Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Over/Under at 120

A law professor was able to reverse engineer how U.S. News & World Report determines their law school rankings. Consequently, he determined that Penn may have been overrated (more on the stats here. Of course with this ability - and of greater interest to me - he can also determine the ranking number of third and fourth tiered law schools. Alas, he has decided to not go that route. Which may not be such a bad thing as one commentor put it:

My dad (a college teacher) once grumbled that the change from "A,B,C" grading to "A,A-,B+,B,B-,C+,C" (at UIUC circa 1981) was meant to make the question of cutoffs less worth quibbling about, but of course tripled the number of students who were one point below the cutoff; and each complained as loudly as before.

The schools in Tier 3 can all tell themselves they're near the top of Tier 3. Rank them and you take away that private consolation, making at least half of them more likely to complain.

Does anyone at SWLAW console themselves in that manner?

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