Law Professor Creates New Law School Prestige Ranking

A recent study by two law professors, Brian Frye (University of Kentucky) and C.J. Ryan (Indiana University) found that the U.S. News and World Report’s Law School rankings have become increasingly irrelevant for prospective law students. 

The study examined the relationship between changes in a school’s U.S. News ranking and the academic credentials of the next year’s incoming class. An increase in ranking should bring in more highly qualified applicants and lead to a stronger incoming class. However, using a decade’s worth of data, the study found, at best, a weak positive relationship between rankings and student decision-making and, more often, a negative relationship between the two. In other words: the rankings have outlived their usefulness as a driver of applicant behavior. 

Frye hypothesized that prospective students use the rankings predominantly as a gauge of prestige and published a second paper introducing a replacement. He used only one metric to build his law school prestige ranking: mentions in the New York Times. His team calculated the number of mentions each school received in the NYT between May 2023 and 2024. Mentions could be positive or negative (all publicity is good publicity), and he deemed concerns such as regional bias and naming conventions “illusory” because, well, in his words: “prestige is a scarce good, reserved to those who deserve it.” 

In the ranking, Harvard Law captured the top spot followed by Yale and Stanford Law Schools. While the top schools don’t veer far from the U.S. News, there are other, less expected entrants to the T14. Check below for the top schools and you can find the full list of all 196 schools here (although, note that all schools with zero mentions are tied at rank 103). 

NYT Rank (# Mentions) Law School Name US News Rank 

1 (122) Harvard Law School 4 

2 (96) Yale Law School 1 

3 (77) Stanford Law School 1 

4 (50) Columbia Law School 8 

5 (29) New York Law School 127 

6 (22) Univ of Michigan Law School 9 

7 (15) Cardozo School of Law 61 

8 (13) Brooklyn Law School 114 

9 (12) Univ of Minnesota Law School 16 

10 (11) S. Texas College of Law Houston 150 

11 (10) Univ of Chicago Law School 3 

11 (10) UCLA School of Law 13 

11 (10) Georgetown Univ Law Center 14 

14 (9) NYU School of Law 9

Stanford is Back on Top Alongside Penn’s Wharton in U.S News’ 2024 Best MBA Ranking

The U.S. News and World Report has posted the 2024-2025 Best MBA rankings. Stanford GSB and University of Pennsylvania Wharton are tied for the top spot, followed by a tie for third rank between Northwestern Kellogg and Chicago Booth.

Notable changes to the top 25 from the last year’s rankings include: 

• Stanford’s five-rank jump, which moved it from 6th in 2023 back to 1st, a position it also held in 2021 and 2022. 

• Harvard, which has spent the past two years in 5th, dropped one spot into the 6th position in 2024.

• The biggest increases this year, apart from Stanford, were Vanderbilt Owen, which moved up seven ranks to the 20th spot, and Berkeley Haas and UVA Darden, which both moved up four positions to take 7th and 10th, respectively.

• Dartmouth Tuck and Michigan Ross experienced the largest declines from 2023, both falling four positions. Tuck now shares the 10th spot with Darden, while Ross joined Columbia and Duke in a three-way tie at 12th. 

According to Poets & Quants, U.S. News acknowledged that its addition of a new post-graduate salary metric explains some of the movement seen within this year’s ranking. The addition of the metric de-emphasizes post-graduate starting salary/bonus slightly, incorporating MBA graduates’ starting salaries based on the field in which they’re entering. A description is available here. 

