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It’s almost time for the release of the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. The official publication date is set for April 9, but based on the magazine’s use of publicly available data from the ABA, it’s been easy to predict what the latest iteration of the ranking may look like.
That being the case, will U.S. News decide to change its methodology?
Reuters sent out a media inquiry on the matter, but USNWR “declined to comment on potential methodology changes, saying that information will be made public when the rankings come out.” Industry experts, on the other hand, say that a change is highly likely.
The publication’s reliance on ABA data last year, besides making it easier for people to project the rankings ahead of the U.S. News official release, set up a challenge for year-over-year comparisons in 2024, said law school consultant Mike Spivey.
Metrics such as bar passage and employment rates are highly compressed, Spivey said, meaning that a handful of students passing or failing the bar exam can have an outsized effect on a school’s year-over-year rank, for example.
We’ve covered some of the 2025 ranking predictions thus far (see here and here), and there is quite a bit of volatility this year. For example, if U.S. News uses the same methodology as last year, it looks like NYU may drop down to No. 10 or 11 from its perch at No. 5, while UVA would rise up to No. 4 from its current seat at No. 8. “Year-over-year moves of that magnitude among the top 14 schools are unusual,” notes Reuters, but it may be what we’re in for if the methodology remains the same.
Where will your law school land in the 2025 U.S. News law school rankings? We’ll find out soon, but in the meantime, check out the Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings.
U.S. News law school rankings release date set, methodology changes expected [Reuters]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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