U.S. News Considers Counting Part-Timers in Law School Rankings
U.S. News & World Report is considering counting the undergraduate records of part-timers in its law-school rankings system, a change that would reverse recent gains by many schools.
Some schools game the system by funneling those with lower undergrad grades and LSAT scores in their part-time programs, the Wall Street Journal reports. The law students may transfer to full-time status their second year.
Robert Morse, director of data research at U.S. News, says he is running tests to evaluate how the change would affect the rankings.
Chapman University law professor Tom Bell told the publication that several law schools would have fallen into lower tiers if the change had been implemented this year. For example, Southern Methodist University and the University of Connecticut might have fallen from the top 50 schools in the first tier to the next 50 in the second tier. Hofstra and Stetson universities might have fallen from the second to the third tier.