Rank School Name, Change from 2023

1 Stanford University (tie), +5

1 University of Pennsylvania, Wharton (tie), +2

3 Northwestern University, Kellogg (tie), -1 

3 University of Chicago, Booth (tie), -2

5 MIT, Sloan, -1

6 Harvard University, -1

7 New York University, Stern, (tie), +3

7 University of California–Berkeley, Haas (tie), +4

7 Yale University (tie), +1

10 Dartmouth, Tuck, (tie), -4

10 University of Virginia, Darden (tie), +4

12 Columbia University (tie), -1 

12 Duke University, Fuqua (tie), -1

12 University of Michigan, Ross (tie), -4

15 Cornell University, Johnson (tie), – 

16 Carnegie Mellon, Tepper (tie), +2

16 University of Texas–Austin, McCombs (tie), +2

18 Emory University, Goizueta (tie), -1

18 University of Southern California, Marshall (tie), -3

20 Indiana University, Kelley (tie), +2

20 University of California–Los Angeles, Anderson (tie), -1

20 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler (tie), +2

20 Vanderbilt University, Owen (tie), +7

24 Georgetown University, McDonough, –

25 Georgia Institute of Technology, Scheller, +1

Stanford and Yale Continue Reign Atop U.S News’ Best Law Schools Ranking

The U.S. News and World Report has posted the 2024-2025 Best Law School rankings. For the second year in a row, Stanford and Yale Law Schools are tied for the top spot followed by University of Chicago in the third rank. 

Notable changes to the T14 from the last year’s rankings include: 

• A four-way tie for the fourth rank. Duke, Harvard, and UVA joined UPenn in the fourth position this year. Duke and Harvard moved up one spot from a tie at 5th in 2023. UVA made the largest year-over-year gain in the T14, jumping up four places from last year. 

• NYU experienced the largest drop within the T14, moving down four spots to join Northwestern and Michigan in a three-way tie at 9th. 

• Georgetown moved up one rank to officially join the T14 in a tie at 14th with Cornell.  

Outside of the T14, highlights include: 

• Washington University of St. Louis jumped up four spots to tie for the 16th rank with University of Minnesota and University of Texas-Austin. 

• Notre Dame became one of the year’s big winners with a seven spot improvement from 2023, joining the University of Southern California in a tie for 20th. 

• Boston University rejoined the top 25 this year, moving from the 27th rank in 2023 to 24th.

• Brigham Young, Ohio State, and the University of Florida dropped out of the top 25 this year, after being a part of a five-way tie at 22nd last year. Ohio State fell four positions to rank 26th in a tie with Texas A&M. Brigham Young and Florida both fell six positions to tie for the 28th rank alongside Boston College, George Mason, and the University of Utah. 

Slight adjustments were made to the methodology this year. A description is available here. 

Rank School Name, Change from 2023

1 Stanford University (tie), –

1 Yale University (tie), –

3 University of Chicago, –

4 Duke University (tie), +1

4 Harvard University (tie), +1

4 University of Pennsylvania (tie), –

4 University of Virginia (tie), +4

8 Columbia University, –

9 New York University (tie), -4

9 Northwestern University (tie), +1

9 University of Michigan (tie), +1

12 University of California–Berkeley, -2

13 University of California–Los Angeles, +1

14 Cornell University (tie), -1

14 Georgetown University (tie), +1

16 University of Minnesota (tie), –

16 University of Texas–Austin (tie), –

16 Washington University in St. Louis (tie), +4

19 Vanderbilt University, -3 

20 University of Georgia (tie), –

20 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (tie), +2

20 University of Notre Dame (tie), +7

20 University of Southern California (tie), -4

24 Boston University, +3

25 Wake Forest University, -3

U.S. News Posts Updated 2023-2024 Best Medical School Rankings

The U.S. News and World Report has posted the final 2023-2024 Best Medical School (Research) rankings and Harvard Medical School is back on top. The final rankings are significantly different from the “preview” of the 2023-2024 top 15 programs published in April. A U.S. News spokeswoman explained the reasoning behind the changes in an emailed statement to Medpage Today. The preview, “did not include affiliated hospitals for NIH funding," she wrote.

Johns Hopkins and University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman each dropped by one rank to second and third, respectively. Vanderbilt and the University of Washington, which were not included within the top 15 programs in the preview, are now tied for the fifth and 13th ranks, respectively. 

See the top 13-ranked programs below, which due to a multitude of ties includes 17 schools. We also show the final and preview ranks. 

