New rankings!

ddakjiking

http://spiveyconsulting.com/blog/2015-usnwr-top-20-rankings-with-i-changes/

1. Yale
2. Harvard
2. Stanford (+1)
4. Columbia
4. Chicago
6. NYU
7. Penn
8. UVa
8. Berkeley (+1)
8. Duke (+2)
11. Michigan (-1)
12. Northwestern
13. Cornell
14. GULC (-1)
15. Texas
16. UCLA
17. Vanderbilt (-1)
18. Wash U
19. Emory
20. USC
20. Minnesota

Honorable mentions include UCI at #30, UC Davis at #31, BC at #34, GW at #23

jdawg113

bravo for +2 of Duke :P lol

ddakjiking

Yeah. I guess the michigan drop was inevitable. Props for UCI and UCD though. If the price is right, those two schools could be possible contenders for me. @jdawg113

jdawg113

I dont follow ratings too much I should start investigating schools like I do LSAT/diff peoples approaches lol

Nilesh S

Ok...aren't just snapshots for the top 10 released with the rest being published tomorrow? O.o?

Nilesh S

I've tried to find them online and while I an confirm that Duke is in the top 10 and Michigan is not, I can't find the rest of the info for the official USNWR ranks

blah170blah

If this is true, Duke must be so freaking happy

Nilesh S

@ddakjiking I think UCI would be an excellent bet and they give money... even VERY late into the cycle... I had a $75K over 3 years offer from them all the way into June.

Nilesh S

BC might be an excellent bet too...they are also EXTREMELY generous!!!!! And an often overlooked school too. They place well in the clerkship as well as biglaw aspects of post JD employment and if you can do well in Ingrid Hillinger's contract's class or Bankruptcy class, she can pair you with bankruptcy judges too.

ddakjiking

@"Nilesh S" The rank is supposed to officially come out tomorrow but Spivey Consulting is a very legit source of news and he leaked the T20 list and a couple of others thus far today.

And yeah, while browsing on UCI's LSN page, I saw a lot of generous scholly amounts.

Nilesh S

@ddakjiking Oh ok then - that's awesome!!! Someone's going to be REAL pissed with the leak though I'm guessing Someone's gonna pay.... someone ALWAYS pays - full tuition that is :P

emli1000

Yay for DUKE! Now that I think about it I rather apply there than to UNC lol smh

jdawg113

nah if people really cared about leaks they would be more anonymous about the leaks and stuff... this kind of stuff is supposed to be leaked... keeps people interested in it

Nilesh S

@jdawg113 fair point... somebody's still going to pay full tuition though

emli1000

They always leak though, right?

Nilesh S

Not sure about that one... but yeah... congrats to UCI!!! It beat off some real well regarded schools!!!

Nilesh S

Also, the "rankings leak" last year turned out to be false apparently... so I'll still wait for tomorrow.. though the Duke Michigan thing squares up with Above the Law 's peek at the USNWR rankings.

ddakjiking

How so?

Nilesh S

Got it from another forum... from the forum master... though he said that this seems accurate with the top 10 peek (which does not appear as ranked on ATL but Duke is there and Michigan is not) so this might be true...

Nilesh S

Just in - Duke rejected and wait-listed a ton of applicants today...

Jengibre

@ddakjiking just curious, why was the Michigan drop inevitable?

Nilesh S

@Jenngibre lots of things, not placing as students into jobs as well as peer schools for one.

blah170blah

I'm curious to know that myself @ddakjiking . I'm really surprised by Duke getting in the top 10, though next year they'll probably be 11 again. Besides Michigan and Duke, I'd say the rankings look pretty standard.

ddakjiking

UMich used to be ranked pretty high (top 6/7) 20-25 years ago. But like @"Nilesh S" said, their job placement have not been on par with its peer schools. On the other hand, I've been reading on TLS Duke has been improving a lot in recent years so its entry into the Top 10 was well deserved.

Nilesh S

@blah170blah I wouldn't be so sure of that... there is strong speculation that Michigan's decent towards the bottom of the T14 is a permanent feature... and what Michigan was in the 90's, Duke is becoming this decade. There is also some speculation (not likely in my opinion) that Michigan may soon be headed out of the T14... which, however improbable, remains to be seen.

ddakjiking

@"Nilesh S" Interesting. Hopefully today's information will be confirmed tomorrow! I honestly don't care too much for T14 or even T20 stuff but UCI. lol.

Nilesh S

@ddakjiking Oh that is a GREAT school man... I would have loved to go there... what... studying Con Law on the beach with an iced tea by my side would be a dream that I would finally have gotten to fulfill :P Best of luck for that!

Nilesh S

And Chemerinsky without a doubt is the star draw that I would have gone for!!! look at this: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/cypress/nationaljurist0311/#/22

blah170blah

Wow really (about Michigan's descent)? I'd be shocked if that proved to be true. I wonder to what extent the decline of Detroit has affected U of M grads

Nilesh S

@blah170blah Michigan's decline began ever since the poaching of their top faculty by NYU on its rise.... its been slowly but surely downhill from there... the Detroit thing could be a factor.. just how much is difficult to get. The T14 basically came into being in 1987... at which time Michigan was ranked number 3 and during the next few years, it kept its spot in the top 6... NYU, which was on the rise as a legal powerhouse, engaged in predatory poaching of professors from Michigan. As you can see from the the following chart, which also shows that Cornell and Northwestern were not T14s when the ranking came out... their spots were held by UCLA and UT Austin... but only for the inaugural year of the rankings, around 94, Michigan started to lose ground to NYU... This was because of the exodus of a number of influential faq members to NYU :
http://prelawhandbook.com/law_school_rankings__1987_1999
NYU, has been known for its predatory poaching practices, as it can afford to bring the cream of the crop to its law school because of its substantial endowment - it regularly poaches from its uptown rival Columbia as well... as you might be able to see from this link: http://columbialion.com/blog/nyu-law-school-poaches-another-columbia-professor-this-time-for-dean/
Infact, they pride themselves on it. This is excellent for the students studying at NYU as they get to have the best contacts in the business and get to learn from global scholars doing cutting edge work.

kendallM

They are not published until March 10, 2015.

This is false information.

Nilesh S

@kendallM this is a leak... hopefully it will be authenticated tomorrow.

ddakjiking

@kendallM Yes leaked by Spivey Consulting. Although it's not official, Spivey is well connected with insider information.

emli1000

Hopefully much doesn't change by tmrw!

ddakjiking

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings

It's official.

Nilesh S

YAY!!!!!

Nilesh S

Irvine it is @ddakjiking ???

ddakjiking

@"Nilesh S" I hope so! I'm between their 25%-50% for GPA so I'll probably need more than their current median LSAT (164). Getting back to the study grind has been tough lol.

Nilesh S

You'll be good!!! All the best for that.