Breaking News: The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Have Leaked!

A source with inside connections to the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings has provided us with an advance copy of this year’s list,

which we have decided to share with you, our beloved readers! Keep in mind that this information has not been officially confirmed by U.S. News & World Report, so it may not be entirely accurate; however, we can’t wait to see if our predictions from last year turn out to be true or not!

How was this leak possible?

Nobody knows how the leak happened but one thing is for sure, these things happen periodically and we should not let them dissuade us from attending law school.

Unfortunately, these rankings can often be more of a disservice than a service to law school applicants and prospective students.

While there are some minor differences between school rankings, most online resources tend to report on only one list: USNWR’s list of America’s Best Universities. This is problematic because it acts as if every applicant has access to LSAT/GPA score comparisons and detailed statistics such as acceptance rates, employment stats, bar passage rates, etc.

. No other graduate degree requires you to decide without an insider view into a program so it would seem more logical that we look at schools based on their internal performance rather than what some media outlet thinks of them (considering how much influence these outlets have over prospective students.)

Why does this matter so much?

Law school rankings are everything. To get a job, you must attend an accredited law school that has high standards and is often ranked highly on the list

. A lower ranking means fewer opportunities for jobs, and a higher ranking means you’ll be competitive in your field of interest after graduation. This year’s leaked list includes many surprises, and there will be even more once it’s officially released at the end of the month! Stay tuned for updates from the Association of American Law Schools

as they are made available and keep an eye out for next week’s blog post where we rank the Top 10 law schools according to our analysis – including analyses of each school’s reputation, geographic location, average salary after graduation, and career prospects post-graduation (ranked 1 through 5).

Let’s look at the top schools

It’s been a hectic day, and you’ve finally managed to find your laptop amidst the piles of laundry that have exploded all over your bedroom floor. You fire up Safari, hoping to catch up on some blogs you follow- but what’s this?

Somebody posted the highly anticipated law school rankings before they were officially released? With trembling fingers, you click on the link, which leads to a site with more law school rankings- but this time for US News.

What would you do with this information?

If you are a student considering law school, it’s best to steer clear of the rankings until they are officially released on March 22nd. If you are interested in assessing your future employer’s ability to pay back your student loans then check out this calculator that may be able to help.

As for schools ranked after 100th place, don’t get too excited or disappointed as there are far more important considerations like salary, cost of living, and employment potential when choosing a school (statistics from Forbes). Additionally,

these schools rank higher on an individualized list instead of averaging them all together which makes it hard to say which one is better than the other with complete accuracy.

Who is behind the decision to release this information?

It is still unclear who was behind the decision to leak the law school rankings from US News and World Report, but we can guess that it may have been someone at a competing publication who wasn’t satisfied with the results.

It could also be an aggrieved or disgruntled law student or professor with some inside knowledge of how a school had surveyed their current students/faculty to calculate their rank (more on this below).

As for why they would have leaked them, this person might not have agreed with how the data was used by US News and World Report (more on this below) or may just want to stir up a bit of chaos in the industry.

Everyone else – what do you think about these rankings?

The same questions always come up when new rankings come out and this year is no different. Given that many schools often rank quite differently from these US News rankings, students have wondered whether or not these rankings are the best representation of a school’s prestige.

They have also questioned what methodology the law school rankings are based on. What criteria do they look at to rank a school such as LSAT scores, student body diversity, job placement rates, etc.?

Regardless of what people think about these law school rankings, it is important to remember that this is only one opinion of over 100 ranked schools in the US and no one ranking can tell you everything about a particular law school.

Keep browsing Law Scribd for more updates.