Final Rank Preview Rank School

1 3 Harvard University

2 1 Johns Hopkins University

3 2 University of Pennsylvania (Perelman)

4 6 Columbia University

5 9 Duke University (tie)

5 7 Stanford University (tie)

5 4 University of California—San Francisco (tie)

5 n/a Vanderbilt University (tie)

5 4 Washington University in St. Louis (tie)

10 14 Cornell University (Weill) (tie)

10 13 New York University (Grossman) (tie)

10 7 Yale University (tie)

13 14 Mayo Clinic School of Medicine (Alix) (tie),

13 12 Northwestern University (Feinberg) (tie)

13 9 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (tie)

13 11 University of Pittsburgh (tie)

13 n/a University of Washington (tie)

U.S. News and World Report Takes Down Law School and Medical School Rankings Previews

The U.S. News and World Report just removed the Best Law School and Best Medical School previews, which were posted earlier this month. In place of the previews, which showed the Top 14 Law Schools and Top 15 Medical Schools: Research, U.S. News posted this announcement, which explains that the organization has received a number of data update requests from law and medical schools:

As U.S. News previously announced, we are dealing with an unprecedented number of inquiries during our embargo period for the 2023-2024 Best Graduate Schools, including requests from law and medical schools to update data submitted after the collection period.

While we address these inquiries, we have removed the preview content for the 2023-2024 Best Medical Schools: Research and 2023-2024 Best Law Schools rankings published here on April 11. As previously noted, the rankings are not final until they are published in their entirety on USNews.com.

The previews’ removal falls after two announced delays in the publication of the full rankings for law and medical schools. The organization has not yet provided an expected publication date for the rankings, although it published other graduate school rankings, including business schools, today. 

U.S. News and World Report Postpones Law and Medical School Rankings Indefinitely

The U.S. News and World Report just announced that the release of the “Best Law School” and “Best Medical School” rankings will be postponed indefinitely. The news comes shortly after the organization delayed the publication of all graduate rankings by a week, from April 18th to April 25th, to account for additional data review and validation. U.S. News still plans to publish all other graduate program rankings, including business schools, on April 25th. 

The withdrawal of many law and medical schools from the rankings earlier this year spurred U.S. News to depend more heavily on publicly available data than in the past. After publishing a preview of the top 14 ranked law schools and top 15 ranked medical research programs earlier this month, the organization allowed school officials the opportunity to review the data under an embargo period. This standard practice led to an “unprecedented” number of questions and calls for additional review, which has apparently led to the delay. 

In a letter written to the U.S. News and shared with Reuters, Harvard Law Assistant Dean Marva de Marothy wrote, "Although we no longer participate in the U.S. News rankings, we expect the magazine to use accurate, publicly available numbers if it intends to continue to make representations about our law school.” 

U.S. News Will Delay Publication of Rankings After Unprecedented Number of Data Inquiries by Law Schools

U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking of law schools will be delayed a week. In an email to law deans, published in part by Above the Law, U.S. News explained that during the law school data review period—a standard part of the pre-publication process—the organization received “an unprecedented number of inquiries from schools.” In order to fully address the inquiries, U.S. News added an additional week to the review period. Participating law deans are expected to receive access to the updated data on Wednesday, April 19th, and the final publication has been moved to April 25th. 

Johns Hopkins Takes Top Spot in U.S. News’ Best Research Medical Schools Ranking Preview

In the U.S. News’ preview of its 2024 Best Medical Schools (Research), Johns Hopkins University overtook perennial leader, Harvard, for the top rank. The full rankings will be released April 18th.  

In addition to the noteworthy change at the top, significant movement occurred elsewhere within the top-ranked schools when compared to the 2023 rankings. 

• University of Michigan and Northwestern University entered the elite tier of medical schools, climbing to 9th and 12th, respectively, from a tie at 17th last year. 

• Three schools dropped out of the top 15: University of Washington (ranked 8th in 2023), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ranked 11th in 2023), and Vanderbilt University (ranked 13th in 2023). 

• NYU Grossman saw a sharp decline, although it still remained in the top 15, falling from 2nd in 2023 to 13th in 2024. 

• Washington University in St. Louis climbed seven spots from last year, moving from the 11th rank in 2023, to tie for 4th in 2024. 

