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I never fully understood the importance of the rankings. Obviously higher ranked schools are more desirable to a certain degree (at least to some) due to prestige and a plethora of other reasons. But these rankings change every year and a school once ranked low Tier 1 might now be ranked high Tier 2. We could enter a law school that ranks completely different, for better or worse, by the time we graduate. So, why are rankings so important?

Perhaps this is the reason most people aspire to attend T14 schools whose rankings are pretty consistent and well-known? But what does this mean for Georgetown if, hypothetically, the school is now ranked 15th instead of 14th? Or UCI which is relatively young but ranking higher than schools that have been around longer and making its way to the top despite its novelty (which, analogously speaking, reminds me a lot of “new money” from The Great Gatsby). Or maybe it’s so not so much the exact rank, but the Tier?

I don’t know if my comment is irrelevant to this forum, but I’d welcome some insight on this!

I'll give it a stab. The rankings are important because three powerful groups of people think they are important. These people are employers, law schools themselves, and students.

Students want to go to the best school they can and the easiest way to determine what school is best is to look at its current US News rank. Even if students didn't care themselves though, the other two groups caring would mean students would have to care. Schools will often negotiate and raise the scholarships of those who got into or received scholarships from higher or closely ranked schools, but won't for schools just a handful of spots below. This implies that the schools are less good than the ones they will negotiate with and better than the ones they refuse to negotiate with. Finally, employers (partially because students compete so heavilly to get into the best school they can) treat school rank as a measure of quality of students and will usually take people with lower grades at a better ranked school. This of course makes students try all the harder to get into the best school they can and makes schools compete even harder for the best students so they can advance in the rankings which makes employers see the competition for which law school people get into as even more insightful.

Within this framework what does something like the Top 14 mean? Well, it means whatever all three groups seem to think it means. For a long time they had a common definition. The Top 14 were the clear 14 most prestigious schools in the country which had been at the top of the rankings since the begining of the rankings. Now that Texas has busted the Top 14, I would say it doesn't really mean much anymore. It is pretty clear there is no significant difference between Texas and Georgetown and it would be hard to maintain that there is a huge difference to Cornell either. So the bottom of the Top 14 is a little softer now. I don't think it matters all that much who is 14th vs 15th. But if Georgetown returns to the Top 14 and the same 14 schools stay there for ten or twenty years again then it will matter as a distinction again.

Things like tiers kind of matter too. For example Harvard, Yale and Stanford have been the best 3 schools in the country for a long time. If Chicago passes Harvard in the rankings, then that would matter quite a bit. For years Columbia, Chicago, and NYU have tried to lure top students away from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford with scholarships. Suddenly that wouldn't make as much sense anymore.

Anyways, the rankings mean whatever we all think theh mean. But, since no individual actor can ignore them on his or her own almost all good law school outcomes from employment, to a good LRAP, to clerkship numbers remain dependent on rank.

This is what I was looking for. Thank you!

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When are the full rankings to be released? I know it's tomorrow but what time? I really want to see the numbers.

Looks like they’re up!

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings

I never fully understood the importance of the rankings. Obviously higher ranked schools are more desirable to a certain degree (at least to some) due to prestige and a plethora of other reasons. But these rankings change every year and a school once ranked low Tier 1 might now be ranked high Tier 2. We could enter a law school that ranks completely different, for better or worse, by the time we graduate. So, why are rankings so important?

Perhaps this is the reason most people aspire to attend T14 schools whose rankings are pretty consistent and well-known? But what does this mean for Georgetown if, hypothetically, the school is now ranked 15th instead of 14th? Or UCI which is relatively young but ranking higher than schools that have been around longer and making its way to the top despite its novelty (which, analogously speaking, reminds me a lot of “new money” from The Great Gatsby). Or maybe it’s so not so much the exact rank, but the Tier?

I don’t know if my comment is irrelevant to this forum, but I’d welcome some insight on this!

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Upon seeing that the experimental LG was the one with foresters. I am officially distraught. I'm pretty sure I only got -2 or maybe -3 on the experimental section. The other LG I struggled with hard. Enough that I guessed in the final two questions in the last game without even reading it. :(

There's always DECEMBER!

I feel you. I normally don't have extra time after finishing an LG section but for the experimental I actually did. It was somehow a lot easier. The (unfortunately) real LG game just didn't click.

East/West

Food specials (darn you, Quesadillas! As if I wasn't already hungry right before break)

FGHI/QRS

Machiavellian/Shakespeare's villains

Which one did you struggle with?

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Anyone remember how many questions were in the Judicial Candor passage. Someone mentioned 9. Welp T-T. I thought there were 7.

Couldn't have been nine. No section had less than six and I remember the first two had at least seven? At least I think, now you have me questioning that.

The Judicial Candor passage had 8 questions. The Marx/Freud had 6.