It’s Back. U.S. News Posts Updated 2023-2024 Best Law School Rankings

The U.S. News and World Report has posted the final 2023-2024 Best Law School rankings. And there has been significant change since last year due to the new methodology. Notably, even since the preview released in April, Harvard has dropped one spot and NYU has ticked up one spot to form a three-way tie at the fifth rank with Duke University. 

Changes to the T14 from the 2022-2023 rankings include: 

• Yale shares the top spot with Stanford, which moved up from the second spot in 2022.

• UPenn climbed in the rankings from 6th in 2022 to 4th this year.

• Harvard dropped from the 3rd spot in last year’s ranking to tie for the 5th spot in 2023 with Duke. Duke moved up five positions from the 10th rank last year.

• Columbia dropped from the 4th rank in 2022 to tie for 8th with UVA this year. 

• Northwestern jumped up two positions moving from 12th in 2022 to tie for 10th alongside UC Berkeley and University of Michigan. 

Outside of the T14, highlights include: 

• USC Gould and the University of Minnesota moved up from the 19th and 22nd ranks last year, respectively, to tie for 16th with Vanderbilt, University of Texas, and University of Minnesota in 2023. 

• Washington University in St. Louis dropped from the 16th rank last year to tie for 20th with the University of Georgia. Georgia moved up from the 27th rank in 2022. 

• Ohio State and Wake Forest jumped from the 40th and 41st ranks, respectively, last year, to enter the top 25. They are both part of a five-way tie for 22nd along with Brigham Young, University of Florida, and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Brigham Young moved up to the 22nd rank from 29th last year. 

• Boston University fell out of the top 25, moving from the 20th rank in 2022 to 29th this year.

Rank School Name

1 Stanford University (tie)

1 Yale University (tie)

3 University of Chicago

4 University of Pennsylvania (Carey) (tie)

5 Duke University (tie)

5 Harvard University (tie)

5 New York University (tie)

8 Columbia University (tie)

8 University of Virginia (tie)

10 Northwestern University (Pritzker) (tie)

10 University of California, Berkeley (tie)

10 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (tie)

13 Cornell University

14 University of California—Los Angeles

15 Georgetown University

16 University of Minnesota (tie)

16 University of Southern California (Gould)

16 University of Texas--Austin

16 Vanderbilt University

20 University of Georgia

20 Washington University in St. Louis

22 Brigham Young University (Clark)

22 Ohio State University (Moritz)

22 University of Florida (Levin)

22 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill

22 Wake Forest University

The Chairman and CEO of U.S. News & World Report Accuses Elite Law and Medical Schools of Evading Accountability

The U.S. News & World Report has publicly defended its rankings, hitting back at the elite law and medical schools that have staged public boycotts. Eric Gertler, Executive Chairman and CEO of U.S. News & World Report, penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed, which was ffollowed a day later by a full-page ad in the Boston Globe timed to coincide with a conference hosted by Harvard and Yale Law Schools on “best practices in data.” 

While US News & World Report’s previous response to the boycott focused on responding to criticisms of the methodology and seeking collaboration, more recently, they have taken a defensive stance. Gertler’s op-ed not only defended the rankings, but also leveled sharp accusations towards the withdrawing schools. He accused them of evading accountability and not wanting to rely on an independent third party that they cannot control. Gertler then went on to tie the schools’ decision to withdraw from the rankings to the Supreme Court’s current review of the use of affirmative action in school admissions decisions. He proposes that elite schools are currently de-emphasizing GPA and standardized test scores in admissions, in advance of the decision, to provide themselves more leeway in the future. 

“There is added urgency as the Supreme Court considers a pair of cases on affirmative action that could change admission norms. Some law deans are already exploring ways to sidestep any restrictive ruling by reducing their emphasis on test scores and grades—criteria used in our rankings,” Gertler wrote.

In defending the rankings, which Gertler admits cannot accommodate every nuance in educational excellence, he points to the ranking’s ability to provide “accurate, comprehensive information that empowers students to compare institutions and identify the factors that matter most to them.” And, he concludes, the elite schools that have withdrawn have ended their participation in a critical national discourse about what constitutes excellence in education. 

Amidst US News Rankings Boycott, Law School Representatives Work to Provide Data Transparency

Last week, Harvard Law School and Yale Law School co-hosted a conference to discuss “best practices for law school data.” This is in response to the current U.S. News rankings boycott, which has prompted law schools to consider alternative ways to provide data transparency to prospective students and the public. The event included representatives from more than 100 law schools, 30 graduate-level educational institutions, and the Department of Education. 