Rank School

1 Johns Hopkins University, +2 from 2023

2 University of Pennsylvania (Perelman), +4

3 Harvard University, -2

4 University of California—San Francisco (tie), -1

4 Washington University in St. Louis (tie), +7

6 Columbia University, -3

7 Stanford University (tie), +1

7 Yale University (tie), +3

9 Duke University (tie), -3

9 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (tie), +8

11 University of Pittsburgh, +3

12 Northwestern University (Feinberg), +5

13 New York University (Grossman), -11

14 Cornell University (Weill) (tie), no change

14 Mayo Clinic School of Medicine (Alix) (tie), no change

U.S. News has also made changes to their ranking methodology, which includes the addition of a research quality metric, increased weight given to faculty-student ratios, and a reduced weight for reputation surveys, MCAT, and GPA scores.

Briefly addressing the departure of many medical schools from the rankings—including those at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Duke and University of Chicago—U.S. News explained that it ranked all schools using publicly available data from the National Institutes of Health, as well as data submitted through surveys in 2023 (or 2022 if 2023 was not available).  

Following Months of Controversy, U.S. News Unveils Preview of 2024 Best Law School Rankings

The U.S. News just published a preview of its 2024 Best Law School Rankings. And there weren’t many surprises. Stanford Law moved up from the second rank to tie Yale University for the top spot. Columbia Law dropped from the fourth rank to the eighth, Georgetown Law fell out of the top-14, and UCLA moved up from the 15th rank to take Georgetown’s place. 

There were some notable updates to U.S. News’ methodology, however, which the news organization said were based upon the input of over 100 law deans and legal experts. Some of the named changes include: an increase in the weight given to the bar pass rate and the addition of the “ultimate bar pass pass rate” (the bar pass rate of a graduating class two years post-grad); an increase in the weight given to employment ten months post-graduation; changes to the credit assigned for students entering into fellowships or graduate school post-graduation; and a significant reduction in the weight given to reputation surveys, LSAT/GRE scores, and median GPA scores. 

Briefly addressing the controversy, U.S. News explained that it ranked all schools using publicly available data, and removed some of the metrics that were not available (e.g. expenditures, at-graduation employment rate, and JD graduate indebtedness). 

The U.S. News plans to publish the full methodology, including measures and weights, alongside the complete rankings, on April 18. 

Rank School Name

1 Stanford University (tie)

1 Yale University (tie)

3 University of Chicago

4 Harvard University (tie)

4 University of Pennsylvania (Carey) (tie)

6 Duke University (tie)

6 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

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.

More Medical Schools Announce Withdrawal from U.S. News Rankings

A week after Harvard Medical School announced its plan to withdraw from the U.S. News Best Medical Schools Ranking, other prestigious programs followed including Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, Stanford Medical School, Penn’s School of Medicine, and the Icahn School of Medicine. 

In announcing their decisions to withdraw from the rankings, the schools—in line with Harvard—all noted that the U.S. News’ ranking methodology is no longer in line with their values. The Deans at Columbia, Penn, and Icahn also specifically called out the methodology’s negative effect on building a diverse and inclusive medical class. Dr. Katrina Armstrong, MD and Dean of Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, wrote, “The USNWR medical school rankings perpetuate a narrow and elitist perspective on medical education. Their emphasis is on self-reinforcing criteria such as reputation and institutional wealth, rather than measuring a school’s success in educating a diverse and well-trained cohort of doctors able to change medicine for the better and meet society’s needs.”

Each of the schools noted the value that comes from data transparency and they committed to making data available for prospective applicants. 

Harvard Medical School Withdraws from the U.S. News Medical School Ranking

Harvard Medical School’s Dean, Dr. George Daley, just announced this morning that the school will no longer participate in the U.S. News & World Report “Best Medical Schools” ranking. 

In an open letter to the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine community, Daley noted that his concerns rest not simply on criticisms of the ranking methodology, but more fundamentally on his, “... principled belief that rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparedness, and compassionate and equitable patient care that we strive to foster in our medical education programs.” He also described the negative unintended consequences that he sees rankings promoting within academic institutions, which include schools reporting false or misleading data, creating policies intended to boost rankings rather than educational objectives, and emphasizing financial aid for recipients based on scores rather than financial need. Daley noted that while he has contemplated this move for years, the “courageous and bold moves” made by leaders within the law school community—including Harvard Law’s Dean, John Manning—have “compelled” him to act now. 

Daley did acknowledge the need for data and transparency for prospective medical students, and urged them to review the data shared on the HMS admissions website. He also recommended the AAMC MSAR database, which contains meaningful data for all U.S. medical schools.

