Daley said the decision to withdraw from the U.S. News rankings was based on fairness and equity concerns, citing incentives to cut back on aid to students with the most financial need.
Dean writes that his decision is based “on the principled belief that rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence.”
Many schools said that the rankings do not accurately reflect their values. The first schools to leave the U.S. News rankings were Harvard Law and Yale Law. Critiques of the methodology include overemphasis on GPA and test scores and a lack of focus on need-based aid and loan forgiveness programs.
Law school deans have compared the rankings to a roach infestation and wished that al-Qaeda would target the company. On Wednesday, Yale Law School announced that it is “leaving” the U.S. News & World Report rankings system. This is a big deal for lawyers.
A Jan. 2 letter from U.S. News and World Report addressed law school deans across the country after Yale, Harvard and a slate of peer law schools withdrew from consideration for the decades-old ranking system.
We do not set a minimum GPA, nor do we attempt to re-weight GPA's to any standard other than what a school provides. An applicant's complete secondary school transcript (not just the GPA or class rank, if they are provided) is evaluated during the admissions process.
1. Stanford University and Yale University (tied) (Last year, Yale Law was No. 1, and Stanford Law was No. 2.)
U.S. News considers law school employment outcomes in its rankings, and it heavily discounts school-funded positions. Because of its strong commitment to public service and its deep coffers, Yale Law funds numerous public-interest fellowships for its graduates—and this hurts YLS in the rankings.
1 ranking is self-perpetuating. Yale's No. 1 ranking likely contributes to its excellent reputation, which boosts qualitative rankings by legal professionals — which in turn helps it keep its No. 1 ranking.
1. Yale University. With an acceptance rate of just 6.9%, it's no wonder that Yale is the hardest law school to get into. Only around 1 in 15 of their highly qualified applicants makes it through.
The university came in second place among the list of best colleges for the 2022-2023 rankings, but dropped down to 18th place after it was revealed the school had provided faulty data that bumped it up on the list. Columbia paused data submission to the list as it reviewed the issue.
“On top of pandemic-worn retention rates, Harvard scored poorly on Forbes' Pell index [factoring the number of Pell students and their 6-year graduation rates].”
According to the most recent data available from the National Center for Education Statistics, Harvard's graduation rate is 98%. The vast majority of Harvard University students complete their degree programs within 4-6 years.
You should also have a 4.18 GPA or higher. If your GPA is lower than this, you need to compensate with a higher SAT/ACT score.
Yale Law School has kept the top spot on US News and World Report's yearly ranked list of the nation's top law schools ever since it started publishing the list.
Harvard continues to reign supreme, beating Yale and Stanford in this worldwide law school ranking. Harvard is still the most elite law school on the planet.
One of the World's Premier Law Schools
Located in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale Law School offers a vibrant environment of excellence and educational intimacy in the form of world renowned faculty, small classes, limitless opportunities for clinical training, and strong encouragement of public service.
Campus happiness: Brown is widely known as the happiest Ivy, perhaps because of students' freedom to choose courses with almost complete autonomy. Students report feeling less competition amongst themselves and an overall sense of campus community.
Cornell University
Cornell is the easiest and youngest Ivy League school. It was established in 1865 and is situated in Ithaca, New York. Out of 49,114 candidates, Cornell accepted 5,330, for an admission percentage of around 10.9%.
Harvard, Stanford and Princeton, unsurprisingly, are America's toughest colleges to get into in 2023, according to Niche's most recent rankings.
Law school is an academic challenge; most students agree the first year (“1L” year) is the most difficult. In part, this is because law school is taught using methods entirely different than the lecture method used in most college classrooms.
Yale University
As the best law school in the nation, Yale is an Ivy League school that has gained an impressive reputation for itself in the legal world. This law school is best known for constitutional law, in which it ranks number one, and commercial and international law, where it ranks number four.