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, in a keynote address, expressed support for the boycott, noting that rankings systems can create perverse incentives for institutions. “Rankings discourage institutions with the largest endowments and greatest capacity to enroll and graduate more underserved students from doing so because it may hurt their selectivity,” he said. “Instead, the most life-changing higher education opportunities go to young people who already have every socioeconomic advantage.”

Secretary Cardona encouraged those in higher education to “set the agenda” rather than allowing U.S. News to do it for them. However, the intricacies of making data available to prospective students wishing to evaluate graduate options, proves complicated. Currently the ABA site does not allow for easy comparison between schools and other existing data sources, including Law School Transparency, XploreJD, and the Law School Admission Council, lack a desirable user experience for reviewing and comparing data. 

Christopher Avery, a Harvard Kennedy School Professor with experience studying college ranking systems, noted that while transparency is critical, it is important to give careful consideration to what will be used as a replacement for the U.S. News ranking. He recommended against jumping from “one bad system” to “another system that may be bad in a wide variety of other ways.” 

U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal also expressed a need to move with thoughtful consideration. He encouraged conference attendees to “not lose sight of why the rankings are important.” And, in an interview afterwards, Kvaal expressed an interest in working with the U.S. News to make the ratings more equitable. He noted that the Education Department has reached out to the organization with suggestions for improvement.

Princeton Review Releases Category-Based Law School Rankings

The Princeton Review just released its rankings of law schools. Amidst the broader discourse on law school rankings as a result of the U.S. News ranking boycott, The Princeton Review’s methodology offers something different. Their rankings do not show all schools for a “best of” view, as they believe each of the 168 schools included provide an excellent academic experience. Rather, the categories and lists are designed to provide prospective students with insights and data (gathered from 17,000 student experience surveys from the enrollees of the 168 law schools over the past three years, as well as a 2021-2022 law school administrator survey) on various aspects of the program’s experience.  

You can access the top 10 lists for each of the 14 topic areas here. Below, we highlight three of the Princeton Review’s law school rankings. 

Best Classroom Experience: (student response data only)

1. Stanford University School of Law

2. Duke University School of La

3. University of Chicago Law School

4. University of Virginia School of Law

5. University of Michigan Law School

6. Georgetown University Law Center

7. UCLA School of Law

8. Boston University School of Law

9. Vanderbilt University Law School

10. University of Notre Dame Law School

Best Quality of Life: (student response data only)

1. University of Virginia School of Law

2. Florida State University College of Law

3. Vanderbilt University Law School

4. UCLA School of Law

5. University of Pennsylvania Law School

6. Samford University, Cumberland School of Law

7. Duke University School of Law

8. Stanford University School of Law

9. Boston College Law School

10. UC Davis School of Law

Best Career Prospects: (combination of administrator surveys/school reported data and student response data)New York University School of Law

1. University of Virginia School of Law

2. University of Michigan Law School

3. Stanford University School of Law

4. Duke University School of Law

5. University of Southern California Law School

6. UC Berkeley, Berkeley Law

7. Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law

8. Harvard Law School

9. Columbia University School of Law

Two Law Schools Announce Continued Participation in U.S. News Ranking

Amidst a stream of law schools withdrawing from the U.S. News ranking, University of Chicago and Cornell University have just confirmed that they plan to continue their participation. 

In an email sent to students, University of Chicago Law School Dean Thomas Miles wrote, “Most of the data we supply to U.S. News is 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.” Making a similar argument, Cornell Law Dean Jens David Ohlin, writes in a published statement, “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. However, withdrawal from the rankings process will not have the desired impact that many assume it will have.”

The only law schools within the top 15 that have not yet commented on how they will proceed with the ranking are University of Pennsylvania (Carey), NYU, and UVA. Ten law schools have joined the boycott of the U.S. News ranking: Berkeley, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA, and Yale. 

Update 12/6/2022: University of Pennsylvania (Carey) and NYU have announced that they will withdraw from the rankings. UVA has announced that it will continue to participate in the rankings.

Yale Continues Reign as Top-Ranked Law School in Latest US News Ranking

The US News and World Report published its 2023 Best Law School Rankings today with Yale and Stanford (again) taking the top two positions. Notably, University of Chicago overtook Harvard for the third rank, while Harvard dropped to fourth, a spot it shares with Columbia University. Generally, the top ten looked similar to past years, with some slight movement, including Duke University dropping out of the top ten, to the eleventh rank, from tenth last year. 
Find the complete 2023 Best Law Schools ranking.