Related: Former Medical School Deans Call on Medical Schools to Withdraw from the U.S. News Ranking

U.S. News Announces Updates to the Law School Rankings in an Open Letter to Law Deans

Earlier this week, U.S. News announced that it will make updates to the 2023-2024 Best Law Schools ranking in response to the public criticism and boycott of its rankings by a number of leading law schools. In an open letter to law deans, which was published on Monday just prior to the start of the American Association of Law Schools meeting, Robert Morse, Chief Data Strategist, and Stephanie Salmon, Senior Vice President of Data and Information Strategy, described the organization’s reaction to the recent public discourse. They wrote that the U.S. News interviewed more than 100 law school deans and representatives to gain a better understanding of the criticisms and strengths of the current ranking. Generally, they said, complaints were centered around a few key topics, including the weight placed on peer assessment surveys, a need for greater emphasis on outcome measures (e.g. bar passage, employment), re-consideration of the weight assigned to various employment outcomes, and a review of student expenditures and student debt metrics. The organization also conducted an internal review. 

As a result, U.S. News will make the following changes to the ranking:

• All law schools will be ranked using publicly available data required by the ABA, regardless of whether school representatives respond to the annual U.S. News survey. However, U.S. News will publish in-depth profiles for those schools that do respond to the survey. 

• There will be updates to the methodology that increase the weight on outcome measures and reduce the weight given to peer assessment survey results.  Additionally, the employment outcomes measure will be updated to give full-weight to those who receive fellowships (including school-funded fellowships) or enroll in further graduate studies. 

• U.S. News will make more of the collected data available to students in order to allow them to make more informed comparisons between law schools. 

• Over time, the organization will work alongside key stakeholders to better recognize and represent other key factors such as loan forgiveness/repayment and student aid/financial assistance, as well as socio-economic and diversity metrics.

For some deans, the updates are still not enough to reverse their position. Heather Gerkin, Dean of Yale Law School, spoke to Law.com. “Having a window into the operations and decision-making process at U.S. News in recent weeks has only cemented our decision to stop participating in the rankings,” Gerkin said. Similarly, University of New Hampshire Law School Dean, Megan Carpenter, noted to Law.com that because U.S. News did not specify the modifications they plan to make to the formula, it raises concerns that the response “simply devolves into an exercise about tweaking their monolithic formula.” 

Related:

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

• Yale and Harvard Law Schools Will No Longer Participate in the U.S. News Law School Rankings

Former Medical School Deans Call on Medical Schools to Withdraw from the U.S. News Ranking

A recent Stat News op-ed, co-written by former University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine leaders, is calling on medical schools to follow Yale, Harvard, and other leading law schools in withdrawing from participation in the U.S. News rankings. The authors, Holly Humphrey, a physician and current President of the Macy Foundation, and Dana Levinson, Chief Program Officer of the Macy Foundation contend that the current U.S. News ranking system, “is in direct opposition to medical schools’ goal of educating a well-trained, diverse, and culturally competent medical workforce.” 

Humphrey and Levinson argue that the rankings’ methodology is “ill conceived” and fails to include critical output metrics. The two claim that, across most included metrics, the data tends to favor large and wealthy institutions over smaller ones with no clear demonstration of how each metric directly benefits student education. For example, the inclusion of total federal research dollars favors larger institutions, although that money may or may not directly fund students’ education or participation in the research. The authors also note that the survey response rate, which drives the reputation score, falls far below the standard of a peer-reviewed publication. Additionally, the use of average MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs unduly advantages schools with students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds as well as incorporates bias that may exist in the educational system. Finally, Humphrey and Levinson note that including the acceptance rate in the rankings can lead a school to encourage applicants to submit applications, regardless of if those applicants have a reasonable likelihood of admissions success. 

The authors also point out what is missing from the rankings. Namely, data on the quality of the education including the clinical skills, scientific acumen, and abilities of a schools’ graduates. The authors’ position, which is in line with that of Yale and Harvard Law, is that the rankings are not just potentially misleading but that in some cases they actually do a “grave disservice” to applicants by reinforcing bias or poor admissions practices. Humphrey and Levinson believe that if medical schools take the step of removing themselves from the rankings, they can play a more “honest and forthright” role in assisting applicants as they “...navigate the process of finding the right school to help them become the doctors they aspire to be.”

