U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings Are Out
Mar 15, 2012
16 Comments
In the recently released U.S. News & World Report rankings, BC has dropped slightly, moving from #27 to #29. BU ranks just higher than BC, and is currently ranked at #26. The ranking takes into account 12 factors, which are weighted and averaged. These 12 factors notably include: peer assessment, assessment score by lawyers/judges, median LSAT scores, median undergrad GPA, acceptance rate, placement success, employment rates for graduates, bar passage rate, and student/faculty ratio.
In a 2011 article regarding law school rankings, Malcolm Gladwell creates several different lists of “top 10″ law schools, varying what factors are included and how much weight is given to each factor. The results produced are impressively diverse- demonstrating the potential for wildly different results. While important, the U.S News Report rankings are not the definitive assessment of a school. BC is extremely well regarded nationally and is continually striving to improve.
As Dean Rougeau noted in his memo to students regarding this report, “We are so much more than the sum of our parts, and together we will continue to move our school forward.” Dean Rougeau emphasized our strengths as a school, as well as areas we can work to enhance. He explained, “We must strengthen our experiential learning and international offerings, and open more pathways to alternative careers. We must find ways to make school more affordable for those who come here, and inspire our students to find their passion in the law.” Further, he specifically addressed the need to improve employment prospects for BCLS graduates, lowering class sizes, and increasing available scholarship money.
What are your thoughts? What areas could BC Law improve upon?
Who posted this article?
cut its class size and admit no more than 150 people every year.
oh no, that would mean a substantial reduction in revenue….!!!
what about cutting the salaries of its professors?
How about JOBS! the Dean’s alumni memo mentioned the economic conditions as being a factor for the drop…well guess what, every other law school is working under the same economic conditions! All other factors aside, making sure that your alumni are working and able to pay off their student loans (which pretty much seal you fate once you are out), would make a huge impact on rankings.
schools in other states, like Arizona, are not working under the same economic conditions
Was I the only one underwhelmed by the Dean’s response letter? Seemed canned, lacked new ideas or a sense of urgency, and was substantially similar to last years letter from Interim Dean Brown.
We basically just blamed the poor economy and, like before, talked about how close we were to being higher. An entirely inadequate resposne, I thought.
Last year, the other finalist (Russell Osgood) for the Dean’s position openly wrote about creative proposals for stopping our USNWR slide. If the current Dean has any meaningful strategy, it certainly was not reflected in his letter.
he never struck me as outstanding or has leadership abilities anyway. the only outstanding thing about him is his being *black*…
I think you guys should try talking to him and you’ll have an even better understanding of what he’s like.
I can’t speak to the Dean’s leadership, since I graduated a few years back. But I can tell you that the career services crowd have been pretty useless for quite some time. And they matter more than all the law clinics, library resources, and and tech services combined. You want BC to improve in the rankings, it really is ALL about jobs!
I fully agree. They are f*cking useless.
The worst thing is that I like certain professors (the few who are nice and actually care) and I have to avoid criticizing their f*cking clownish colleagues in front of these nice people.
to be honest, the more i found out about the school the more it struck me as a corrupt and dirty place. for instance, i can’t see why the school and its people would have a high opinion of a professor (then married to his ex-wife) who dated his student (even though he finally did marry her) I certainly would not and not not have high regard for a colleague/teacher who does this. whom we date/marry is generally a highly personal matter – but leaving the wife and dating/marrying a student is unethical/immoral. There are bad apples everywhere – but imagine a place that would endorse such conduct!
This is one of the reasons why I do not like BC.
DD, which professor cheated on their wife with a student?
i would love to let you know but apparently eagleionline editors censored the post.
Who says BC endorses such conduct? I’m privy to the above-referenced gossip, and I’m not condoning nor endorsing the conduct of the prof, but how is it relevant to corruption?
I feel as if dissatisfaction with the ability of the school to shepherd its students towards jobs has led to attacks that are not really relevant to the end goal, which is to improve BCLS’s graduates’ employment prospects.
Instead of obtusely implying that the dean got his job on account of his race or saying that the school employs philanderers, why don’t the commenters on eaglei offer some constructive commentary?
wow, so it really happened.
so dirty and messy.
While Dean Rougeau’s statement was boilerplate, our drop in ranking has nothing to do with him as he just took over last year, after most of the data has been compiled by USNWR.
And Amy, what are you trying to accomplish with your comment that “the only outsanding thing about him is his being *black*”? I don’t see how skin color is relevant to this discussion, unless you are implying that he was only hired on account of his being black… (I hope someone affiliated with BCLS is not shallow enough to make that argument).
In any case, I attended all of the meetings last year the candidates had with students and alumni. I was split between Osgood and Dean Rougeau, but I did appreciate DR’s emphasis on a more multidisciplanary approach to legal education. He’s been here less than a year – I think we should give him some time before having buyer’s remorse .
Everyone says don’t worry about the rankings and how they don’t mean a whole lot. The schools still play the game to please the rankings so why shouldn’t we be concerned with them? BC is clearly concerned with the rankings and we still went down. Close can’t be good enough for the administration when close isn’t good enough for the students and the profession.
Nobody who matters cares about the USNWR rankings. Law firms don’t care. Judges don’t care. If Biglaw and BigGov don’t care, then It Doesn’t Matter.
Law schools only worry about it because they think prospective students will be scared away.
The fact is, the students who are serious about law school, the ones who are actually bright and dedicated and informed, won’t base their choice on the USNWR report. They’ll check the NJL250 and see how firms ranks law schools. Let me know when the firms think BC sucks, because that’s when we need to start worrying.
And as for Rougeau’s letter – it’s disappointing that he panicked enough to even write a letter about it. It reminds of the panic Emory went into last year when they dived on the rankings – they sent out an email to admitted students that basically said, “The rankings are random and not accurate and it just doesn’t represent who we are! We’re very dedicated to improving our ranking!” – that just made me lose respect for them.
BC should be striving to be ranked in the 15-25 range. When I attended BC, we were ranked in that range. In the last decade or so, the law school has forgotten the importance of a high US News ranking and has let the law school slip into the 25-35 range. Additionally, we are now ranked behind Boston University, something that was once considered ridiculous but has become acceptable.
The law school should return to the university motto: Ever to excel. A new dean, and a new chance to fix the last few years and bring the law school back into the 15-25 range.
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