn't know -- the

Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About “Critical Race Theory” Come From?—Follow the Money!

Blog:  Just Visiting Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About “Critical Race Theory” Come From?—Follow the Money! By Isaac Kamola Trinity College Hartford, CT There are now numerous well-documented examples of wealthy right-wing and libertarian donors using that wealth to transform higher education in their own image. Between 2005 and 2019, for example, the Charles Koch Foundation has spent over  $485 million  at more than 550 universities. As demonstrated by Douglas Beets and others, many of these grants include considerable  donor influence  over what gets taught, researched, and even who gets hired. It should therefore come as no surprise that conservative megadonor, Walter Hussman Jr.,  lobbied hard  to deny the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones a tenured professorship at the UNC journalism school that bears his name. Nor that her offer of tenure, awarded through the normal channels of faculty governance, was ultimately  revoked   by a far-

Live Updates: Latest News on COVID-19 and Higher Education

Image:  Woman Charged With Faking Positive COVID-19 Test From U of Iowa   Nov. 5, 6:14 a.m. A lawyer in Colorado has been charged with faking a positive COVID-19 test from the University of Iowa to get out of a court appearance, The Gazette reported.   Emily Elizabeth Cohen was booked Tuesday on a detainer from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, shortly after she tweeted that the Colorado court system “just had me arrested alleging I lied about having COVID. Tweeting from cop car.”   The Boulder Daily Camera reported that Cohen is scheduled for a 10-day trial in Boulder County in Colorado starting Dec. 6 for 11 felony counts stemming from allegations she collected fees from immigrant families before losing contact with them without producing visas or work permits.   -- Scott Jaschik Judge Permits Suit Against Montana State to Go to Trial Nov. 3, 6:18 a.m. A Montana judge has ruled that a suit against Montana State University over the shift to online education