Related: Medical Community Lauds Addition of Public Health Priorities to Methodology of U.S. News’ Medical Rankings

Yale and Harvard Law Schools Will No Longer Participate in the U.S. News Law School Rankings

Yale Law School announced yesterday that it would no longer participate in the U.S. News ranking of law schools. Harvard followed, withdrawing from participation a few hours later. The two schools routinely topped the rankings with Yale holding the number one spot since 1990 and Harvard, most recently, taking the fourth rank. 

In making the announcement, Yale Law Dean, Heather Gerken, called the rankings “profoundly flawed” and criticized the methodology. “Its approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the way of progress,” she said. She specifically criticized the methodology’s treatment of students who receive school-funded fellowships to pursue public-interest work, or go on to pursue further graduate-level education. US News classifies them as unemployed. She also noted that the rankings reward schools that provide financial aid to students with high LSAT scores rather than demonstrated financial need, and that the ranking methodology does not incorporate schools’ loan-forgiveness programs, which can help ease the burden of debt.

Harvard Law’s announcement, made by Dean John Manning, noted many of the same methodological concerns as Dean Gerken. He also communicated that the ranking’s inclusion of the student-debt metric may reward not only schools that offer significant financial aid, but also schools that opt to admit wealthier students who do not need to take out loans.  

“Dean Gerken has made some very salient points, and like many, we have long been concerned about the U.S. News law school rankings methodology and will be giving this careful thought,” Stephanie Ashe, Stanford Law’s Director of Media Strategy, told the Wall Street Journal. 

The University of Chicago (ranked third) and Columbia University (tied for fourth rank with Harvard) declined to provide a comment to the WSJ.

Update 11/18/2022: The UC Berkeley School of Law has also announced plans to withdraw from the U.S. News ranking. As have the law schools at Georgetown and Columbia.

Update 11/28/2022: Ten law schools, total, have joined the boycott of the U.S. News Ranking. These include Berkeley, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA, and Yale.

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.

Harvard Medical School and University of Washington School of Medicine Maintain Top Ranking in US News’ Ranking of Research and Primary Care Medical Schools

Among research-oriented medical schools, Harvard and NYU Grossman maintained their positions in the top two spots of the US News ranking. However, the top ten did see movement with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine moving up into the third spot, from a tie at seventh place last year. Johns Hopkins shares the third rank, in a three-way tie, with Columbia University and University of California San Francisco. University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine also moved upwards, from ninth place last year to a tie at number six this year. Perelman shares the sixth rank with Duke University.

Find the complete 2023 Best Medical Schools: Research ranking.

For the primary care ranking, the top two schools maintained their places with University of Washington first, followed by the University of California San Francisco. Two new schools entered the top ten—University of California Davis moved up three spots to the eighth rank, from eleventh last year, and University of Pittsburgh had a meteoric rise into the top ten from the thirty-fourth rank last year. The school shares the tenth rank, in a three-way tie, with University of Kansas Medical Center and University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.

Find the complete 2023 Best Medical Schools: Primary Care ranking.

US News Ranks Chicago Booth and UPenn Wharton as Best Business Schools

The US News and World Report published its 2023 Business School Rankings today with University of Chicago’s Booth and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton taking the top spot, previously held by Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Stanford fell to the third rank, which it shares with Northwestern University’s Kellogg. Generally, the top ten looks similar to last year, although there was some movement. Notably, University of Michigan’s Ross moved to the 10th spot from 13th last year, and Dartmouth’s Tuck and NYU’s Stern, who were tied at 10th last year, dropped to 11th and 12th respectively. NYU Stern shares the 12th ranking with Duke’s Fuqua. 

Find the complete 2023 Best Business Schools ranking.

Chicago’s Booth also took the top spot in the part-time MBA program rankings. As per usual, there was no movement within the top five ranked part-time programs, with each program retaining its rank from last year. In fact, the top five ranked part-time MBA programs have been consistent for the past four years of rankings. 

Find the complete 2023 Best Part-time MBA ranking.